Ford CEO Jim Farley had a Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan air-freighted from Shanghai to Chicago, drove it as his personal car for six months, and walked away with a blunt assessment of the American competition: Tesla’s lineup looks old.
“Nothing against Tesla… they really don’t have an updated vehicle,” Farley said in an April 2026 appearance on the Rapid Response podcast with journalist Bob Safian. In a separate on-camera segment published to YouTube, Farley described the import: “We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago.” He added that after half a year behind the wheel, he didn’t want to give the car back.
The comments are striking for their candor. Auto executives routinely tear down competitors’ vehicles in private labs. They almost never go on a podcast and publicly gush about a rival’s product, especially one built by a Chinese smartphone company that shipped its first car only in March 2024.
What Farley is actually driving
The Xiaomi SU7 is a sleek, low-slung electric sedan that went on sale in China in spring 2024 and quickly became one of the country’s hottest new vehicles. Xiaomi, best known globally for budget smartphones and smart-home gadgets, priced the base SU7 at roughly 215,900 yuan (about $30,000) and the performance variant, the SU7 Max, at around 299,900 yuan. The Max version produces over 660 horsepower and claims a 0-to-62 mph time under 2.8 seconds. In its first full year, the SU7 racked up deliveries that outpaced many legacy automakers’ EV launches.
Farley has not publicly detailed which specific qualities won him over, whether it was the acceleration, the software, the interior design, or the price-to-performance ratio. No independent testing organization has evaluated the SU7 under U.S. or European protocols, so his praise remains a personal, anecdotal endorsement rather than a verified technical benchmark. But coming from someone who oversees billions of dollars in EV investment at Ford, the enthusiasm carries weight that a typical car-reviewer take would not.
The Tesla jab, and what it leaves out
Farley’s critique targeted product freshness, a concept any car shopper understands. The Tesla Model S debuted in 2012 and received a significant interior overhaul in 2021, but its exterior silhouette has remained largely unchanged for over a decade. The Model X, launched in 2015, followed a similar pattern. Even the Model 3, Tesla’s volume seller, only received its mid-cycle “Highland” refresh in late 2023.
That said, Farley’s framing omits some context. Tesla launched a refreshed Model Y globally in early 2025, and the company has signaled work on a lower-cost vehicle aimed at broadening its buyer base. Tesla’s Supercharger network remains the most extensive fast-charging infrastructure in North America, and its Full Self-Driving software, whatever its limitations, represents an investment in autonomy that Xiaomi has not matched outside China. Farley’s “aging lineup” line is punchy, but it is a selective reading of Tesla’s competitive position.
The bigger picture: Chinese EVs are winning where they can compete
Farley’s admiration for the SU7 fits a pattern that extends well beyond one car. BYD, the Shenzhen-based automaker, has emerged as the world’s leading EV seller by total volume when plug-in hybrids are included, overtaking Tesla and signaling a broader shift in industry gravity toward China.
In Europe, that shift is showing up in registration data. BYD opened 2026 with strong sales growth across the continent, gaining ground in markets where it competes head-to-head with Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Renault. These are not concept-car headlines or trade-show demos. They are real purchases by real consumers choosing Chinese-built EVs over established European alternatives.
For Ford, which generates a significant share of its revenue outside the United States, BYD’s momentum is a direct commercial threat. Farley’s willingness to name that threat publicly, and to hold up a Xiaomi as proof of how fast Chinese firms are iterating, reads as a deliberate signal to Ford’s own workforce, its investors, and policymakers.
Why Americans can’t buy what Farley was driving
U.S. tariff policy is the reason the SU7 remains invisible to American consumers. In May 2024, the Biden administration imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles under Section 301 of the Trade Act, effectively doubling the landed cost of any Chinese EV and making competitive pricing impossible. Those duties remain in place, and no concrete policy change or timetable for revisiting them has been announced as of spring 2026.
The result is a widening perception gap. Industry insiders like Farley can arrange to import a single car for executive evaluation, but ordinary buyers cannot walk into a dealership and cross-shop a Xiaomi against a Tesla Model 3 or a Ford Mustang Mach-E. That insulation protects domestic automakers from direct price competition in the short term, but it also means American consumers have no firsthand way to judge whether the hype around Chinese EVs is justified.
Xiaomi has not responded publicly to Farley’s praise or signaled any plans for U.S. market entry. No regulatory filings, dealer agreements, or partnership announcements suggest the SU7 is headed to North America. Farley’s endorsement is a personal assessment, not a precursor to a business deal.
A warning dressed as a compliment
The most useful way to read Farley’s comments is as both a genuine competitive warning and a strategic positioning move. By praising Xiaomi and poking at Tesla, he accomplishes two things at once: he tells Ford’s engineers and designers that the bar is rising fast, and he tells investors that Ford’s leadership is clear-eyed about where the real long-term threat originates.
Whether that rhetoric translates into faster product cycles, sharper pricing, or better software from Ford remains an open question. Farley has not tied his SU7 praise to any specific changes in Ford’s EV roadmap, investment plans, or launch timelines. For now, his six months behind the wheel of a Chinese electric sedan stand as one of the more unusually honest admissions to come out of a Detroit corner office: the competition is building cars that a Ford CEO doesn’t want to stop driving, and most Americans have no way to find out for themselves.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
