Ford CEO Says Europe Is Lost To Chinese Electric Vehicles

Ford CEO Jim Farley says Washington should take the “time to be considerate” before allowing Chinese automakers to sell their highly sought-after electric vehicles in the United States. Don’t take his word for it? Just look at Europe, he says.

“I watch what’s happening in Europe right now, where that was not the case and it’s really something that they have to deal with now, and it’s too late,” Farley said at the Automotive News Congress in Detroit earlier this week, per CNBC .

As American automakers largely retreat from the industry, high-tech yet affordably priced Chinese EVs have been taking the world by storm. One place where these cheap Chinese cars have been selling particularly well recently is Europe, where EV demand is surging. One in every seven battery EVs sold across Western European markets in the first five months of 2026 belonged to Chinese brands, according to data from Schmidt Automotive Research.

While Farley still vowed to continue competing against Chinese companies in Europe, the American auto giant seems to have somewhat accepted the newly established European power dynamic, even before Farley’s latest comments. Back in July, Ford announced a partnership with Chinese automaker Geely to jointly develop electric vehicles in Spain. The company also has an ongoing partnership with Chinese EV battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL).

Ford’s ties with Chinese companies recently sparked scrutiny from President Donald Trump’s usually China-averse administration. In a letter last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that Ford’s partnership with CATL “challenges the spirit of American national and economic security and supply-chain independence policies,” while the joint venture with Geely “helps strategic adversaries secure a vital foothold in Western markets.”

“While DOT recognizes the intense competitive pressures of the global market, the Company’s recent strategic decisions paint a troubling picture of a foundational American brand actively intertwining its future with Chinese state-backed enterprises,” Duffy said in the letter .

Unlike Europe, the current regulatory environment in the United States effectively bans Chinese electric vehicles from entering the American market. But Trump has suggested that might be open to change, under certain conditions.

“If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I’d be okay with that,” Trump said last month in an interview with Fox News , before adding that he would only be okay if they hire Americans to work at the plants.

Industry analysts and experts think the introduction of Chinese auto brands to the United States is pretty much inevitable . Earlier this week, Nissan’s Americas chairman Christian Meunier also estimated that Chinese autos would arrive in the American market in roughly five years.

China hawks in Congress are working on legislation to get in front of that “inevitability” and permanently ban the sale of Chinese vehicles on the federal level.

A bipartisan bill seeking to ban the sale of any vehicles by an automaker with more than a 15% ownership stake from a Chinese entity is almost unanimously supported in the Senate, but voting has been delayed until after the November midterm elections. The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who has described Chinese autos as “surveillance packages on wheels,” and Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, who claims the Chinese auto industry is “ a cancer ” that “was built to destroy American manufacturing, gut the middle class, and undermine our national security.”