The boss of Ford has said western carmakers are “in a fight for our lives” against Chinese competition as the US manufacturer agreed a new partnership with France’s Renault.
The two companies said on Tuesday that they would work together on two smaller electric cars, with the first to go on sale as soon as early 2028. They will also look at producing vans together.
“We know we’re in a fight for our lives in our industry,” Jim Farley told journalists in Paris. “There is no better example than here in Europe.”
The rapid rise of Chinese electric carmakers has put enormous pressure on European and US rivals, who have been slower to develop battery-powered vehicles. Manufacturers such as BYD and Chery have gained market share by producing well-reviewed electric cars at much lower costs than western manufacturers.
Producing smaller electric vehicles cheaply has been particularly tricky for European carmakers, who have tended to focus their efforts on larger cars that have space for a bigger battery.
The two cars announced on Tuesday will be based on Renault’s Ampere electric car blueprint but will be designed by Ford and carry the US brand. Renault had previously planned to sell shares of its Ampere unit as a separate company dedicated to electric car technology, but it abandoned that plan last year as investor interest waned.
The companies said Renault’s plant at Douai in northern France would produce the vehicles. The plant makes the Renault 5, an electric car that has won plaudits for its design and relatively low cost.
Ford has struggled in Europe in recent years. Farley announced 4,000 job cuts last year, including 800 in the UK, and cut back planned production of the new electric Explorer and Capri models, citing the “weak economic situation and lower-than-expected demand for electric cars”.
Farley also criticised European electric car sales targets this week, writing in the Financial Times that the continent’s carmakers faced “the world’s most aggressive carbon mandates” at the same time as “a flood of state-subsidised EV imports from China”.
Renault’s chief executive, François Provost, said: “In the long term, combining our strengths with Ford will make us more innovative and more responsive in a fast-changing European automotive market.”
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In a separate development, BMW announced the retirement of Oliver Zipse as the chair of the company’s management board on Tuesday. He will be replaced in May by Milan Nedeljković, who joined the company as a trainee in 1993 and has risen to oversee the company’s production.
The Munich-based carmaker had extended Zipse’s contract in 2023 to 2026, beyond the usual retirement age of 60. As BMW’s boss since 2019, he also had to contend with the rise of Chinese competition, although the manufacturer has performed better than some of its German counterparts.
