Ford CEO Panics Over Chinese EV Onslaught

Western carmakers now admit they are in a “fight for our lives” against state‑backed Chinese EV giants that threaten to gut what’s left of Western manufacturing strength.

Story Snapshot

Ford and Renault have formed a last‑ditch EV alliance to counter a flood of cheap, subsidized Chinese electric vehicles in Europe.
Ford’s CEO warns that Chinese overcapacity and subsidies can wipe out Western auto jobs and factories, echoing years of conservative alarms about China.
Europe’s green mandates and weak trade defenses have opened the door for Chinese automakers to undercut Western labor and industry.
The battle over EVs shows why strong borders, fair trade, and America‑first industrial policy remain essential under Trump’s renewed presidency.

Ford–Renault Alliance Signals Industrial Alarm Over Chinese EV Flood

Ford Motor Company and France’s Renault have announced a strategic partnership to design and build small, low‑cost electric cars and vans for the European market, openly framed as a response to rapidly expanding Chinese EV imports. The alliance centers on compact EVs designed by Ford but built in a Renault factory in northern France, with first models targeted for 2028. Executives describe the deal less as routine cooperation and more as a defensive move to survive a reshaped global auto market.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has become the leading Western voice warning about what Chinese automakers represent for the industry’s future. He has labeled Chinese EV makers the “700‑pound gorilla,” stressing that their combination of state subsidies, lower costs, and advanced battery and software technology gives them a structural edge. Farley now argues China already has enough EV factory capacity to supply every new‑vehicle buyer in Europe, and potentially North America, at prices Western plants cannot match long term.

How Chinese Industrial Policy Turned EVs Into a Geopolitical Weapon

For more than a decade, Beijing has poured subsidies, cheap credit, and industrial policy support into electric vehicles, batteries, and related supply chains, building global champions such as BYD and CATL. That state‑directed model allowed Chinese firms to scale quickly, dominate battery manufacturing, and push aggressively into export markets with lower‑priced EVs. Western automakers, still focused on combustion‑engine platforms and higher‑margin trucks and SUVs, underestimated this push and assumed Chinese brands would largely remain confined inside China.

The result is a massive capacity overhang inside China that now looks for customers abroad, especially in Europe, where aggressive emissions rules and climate targets fast‑tracked EV adoption. Europe’s relatively open trade environment has allowed a wave of competitively priced Chinese EVs from BYD, Changan, Xpeng and others to gain share rapidly. Some reports already describe BYD overtaking Tesla as Europe’s leading EV brand. This dynamic leaves European factories squeezed by high energy and labor costs while competing directly with subsidized Chinese imports.

Europe Becomes the Front Line as Legacy Carmakers Lose Ground

Ford’s troubles in Europe illustrate the pressure. The company’s passenger car market share there has fallen from roughly six percent in 2019 to around three percent today, a near‑halving in only a few years. Renault, described as Europe’s smallest major brand, faces its own margin squeeze and sees alliances as the only realistic way to keep plants running and technology current. Together, the two companies are betting that shared EV platforms and French production can prove Europe can still build affordable small EVs competitively.

Farley’s rhetoric underscores how serious executives see the situation. In a Financial Times op‑ed titled “Europe is risking the future of its auto industry,” he warned of a “flood of state‑subsidized EV imports from China” hollowing out local production. At a joint press event in Paris, he declared Western carmakers are in a “fight for our lives,” pointing to Europe as the clearest example. Those warnings are aimed not just at investors and workers, but at European policymakers who control tariffs, anti‑subsidy probes, and industrial subsidies.

Lessons for American Conservatives in the Trump Era

For American conservatives, the Ford–Renault story confirms long‑standing concerns about globalism, green mandates, and dependence on China. The same European elites who rushed into aggressive climate regulations, while outsourcing manufacturing to lower‑cost, state‑backed rivals, now face the consequences in lost jobs and weakened industrial sovereignty. Their fixation on targets and symbolism left workers vulnerable when Chinese companies used subsidies and overcapacity to undercut Western factories that must obey stricter labor, energy, and environmental rules.

Western carmakers ‘in fight for lives’ against Chinese rivals, says Ford boss | Automotive industry | The Guardian https://t.co/s6imUbIqxt

— Thomas Payne (@TPayneCommon) December 9, 2025

Under President Trump’s renewed America‑first agenda, this kind of imbalance is precisely what higher tariffs, tougher trade enforcement, and secure supply chains are designed to prevent. When Chinese EVs can roll into Western markets at artificially low prices, it is not “free trade”; it is a state‑engineered transfer of jobs, technology, and leverage away from free nations. The “fight for our lives” in Europe’s auto sector should remind U.S. voters why strong borders, fair trade, and domestic energy and industry are non‑negotiable for protecting middle‑class families and national security.