The boss of American car giant Ford has admitted he “doesn’t want to give up” an electric vehicle (EV) made by one of his Chinese rivals after driving it for six months.

Jim Farley, who has been Ford’s chief executive since 2000, said he had arranged for his own Xiaomi SU7 to be shipped back from Shanghai to Chicago after trips to China.

In an interview with the Electrify Everything Show, presented by former Red Dwarf actor Robert Llewellyn, Mr Farley said: “Everyone’s talking about the Apple car, but the Xiaomi car – which now exists, and it’s fantastic – they sell 10,000, 20,000 a month.

“They’re sold out for six months. Wow. You know, that is an industry juggernaut.

“I don’t like talking about the competition so much, but I drive the Xiaomi – we flew one from Shanghai to Chicago and I’ve been driving it for six months now and I don’t want to give it up.”

Commenting on his unusual admission, the chief executive added: “I’m fine to [say that] because I think this was all something that I processed, we processed as a team.

“And we were not naive to [do that].”

He described experiencing “epiphanies” on his China visits, after seeing and trying out high-tech cars now being produced by the likes of electronics giant Xiaomi, as well as other rivals such as BYD, Neo, SAIC and Geely.

In China, EV sales have now accounted for more than half of all new cars sales for several months in a row.

The success of electric cars in the Communist country has partly been attributed to plans put in place by the Government more than a decade ago to dominate all aspects of the technology’s supply chain, as well as state subsidies.

China’s rise in the EV market has rattled more traditional rivals in America and Europe, with major manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Renault, General Motors and Ford now scrambling to catch up.

Mr Farley pointed to this, as well as the sheer size of the Chinese market, as reasons for why China now “dominated” EV production.

“Companies like BYD, they were very small when they started their journey,” he told the podcast.

“They’re now much bigger than Tesla – they’re the biggest in the world … And you know, they have [intellectual property] that the rest of the world has not developed. It’s not the old days, where someone would copy a Western technology – the opposite is true.

“That happened a decade ago and now everyone’s seeing it on the street in front of their house. But it didn’t happen overnight. The market was big enough for the last six or seven years, where none of those companies needed to export.

Story Continues

“And then it wasn’t big enough and then everyone started to notice.”

He added that he understood the threat posed by newcomer brands, having worked for Toyota through the 1980s and 1990s as the Japanese company grew from obscurity in the West to become the world’s biggest car manufacturer.

“My family was not happy,” he said. “And there was a huge social cost in the Midwest of the US for the success of Toyota, so many jobs were lost, including many people in my family.

“I can’t unlearn the fact that the ‘Detroit three’ [Ford, General Motors and Chrysler] never really had a plan. And we’re not going to miss this one.”

Ford, he said, had now set up a dedicated “skunkworks” team in California — separate from the rest of the company — to develop new EV models from scratch.

So secretive are the team’s efforts, Mr Farley added, that even he did not have access to their building.

“That’s how extreme of a different approach we need to compete against BYD,” he said.

Ford currently has two EVs available: the Mustang Mach-E crossover SUV; and F-150 Lightning pick-up truck.

Sales of the F-150 rose 86pc to 22,807 in the first nine months of 2024, with sales of the Mach-E rising 23pc to 35,626, according to registrations data from Kelly Blue Book.

However, the company’s share of the overall EV market in that time slipped from 7.2pc to 6.8pc.

The most dominant player by far remained Tesla, which sold 166,923 cars, although its market share also dipped, from 49.8pc to 48.2pc.

Chinese brands face significant barriers in the US, not least tariffs of 100pc.

Asked about Mr Farley’s remarks on Friday, a Ford UK spokesman pointed to a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that he made following the interview.

“I try to drive everything we compete against,” he wrote. “Have done it my whole career. Specs can tell part of a story, but you’ve got to get behind the wheel to truly understand and beat the competition.”

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.