After Apple abandoned its electric car effort in 2021, Doug Field returned to Ford with a mission: reinvent the century-old automaker fast enough to compete with China’s dominant EV industry, tells this interesting article from the New York Times. Knowing traditional Detroit structures couldn’t keep pace, Field created an isolated “skunk works” in California, recruiting top talent from Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, and battery start-ups. His goal was to give engineers the freedom and urgency of a Silicon Valley start-up inside a legacy giant.
The stakes are enormous. Chinese companies such as BYD now produce 60% of the world’s EVs, rapidly expanding with aggressive pricing and fast production cycles. Western automakers, by contrast, take up to seven years to bring a new vehicle to market. Many of their most important EV models are still years away. Ford’s first skunk-works vehicle, a mid-size electric pickup, won’t arrive until 2027.
Innovation is the only path forward. Start-ups across the United States are experimenting with cheaper battery chemistries, dry-coating manufacturing, rare-earth-free motors, and new packaging techniques that could lower costs and reduce reliance on Chinese suppliers. Ford’s skunk-works pickup uses giant aluminum castings and a simplified assembly strategy to hit a target price around $30,000, a direct response to low-cost Chinese competitors.
But U.S. automakers face other hurdles: unstable federal policy, weaker industrial support compared with China, and a domestic market still hesitant about EVs. Abroad, Ford dealers already face fierce competition from Chinese brands offering high-quality, low-price electric models.
Despite this, Field and leaders across the industry insist that transformation is possible if Detroit combines its manufacturing muscle with Silicon Valley’s willingness to experiment. Ford has begun reintegrating the skunk-works team into operations as it moves toward production. The challenge now is scaling breakthrough ideas fast enough to survive global competition.
As BMW’s Joachim Post warns, any company that fails to adapt risks disappearing entirely.