Ford and Xiaomi in Secret EV Talks: Why Dearborn’s China Bet Gets Riskier by the Week

Ford CEO Jim Farley has been driving a Xiaomi SU7 for over a year and openly admits he doesn’t want to give it up. Now the Financial Times reports Ford and Xiaomi held actual talks about building EVs together on American soil. Ford says the report is “completely false.”

Ford’s denial came directly from the top of its communications team. Chief Communications Officer Mark Truby posted on X, quote-tweeting the Financial Times headline: “Our statement: ‘This story is completely false. There is no truth to it.’” The post drew 120,000 views within hours.

Washington is already asking questions about Ford’s other Chinese partnerships. And the timing could not be worse for a company that just wrote off $19.5 billion in EV losses six weeks ago.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The report: Ford held talks with Chinese EV maker Xiaomi about forming a joint venture to manufacture electric vehicles in the United States, according to people familiar with the matter cited by the Financial Times on January 31, 2026.
• The denial: A Ford spokesperson called the FT report “completely false” in a post on X. Xiaomi has not responded to requests for comment.
• The political context: Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the House China Committee, sent Ford CEO Jim Farley a letter this week demanding answers about a potential BYD partnership and raising concerns about Ford’s existing CATL battery deal.
• The buyer impact: Ford’s EV strategy is in flux. The company is caught between needing Chinese technology to compete and a political environment that punishes companies for using it.

Ford’s Xiaomi Talks Arrive at the Worst Possible Moment

Ford held discussions with Xiaomi about a potential joint venture to build electric vehicles in the U.S., according to unnamed sources cited by the Financial Times on Saturday. The report landed hours after Reuters confirmed the story’s existence but noted it could not independently verify the claims. Ford’s denial was swift and unambiguous.

The talks, if they happened, would represent a new front in Ford’s deepening relationship with Chinese EV technology. Ford already licenses battery technology from CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, for its $3 billion plant in Marshall, Michigan. That factory is set to begin production this year using CATL’s lithium iron phosphate chemistry. And it has been a political lightning rod since day one.

Rep. Moolenaar’s letter to Farley this week went further than previous congressional inquiries. He asked specifically about plans for a joint venture with BYD and warned that Ford was creating supply chain vulnerabilities. “China has already shown in recent months that it will weaponize the auto supply chain,” Moolenaar wrote. “This is a serious vulnerability and it would only get worse if Ford enters into a new partnership with BYD.”

Moolenaar also raised concerns about Ford’s new Ford Energy subsidiary, which plans to repurpose battery plants in Kentucky and Michigan to produce energy storage systems for AI data centers using CATL technology. Ford has warned previously that congressional restrictions on Chinese battery partnerships could jeopardize billions in investment.

Farley’s Xiaomi Obsession Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight

The Ford-Xiaomi connection isn’t new. Farley told the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2025 that Chinese EV technology was “the most humbling thing I have ever seen.” He singled out Xiaomi and Huawei by name, praising their seamless digital integration. He admitted to importing a Xiaomi SU7 from Shanghai to Chicago and driving it for six months.

“I don’t want to give it up,” Farley said of the SU7 on the Everything Electric Show podcast in 2024.

That’s a remarkable admission from the CEO of America’s second-largest automaker. The SU7 is a full-size sedan that starts at around $30,000 in China, comes with air suspension and adaptive dampers as standard equipment, and outsold every EV in Ford’s entire U.S. lineup during its first full year on sale. Xiaomi reached quarterly EV profitability in just 19 months, a feat that took Tesla five years.

Xiaomi’s rise has been staggering. The company delivered 136,854 SU7 sedans in 2024 and followed up with the YU7 SUV, which drew 289,000 pre-orders in a single hour when it launched in June 2025. The YU7 undercuts Tesla’s Model Y by about $1,400 in China. CEO Lei Jun has said Xiaomi won’t sell cars outside China until 2027, but a U.S. joint venture with Ford would theoretically bypass the 100%+ tariffs that currently block Chinese EVs from American roads.

Ford’s $19.5 Billion EV Reset Makes the Math Desperate

Ford announced $19.5 billion in EV-related charges on December 15, 2025. That writedown included $8.5 billion tied to killing future EV models, $6 billion from dissolving its battery joint venture with South Korea’s SK On, and $5 billion in additional program costs. It was the largest EV impairment in Detroit’s history.

The company scrapped the next-generation F-150 Lightning in its all-electric form, a move we had been tracking since November 2025. It killed a planned large electric pickup called the T3. It converted its Tennessee EV factory to build gas-powered trucks instead. Ford’s Model E division lost over $13 billion in less than three years.

What Ford kept alive tells you where the company sees its future. The $3 billion CATL battery plant in Michigan. A $30,000 midsize electric pickup truck from its California “skunkworks” team, expected in 2027. And now, apparently, conversations with the Chinese company whose car its CEO has been driving for over a year.

The financial logic is straightforward. Ford can’t build competitive EVs at competitive prices with its current cost structure. Chinese manufacturers can. Xiaomi builds the SU7 profitably at $30,000. Ford was losing roughly $40,000 on every EV it sold in 2023 and was still hemorrhaging billions through 2025.

Washington and Detroit Are Moving in Opposite Directions

The political situation facing Ford is contradictory. President Trump visited Ford’s Michigan factory and explicitly invited Chinese automakers to build in the United States. “Let China come in, let Japan come in,” Trump said. “They are and they’ll be building plants, but they’re using our labor.”

That sounds like an open door for exactly the kind of joint venture the FT described. But Moolenaar’s letter, sent just days later, slams that door shut. Congressional Republicans on the House China Committee view any Ford-China partnership as a national security risk, regardless of whether it creates American jobs.

This isn’t theoretical friction. Ford has already watched Congress nearly destroy its CATL battery deal. The GOP tax bill passed in May 2025 initially threatened to strip tax credits from any factory using Chinese-licensed technology. Ford scrambled behind the scenes and secured a last-minute exemption in the final bill language. The plant retained its credits, but the message was clear: every Chinese partnership will face a political gauntlet.

The federal EV tax credit itself expired on September 30, 2025. Ford’s EV sales were already struggling before that deadline. After the credit disappeared, the U.S. EV market contracted sharply. North American automakers have pulled back aggressively, pivoting to hybrids and cheaper models.

EVXL’s Take

I’ve been covering Ford’s EV strategy for years, and the pattern is now impossible to ignore. Ford spends billions trying to go it alone on EVs. Ford loses billions. Ford quietly turns to Chinese companies for the technology it can’t develop fast enough on its own. Congress gets angry. Ford denies everything. Repeat.

Whether these specific Xiaomi talks happened exactly as the FT described matters less than the underlying reality: Ford needs Chinese EV technology and knows it. Farley has been saying this publicly for over a year. He drove the Xiaomi SU7 and couldn’t shut up about it. He called China’s EV progress “the most humbling thing I have ever seen.” He announced a CATL partnership, fought Congress to keep it alive, and then expanded it into energy storage. The notion that Ford wouldn’t at least explore a manufacturing partnership with Xiaomi defies everything the company has done for the past 18 months.

The denial makes political sense. With Moolenaar already asking about BYD and CATL, confirming Xiaomi talks would pour gasoline on an existing fire. But “completely false” is a strong statement. If the FT’s sources hold up, that denial will age poorly.

Here’s my prediction: Ford will announce some form of Chinese EV technology partnership by Q3 2026. It may not be called a “joint venture.” It may be structured as a licensing deal or a supply agreement. But the $19.5 billion writedown proved Ford can’t compete in EVs without dramatically lowering its cost structure, and no American or Korean supplier can close that gap fast enough. The only question is whether it’s Xiaomi, BYD, CATL in expanded form, or some combination.

For buyers, the practical impact is this: Ford’s $30,000 electric pickup, due in 2027, will almost certainly contain significant Chinese-sourced technology. If congressional hawks succeed in blocking that supply chain, the truck either gets more expensive or gets delayed. Either outcome hurts the American consumer. The irony of politicians who killed the EV tax credit now trying to block the partnerships that could make EVs affordable without subsidies should not be lost on anyone.

Editorial Note: This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI to ensure technical accuracy and archive retrieval. All insights, industry analysis, and perspectives were provided exclusively by Haye Kesteloo and our other EVXL authors, editors, and YouTube partners to ensure the “Human-First” perspective our readers expect.