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I saw another article about Farley's proposal tonight.
On the surface, Farley wants to use China's playbook: require Chinese automakers to partner with US companies, to build cars here.
Background: having failed in most markets outside of North America, the company's offerings in Europe are increasingly based on other company's technology: the Explorer and Capri EVs built in Cologne use a VW platform. A recent agreement with Renault will have "Ford branded" cars built on Renault platforms, assembled in Renault plants. Geely is exploring using idle capacity in Ford's Valencia plant to build for the EU, and, possibly, paste Ford badges on some of the Geely product.
The logical extension is to invite a Chinese company into Ford plants in the US, so Ford badges can be pasted on the cars, without Ford paying anything to develop the technology in the cars, which will juice Ford's short term profits, and line Farley's pocket.
Steve
