FORD CEO COMMENTS OF MUSK-TESLA

[CoachTerry]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ford-t...bs-and-praise-amid-heated-ev-rivalry-6526555d

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[cvalue13]

Dropped my WSJ subscription some time ago, so the paywall …

 

[CoachTerry]

AUTOS INDUSTRY
Ford, Tesla CEOs Exchange Jabs and Praise Amid Heated EV Rivalry
The banter between Ford’s Jim Farley and Tesla’s Elon Musk is a continuation of years of exchanges that have veered between playful barbs and mutual admiration.
By Nora Eckert and Rebecca Elliott
Jim Farley of Ford Motor has been taking public shots at Tesla. Elon Musk is nonplussed.
“There’s no doubt about it. The demand for Tesla is changing, and in some sense is deteriorating,” the Ford CEO said at a Wall Street Journal event Wednesday when asked about Mr. Musk, who leads Tesla.
That followed comments from two weeks earlier, when Mr. Farley said that Tesla’s vehicle lineup has become stale and that the company risks commoditizing its cars by cutting prices.

Mr. Musk complimented Ford hours after Mr. Farley’s remarks last week. “I think Ford’s overall strategy with EVs is smart,” he tweeted in reply to someone who pointed derisively at Ford’s losses on electric vehicles.
For chief executive officers of rival, high-profile companies, such direct and public banter is unusual. For Messrs. Farley and Musk, it is a colorful continuation of years of public exchanges that have veered between playful barbs and mutual admiration.
The remarks come as Mr. Farley tries to position Ford as a competitor to Tesla. While Tesla is still the dominant electric-vehicle player—it outsold Ford’s EVs more than 8 to 1 in the U.S. last year—the companies increasingly compete head-to-head.
The Ford Mustang Mach-E—a Tesla Model Y rival—became the No. 3 U.S. EV last year, chipping away at Tesla’s market share, and the companies are now engaged in what analysts have called a price war. Meanwhile, Tesla has said it is close to releasing its Cybertruck to compete in the lucrative pickup truck market, where Ford’s F-150 is the top seller.
The back-and-forths point to an underlying tension between legacy automakers—many of which belittled Mr. Musk’s efforts for years—and Tesla, which holds a lead in EVs the traditional car companies have been trying to close.
“It’s entertaining. I try to read into it,” said Brian Johnson, a former Barclays automotive analyst who covered both companies for years. For Ford, “It can’t hurt to be seen in the same category as the market leader,” he said.
Mr. Farley is the latest auto executive to court a friendly, and public, rivalry with the Tesla CEO as they jockey for position in the burgeoning EV market.
Two years ago Herbert Diess, who was then Volkswagen’s CEO, called out Mr. Musk in his debut Twitter post, saying he was there in part “to get some of your market shares, @elonmusk—after all, our ID.3 and e-tron have won the first markets in Europe.”
General Motors Chief Executive Mary Barra has gone quiet on Twitter since Mr. Musk bought the platform last year. Carlos Tavares, who leads Jeep maker Stellantis, doesn’t have a Twitter account.
Mr. Farley is often asked about Mr. Musk, and his remarks about Tesla and its chief partly reflect his competitive and blunt personality as well as his desire to be a trailblazer in the field, former colleagues said.

At an event in August, while referring to the ramp-up in production of Ford’s F-150 Lightning truck, Mr. Farley directly addressed his competitor: “Take that Elon Musk,” he quipped.
Mr. Musk responded on Twitter: “Thanks, but I already have one,” he said in a nod to Tesla’s Cybertruck.
It has been three years since Tesla released a new passenger vehicle, a long time by auto- industry standards. As for demand, wait times for new Teslas have dropped, and the company has cut vehicle prices this year as it tries to maintain its rapid pace of growth. Ford responded with its own price cuts for the Mustang Mach-E.
Mr. Farley has been upfront on taking plenty of cues, and talent, from Tesla. In 2021, he hired Doug Field, who helped develop the Tesla Model 3 and is now Ford’s chief advanced product development and technology officer.
The Ford CEO has frequently referred to benchmarking its EVs against Tesla. For example, he has cited a $10,000-a-vehicle cost advantage that Mr. Musk enjoys and is pressing his team to erase that gap.
Mr. Farley has expressed admiration for Mr. Musk’s work. In 2021, when Time magazine named Mr. Musk its person of the year, Mr. Farley quoted the Tesla CEO in a tweet saying he wanted the EV company to set an example for the industry. “Mission Accomplished, Congrats,” Mr. Farley wrote. Mr. Musk responded, “Thanks.”
After Ford shared last year that it had produced its 150,000th Mustang Mach-E electric SUV, Mr. Musk tweeted “Congratulations” at the accounts of Mr. Farley and Ford. Mr. Farley responded: “Thanks, @elonmusk. Lots of work ahead.”
Mr. Musk has many times lauded Ford for avoiding the fate of bankruptcy that felled rivals.
The CEOs have also sniped at each other. Two years ago Mr. Farley took what seemed to be a veiled jab at an upgraded suite of Tesla advanced driver assistance features that customers were testing on public roadways. He compared Tesla’s system with one Ford was introducing at the time, called BlueCruise.
“BlueCruise! We tested it in the real world, so our customers don’t have to,” Mr. Farley tweeted in April 2021.
Mr. Musk responded, “I found some footage of the drive,” and posted a clip from the

movie “Tommy Boy,” in which Chris Farley, the late comedian who was also Mr. Farley’s cousin, screams as he drives out of control on the wrong side of the highway.
Write to Nora Eckert at [email protected] and Rebecca Elliott at [email protected]
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[cvalue13]

Mr. Musk responded, “I found some footage of the drive,” and posted a clip from the

movie “Tommy Boy,” in which Chris Farley, the late comedian who was also Mr. Farley’s cousin, screams as he drives out of control on the wrong side of the highway.

 

[tidmutt]

Oh how the WSJ has fallen.

 

[CyberGus]

 

[Diehard]

I like a healthy competition. It is good for consumer. Although I have never driven a Tesla, by what I have seen so far, Ford has LONG WAY to go software wise to catch up.

 

[Crissa]

Note: Any EVs sold by competitors don't 'chip away' at market share, WSJ, because Tesla literally did not sell fewer EVs because of any Ford sold. Because the market is 'cars' not 'EVs'.

-Crissa

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