Ford's executive chairman on Tuesday sounded optimistic about his company's electric vehicle plans, as Saudi Arabia-backed Lucid Motors denied reports that it is on the brink of bankruptcy.
In Washington, William Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford, told a packed room that the company would soon take on Chinese companies in the EV sector.
"We're going to sell, profitably, an EV under $30,000, and we're going to launch that next year," he said at an event hosted by Axios.
"We're starting with a sport utility vehicle and we're going to go toe to toe with the Chinese. We can't expect to keep them out forever."
Mr Ford said Chinese car makers made significant inroads in various European markets, and warned of what might happen if they start selling in the US.
"We have to beat them at their own game," he said.
When asked by Axios executive editor Mike Allen about reports that Chinese companies were stealing US car designs, Mr Ford briefly acknowledged the problem.
"I mean, yeah, there's that," he laughed, eliciting a laugh from the Washington audience. "But you know, you just have to try and stay one step ahead."
Mr Ford said that the Michigan-based vehicle giant emerged from the 2008 financial crisis stronger than ever, and that the employee pride he witnessed in that crisis proved to him that there is even more reason for optimism in the decades ahead.
"We were the only American auto company that didn't go bankrupt during the crisis and we paid back all of our loans," he recalled. "Our employees wouldn't let us fail and I watched them work on Saturdays and Sundays until two in the morning because they believed."
He did not elaborate on specifics about taking on Chinese-made EVs, but said it started as a "skunkworks" project in California that's "kind of out of the closet now".
Meanwhile, shares in Lucid Motors, which was founded in 2007 and once hoped to be a household brand like Ford, fell more than 50 per cent on Tuesday amid speculation about the company's future, but finished the day down 16 per cent.
Low sales, persistent recalls and delivery problems have plagued the electric vehicle maker for more than a year.
“The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special board committee to explore the scenarios reported today,” a statement from the company read.
As for Ford, its executive chairman said that the company has a lot to be proud of in terms of surviving the test of time, but he also warned about complacency: "I love our history but it guarantees you nothing."
