Ford CEO Says U.S. Must Not Fall To Scourge Of Chinese Cars, It's Already 'Too Late' For Europe
Happy Wednesday! It's September 30, 2026, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.
In this morning's edition, we're looking at Jim Farley's fears of Chinese cars in the U.S., and Republicans figuring out how to ban those Chinese cars without banning Mercedes. We'll also look at China's electric trucks, and dealerships that love AI.
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1st Gear: Jim Farley is wary of Chinese automakers on American shores, and thinks Europe should've enacted bans faster
Chinese cars have hit Europe, and European buyers are loving it. Competing automakers, though, are less enthused — take Ford CEO Jim Farley, for instance, who thinks the United States would be better off without such foreign competition. From Reuters:
Sept 29 (Reuters) – Ford CEO Jim Farley said that the US must carefully weigh how and whether Chinese automakers should enter the American market, and pointed to Europe as a cautionary tale.
Farley said at an Automotive News conference on Tuesday that the US must "be extremely careful around how the Chinese OEMs come to our country," and cited the pressure on Europe's auto industry as Chinese imports quickly grab market share there.
For European countries, "it's too late," he said.
Can you imagine the state of the U.S. auto industry if we'd banned imports of Japanese vehicles in the '70s? I thought we were supposed to be a capitalist nation, one where any betterment is meant to come through competition — are we saying we can't compete with China at all, and we have to legally cordon off a set of domestic buyers that have no choice but to keep buying our inferior products? Chinese cars are, in many cases, cheaper and better than domestic U.S. competition, but our domestic automakers seem to be throwing their hands up rather than actually meeting the new challenge.
2nd Gear: Republicans are trying to ensure their bill banning Chinese cars doesn't include Mercedes
It seems Farley is getting his way, because a bill working its way through Congress right now bans automakers with more than 15% Chinese ownership from selling in the United States. There's just one problem: Many automakers we already have some sort of Chinese ownership, including Mercedes. From Reuters:
WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) – A sponsor of a bill to toughen a US government ban on Chinese vehicles said on Tuesday that talks are ongoing to ensure that German automaker Mercedes-Benz is not banned from selling vehicles in the US.
The bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in July would ban companies with more than 15% ownership by Chinese entities from selling vehicles in the US. Mercedes-Benz has nearly 20% passive ownership from Chinese entities.
...
Moreno said there were discussions about how to ensure that Volvo Cars, majority owned by China's Geely Holding, could continue to sell vehicles in the US.
This is a bit of a mask-off move from our lawmakers, because they're making it clear that Chinese ownership isn't actually the issue. If Mercedes is fine with its 20% Chinese ownership — or, even more extreme, Volvo's Geely ownership — then what's the actual issue here? Legislators seem fine with the money spent on vehicles in the U.S. going to Chinese pockets, they just seem concerned that it not happen via a car with a Chinese badge on the hood. This is so dumb.
3rd Gear: China is beating the U.S. on electrifying its trucking fleet
Here in the United States, we love our smoke-spewing Peterbilts like we love our baseball and apple pie. Attempts to replace them with alternative fuels, via vehicles like the Tesla Semi or whatever Nikola was doing, have largely turned out to be vaporware. But in China, truckers are already going electric, and it's saved their skins in the face of rising oil prices. From Bloomberg:
Qu is one of thousands of drivers powering a profound shift in the world's biggest oil import market. Chinese e-truck sales jumped almost 80% in the first half from a year earlier, according to BloombergNEF, getting a boost as the US-Iran war and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries sent diesel prices soaring. They are on pace to account for close to a third of all rigs sold this year, up from just 8% a couple of years ago.
Diesel consumption in China will drop more than 10% this year, Sinopec Economics & Development Research Institute estimates, a shift that has helped Beijing navigate this year's oil shock and limited price rises for global markets in turn — all while cutting emissions, even if coal still plays a major role in electricity generation.
The electrification of road freight is emerging as a structural force that could undermine long-term oil demand across the world.
Tesla still claims the Semi is coming at some point, but Tesla claims a lot of things that turn out to be pipe dreams. There are a couple other entrants into the electrified trucking space, but we've yet to see the kind of adoption here that China has. Maybe ever-rising diesel prices will start to change that.
4th Gear: Dealers will absolutely not stop using AI
Dealerships love to adopt new technologies without really understanding why or how those technologies will help anyone, and it's the same story with AI. Over 80% of dealerships are using it, in spite of the data security risks, and while dealer owners are getting concerned about security they're not backing down from adoption. From Automotive News:
DETROIT — Dealerships are cautiously moving forward with artificial intelligence in the wake of new warnings from the technology's developers that unchecked AI could have doomsday consequences.
Recent instances of AI chatbots breaking through their constraints have led developers to call for proper limits to its reach. Auto retailers, mindful of the benefits they could gain from adopting AI, also are including guardrails to protect their businesses and customers.
"It makes me very cautious," Jeff Laethem, president of Ray Laethem Buick-GMC in Detroit, told Automotive News at the Digital Dealer conference here.
"I do believe there are major dangers with AI if [it is] uncontrolled," he said. "It's riding that fine line of making sure you're keeping up with the things that need to happen and putting in the proper safeguards to make sure that customer data is safe."
...
More than 8 in 10 dealers said they are using AI in some capacity, according to Cox Automotive.
Does AI actually help dealerships do anything? There were examples early on of buyers negotiating deals with dealer chatbots, making handshake deals for $10 cars that the dealership staff then had to unwind, but has AI helped anyone buy a car since then? Dealer websites are already generally terrible, I remain unconvinced that adding large language models to the mix will help.
Reverse: I mean, it's no Red October
Did they even try putting Sean Connery on this one? C'mon.
The Fuel Up
Prices keep dropping! Take a road trip immediately.
On The Radio: Jane Remover - 'Backseat Girl'
I'm so sore and tired this morning, but it's beautiful out. The vibes are Jane Remover for sure.