Robotics has catapulted Beijing into a dominant position in many industries
“It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ford’s chief executive about his recent trip to China. After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars – from self-driving software to facial recognition. “Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley warned in July. “We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”
The car industry boss is not the only Western executive to have returned shaken following a visit to the Far East. Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire behind mining giant Fortescue – which is investing massively in green energy – says his trips to China convinced him to abandon his company’s attempts to manufacture electric vehicle powertrains in-house.
“I can take you to factories [in China] now, where you’ll basically be alongside a big conveyor and the machines come out of the floor and begin to assemble parts,” he says. “And you’re walking alongside this conveyor, and after about 800, 900 meters, a truck drives out. There are no people – everything is robotic.”
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