is the senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal and author of the upcoming book I AM NOT A ROBOT: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything.
Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Nilay Patel’s show about big ideas and other problems. I am not Nilay Patel, though I have long wanted to be him.
I am Joanna Stern, the senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, author of the upcoming book I AM NOT A ROBOT (releasing spring 2026), and, once upon a time, a cofounder of The Verge. I’m the last Monday guest host filling in for Nilay while he’s out on parental leave with his adorable new son, and I’m very excited to be talking today to Ford CEO Jim Farley.
I’m a longtime Decoder listener and my favorite episodes are car episodes. I might not own a gas-powered Mustang convertible like Nilay — I’m not cool enough — but I did, in fact, lease my first EV, a Ford Mustang Mach-E, back in 2023. I think car CEOs are currently facing some of the most fascinating and complex challenges in both tech and business.
Listen to Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel about big ideas — and other problems. Subscribe here!
So when I was asked to guest host the show I said, “That’s it, car CEOs.” And Jim was at the top of the list. Jim was on this show once before — his first appearance was in May 2021. And, well, a whole lot has changed in the past four years. Actually, a whole lot has changed in the last four months. The second Trump administration’s barrage of tariffs, trade wars, and a whole lot more, just to name a few.
For Ford, it’s an especially critical moment. Last month, the company announced what it calls the Ford Universal EV Platform, an all-new manufacturing process that the company is calling a “Model T moment” for EVs. That’s because it should, in theory, allow Ford to produce cheaper EVs in a more efficient manner than it does with its current lineup, including my Mach-E. You will hear Jim say “last week” a few times — that’s because we taped this episode in August just after their announcement.
It’s also not just tariff troubles for Ford. There’s the general weakening of demand for EVs in the US, the loss of the federal tax credit, and rising competition from low-cost Chinese competitors like BYD and Xiaomi.
One thing I love about talking to Jim is that he’s honest about it all. You’ll hear him say in plain terms that China is, in some respects, miles ahead of the West when it comes to some parts of its EV industry. And this major multibillion-dollar gamble on a Ford Universal EV Platform isn’t a done deal. You’re going to hear him say the word “risk” quite a lot in this conversation, and how this major manufacturing and strategy pivot could very well fail.
Jim had quite a lot to say about rebuilding the manufacturing base of blue-collar workers here in the US to compete with China — and even AI. Plus, he didn’t shy away from what he’d like to see from the Trump administration on tariffs. He says specifically, “We’re just asking for a fair fight.”
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