Ford CEO showers Xiaomi SU7 with praises in recent podcast appearance

It is not often that we get to see the chief of a major company praise its competitor. However, that is exactly what seems to be happening with Ford Motor Company's CEO Jim Farley. 

In a recent podcast appearance, Farley claimed that he has been driving an imported Xiaomi SU7 for the past six months, and has apparently grown quite fond of it. In a recent tweet, he admitted that testing competitors' offerings is a genuinely important step towards ensuring that Ford remains ahead of the curve. 

"We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago, and I've been driving it for six months now, and I don't want to give it up" said Farley.

The SU7 is the first EV from the Chinese giant Xiaomi, a company generally known for its wildly popular lineup of smartphones and a surfeit of other consumer electronics such as televisions, power banks, laptops, all the way to washing machines.

Much like its smartphones, Xiaomi's SU7 comes in three variants - The standard SU7, the SU7 Pro, and the SU7 Max. Prices start from around $30,500, which, considering the SU7's features, goes to show how far ahead China is of the rest of the world in terms of affordable EVs.

The SU7 is available with up to a 101 kWh battery in the Max variant, while the standard and Pro variants settle for 73.6 and 94.3 kWh batteries. The Max is the only AWD variant, with a whopping 295 horses under its hood. Xiaomi also has plans to release versions with massive 132 and 150 kWh batteries, but not much else is known regarding those at this point.