This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Last year, Ford CEO Jim Farley commuted in a car that wasn't made by his own company. In an effort to scope out the competition, Farley spent six months driving around in a Xiaomi SU7. The Chinese-made electric sedan is one of the world's most impressive cars: It can accelerate faster than many Porsches, has a giant touch screen that lets you turn off the lights at your house, and comes with a built-in AI assistant--all for roughly 30,000 in China. "It's fantastic," Farley said about the Xiaomi SU7 on a podcast last fall.

You more than likely know Xiaomi, so-called Apple of China, as a maker of smartphones that offer a decent alternative to Samsung. You might also know about its smartwatches, robotic vacuums and electric scooters. Good, if often unoriginal design, sold at a competitive price. But did you know it also sells cars? Xiaomi Auto leapt into the packed EV market only in March 2024, yet already has a hit on its hands with the SU7.

Ford CEO Jim Farley enters The Fox Garage to talk about the company's increasing production, the launch of its new semi-automated driving tech division Latitude AI and his favorite Mustang. Ford disbanded its Argo AI self-driving car joint venture with Volkswagen last year, but now it's getting back into autonomy … a bit. The automaker has launched a new subsidiary, called Latitude AI, that's aimed at developing semi-autonomous advanced driver assistance systems that could be on the road soon. Ford already offers the hands-free BlueCruise system, which uses cameras, radar, GPS and highly accurate maps that allow it to control a car within a highway lane by itself as long as the driver is watching the road and ready to take over in case of emergency. Facial recognition technology ensures that they are.

Argo AI, the self-driving startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, is shutting down, The Verge has learned. Employees were notified that an announcement would be made late in the day Wednesday. The company, which was founded by veterans of Google and Uber's self-driving car projects, has lost the financial support of Ford and VW, a source said. And according to TechCrunch, the company's resources will be absorbed by both automakers. Argo is estimated to have around 2,000 employees, though it did announce a round of layoffs earlier this year.

Shortly after news broke Wednesday afternoon that its self-driving subsidiary Argo AI would be wound down, Ford CEO Jim Farley joined in on the company's Q3 earnings call and spoke at length about how senior management came to that decision. "It's estimated that more than a hundred billion has been invested in the promise of level four autonomy," he said during the call, "And yet no one has defined a profitable business model at scale." In short, Ford is refocusing its investments away from the longer-term goal of Level 4 autonomy (that's a vehicle capable of navigating without human intervention though manual control is still an option) for the more immediate short term gains in faster L2 and L3 autonomy. L2 is today's state of the art, think Ford's BlueCruise or GM's SuperCruise technologies with hands-free driving along pre-mapped highway routes, L3 is where you get into the vehicle handling all safety-critical functions along those routes, not just steering and lane-keeping. "Commercialization of L4 autonomy, at scale, is going to take much longer than we previously expected," Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer at Ford, said during the call.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has made quite a few changes to the way the automaker does things since his arrival. Now, Ford is doing something similar with its autonomous technology divisions. Autonomous Tech Gets A New Home According to a report by Bloomberg, Ford is looking to accelerate the development of its autonomous technology by forming a new division called Ford Next. Apparently, Farley formed Ford Next last year and put Franck Louis-Victor, a specialist in new businesses from Renault SA, at the head. The division includes the automaker's stake in Argo Ai, an autonomous startup, as well as Ford's self-driving unit that's called Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC.

"This is just a monumental moment in time--a moment in time that I think we have now to really remake a 118-year-old company," Mr. Farley told reporters. Mr. Field joins the company as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer reporting directly to the CEO. Apple's car project has been an object of curiosity and concern throughout the auto industry since The Wall Street Journal first reported in 2015 about the secret effort code-named Project Titan. Initially, it was believed the company was aiming to come out with an electric vehicle as soon as 2020, but Apple's ambitions were questioned as timelines slipped, the project's leadership turned over and its focus seemed to narrow to developing technology around driverless cars. Apple's rehiring of Mr. Field in 2018 sparked renewed excitement among some observers.

As the Perseverance rover drilled into a rock on Wednesday to collect a sample from Jezero Crater on Mars, Justin Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, felt both nervous and excited. He has the honor of serving as the "sample shepherd," leading the effort from millions of miles away, but the pressure's on. "These samples not only will allow us to understand the geology of the crater, but also minerals likely related to the history of water there," he said yesterday. But first, the rover had to actually capture a chunk of rock in a test tube-sized container. An initial attempt in early August had come up empty.

After NASA's Perseverance rover came up empty in its attempt to collect rock samples from Mars earlier this month, it's ready for another go-round. The US space agency said on Thursday that the rover will abrade, or scrape, a rock nicknamed'Rochelle' with a tool on its robotic arm. By scraping the rock, it will let researchers see inside to see if it's worth taking a sample, which would'slightly thicker than a pencil,' NASA wrote in a statement. After NASA's Perseverance rover came up empty in its attempt to collect rock samples from Mars earlier this month, it's ready for another go-round. The US space agency said on Thursday that the rover will abrade, or scrape, a rock nicknamed'Rochelle' (pictured) with a tool on its robotic arm If the team decides the rock is good to go, the sampling process would start next week.

A century after automakers showed the world the value of assembly-line manufacturing, a shortage of semiconductors is teaching the industry a painful new lesson in what it takes to build a car. For most of its history, the industry has relied on a distinct approach to buying car parts, procuring components from suppliers right at the moment they're needed. It's referred to as just-in-time manufacturing and is designed to streamline production and eliminate the costs of keeping warehouses stocked with parts waiting to be used. But the shortcomings of that system were made starkly clear this year as the automakers confronted a dearth of the chips they need to build advanced functions into their vehicles, and found themselves near the bottom of chipmakers' customer lists because of their just-in-time approach. That shortage is threatening to cut $110 billion in sales from the industry, and forcing auto manufacturers to overhaul the way they get the electronic components that have become critical to contemporary car design.