Survival Skills - the Newsletter

If Ford's CEO says Chinese cars are 'far superior' can their bikes be far behind?

Jul 06, 2025

In a recent interview Ford CEO Jim Farley said Chinese cars are "humbling" and have "far superior" technology. He continued "And even beyond that, their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West.”

It's not so long ago that Chinese manufacturers were accused of cloning everyone else's products, and that their products were cheap and nasty. It may well be time to reverse that thinking as Farley says that Ford is learning from China, with him taking his whole leadership team on his trips to the country, where they drive as many of the latest cars that they can.

“Then we pick the four or five that we love and then we put them on a plane and fly them to Detroit. And then we drive the crap out of them, and then we take them apart and we put them back together.”

And if that applies to their cars, it's hard to see how their motorcycles are that far behind. And that doesn't bode well for the more established manufacturers, wherever they are in the world.

As Week One is a fairly low key introduction, there are still SPACES OPEN on the JULY EDITION of the Eight Week eCourse. Nick says: “I have to say that Kevin’s e-skills course should be a “must do” for everyone, beginner and expert alike. It’s an eye opener!” Has that persuaded you? Sign up here today! It costs a tenner a week - that’s less than a Sunday morning fry-up!

Survival Skills Eight-Week e-Course' in advanced riding - JULY EDITION SIGN UP NOW!

Nick says: “I have to say that Kevin’s e-skills course should be a must-do for everyone, beginner and expert alike. It’s an eye opener!”.

It’s a course that won't simply regurgitate the ‘standard’ approach to motorcycling based on 'Motorcycle Roadcraft', but will encourage you to dig deep under the skin of 'The System' as it emphasises the role of Situational Awareness and the importance of understanding new concepts including Vision Blockers and Surprise Horizons, then using them to recognise the crucial nature of Killing Zone. And of course, it offers practical help in how to deal with them. Get a fresh new look at riding thanks to the inclusion of ‘insight’ and ‘resilience’ training as well as conventional riding skills.

Using the lived-lessons from my own riding, I seek to inform you of some of the mistakes I've made and I’ve researched the statistics and the science to explain how crashes happen, and what can be done to avoid them via a mix of carefully-crafted interactive coursework, factual downloads and highly practical on-road exercises. The aim is to help you develop the same “stay out of trouble if you can, get out of trouble if you can't” approach to riding that has (so far) keep me alive on the roads. The interactive nature of the course means you’ll get as much personalised help and advice from a BTEC-qualified advanced instructor who also holds an NVQ in distance learning as you want.

Chris - already an experienced instructor - says: “I am enjoying the discourse and resulting insights”. SIGN UP HERE!

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A QUICK SHOUT OUT to last week's KoFi supporters and subscribers

Kelvin, Halam, Dave, Helen and anonymous - thanks mightily for

SoS Jul 5 Insight powers foresight

FoF Jul 4 Credibility - fundamentally, it's about trust

60 Second Safety Jul 3 What's happening? Coping with uncertainty

Elevenses 543 Wed 2 Jul - motorcycle news, tips & views

ToT Jul 1 What's in my own toolkit?

COMMENT Jun 30 Last chance to sign unsafe riding kit petition

Elevenses 540 Sun 29 Jun - motorcycle news, tips & views

WANT TO CREATE LIVE STREAMS LIKE ELEVENSES? Check out STREAMYARD

ON-ROAD RIDER COACHING - courses aimed the individual - resume in 2025

Choose your own content to gain confidence or fix riding issues, or learn techniques for coping with rural roads or city centre snarl-ups. With a focus on delivering genuine SURVIVAL SKILLS rather than exemplary technical competence or the need to quote the Police Manual from cover to cover, there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ training or ‘test' standard’, just coaching tailored to YOUR needs for as long as you want.

With convenient start points around London, take your riding beyond the ordinary!

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Choose from a wide range of riding topics or ‘roll your own’ for a truly personalised experience. Crucially, each session includes easy-to-perform PRACTICAL EXERCISES to make the link with what you’ll do on the road!

ONLINE COACHING is the SMART & FLEXIBLE way to improved riding!

Here are three articles explaining the benefits of ‘distance learning’:

FoF Sep 27 Why take an ONLINE COACHING SESSION? Pt 1

FoF Oct 4 Why take an ONLINE COACHING SESSION? Pt 2

FoF Oct 11 Why take an ONLINE COACHING SESSION? Pt 3

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“Many thanks for today’s webinar… and all your hard work. It was a both a great sanity check for preparations and a really good heads-up for riding in the EU… food for thought and a really good primer.”
Richard after an online webcast on planning on riding abroad to the Norton Owners Club.

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Make a brew, grab a biscuit and pull up a chair ready to tune in to keep up with the latest motorcycle news and sometimes controversial views, plus in-depth items on biking generally. Join me, Kevin Williams, twice a week on Wednesday and Sunday at 11am for 30 minutes of topical news, controversial views and better biking tips!

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