Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Ford is chasing Tesla with an electric Mustang SUV”.
( upbeat music, ), Hey everybody. This is Sean from The Verge and I’m standing in front of Ford’s first mass market all-electric vehicle the electric Mustang Mach-E SUV.. Now, we’ve known about this vehicle for a little while. Ford, first teased at the Detroit Auto Show in 2018. And since then, there’s been almost two full years of speculation about what exactly this first mass market electric vehicle was going to be., And it wasn’t until recently That Ford started talking about how the vehicle was gon na, be Mustang-inspired and then turned due about a week or so ago, and Ford said: hey, it’s not just gon na be Mustang inspired. This is going to be a Mustang.. This is going to be the second Mustang ever and it’s going to be electric, which is a pretty radical move for Ford..
Now Ford announced tonight five different versions of the Mustang Mach-E and all of them go across an entire array of price range performance, all starting with the Select Mustang Mach-E, which starts at $ 43,895.. That goes all the way up to the Mach-E GT, which is $ 60,000, and that can go about 250 miles. But it’s all wheel drive zero to 60 in a little over four seconds. And there’s even a performance trimmer that can do zero to 60.
In a little more than three seconds. Ford is teaming up with electrify America, which is the charging network that Volkswagen is building out.. So there will be a big network of electric vehicle chargers that you can plug right. Into.. This car is gon na be able to charge up to 150 kilowatts the base version.
The Select version will only get up to 115 kilowatts.. It’S not built out as much as Tesla’s supercharger network, right now., But honestly right now, electrify America looks like the next best thing over the next couple years. When it comes to electric vehicle charging in the US. Inside. It’S a pretty simple experience.
We’re talking a 15.5 inch touchscreen in the center dash with not too many buttons around it. Just one big volume knob at the bottom. And then one 10.2 inch digital instrument cluster behind the steering wheel, which I actually really like.. I’Ve seen a lot of digital instrument clusters in newer cars, especially in electric vehicles, and this one’s just very simple.
It’S horizontal, really slender, and it just presents only the amount of information that you really need., Just some speed. What mode you’re driving in things like that.? Another thing that I really am happy to see in here – and I think is gon na be really important – is there’s a driver monitoring system just above the steering. Wheel. Ford says that this is gon na be equipped. The second version of its Co-Pilot 360 advanced driver assistance system and that it eventually wants to allow for hands-free highway driving. And, if they’re gon na be offering that feature. It’S good that they’re gon na have something in the car. That’S gon na make sure that drivers are paying attention on the road. One of the biggest problems right now with these advanced driver assistance systems is that people get overconfident with them. They think that they’re gon na be able to do more than what they can actually do. And when they take their attention away from the road and the car needs them to take back over. There’s a disconnect there and it can lead to really bad things..
This is something that Tesla doesn’t even have on its cars. Elon Musk has said that he doesn’t think we need it.. A lot of other people disagree and I’m happy that Ford included it here.. Now Ford called this thing: a Mustang, so it’s promising Mustang performance and with the GT version which goes zero to 60 in either three or a little bit more than four seconds. That sounds pretty comparable., But the rest of them are gon na, be a little bit. Slower.
I got a ride in a prototype version of the Mustang Mach-E, the other day.. It was one of the premium trim, so it wasn’t the fastest, but it felt pretty fast.. It was fast enough to push you back in your seat a little bit..
It had that exciting feeling of the instant torque you get from an electric motor.. But honestly, I was just more impressed with the sort of cohesive feeling of the inside of the car. There’s a lot of headroom a lot of legroom, even in the back., And especially when you have the panoramic glass roof above you, it feels even more open.. This is not a cramped car like some other sort of crossover or small SUVs can feel.. This has got a lot of room, inside. And Ford’s really promising that this is going to be a five seater with a lot of room for a full family.. The whole deal here is to give Mustang-style performance with the ability to throw your entire family in the car..
Now one thing – that’s probably gon na be pretty divisive about this car. Is that there’s no traditional door handles.? There are buttons on the B-pillars and C-pillars that you push that pop the doors open.. They also unlock as you sort of walk up to the car.
As long as you have your smartphone with you., There are little sort of like winglet handles on the front doors that you can grab to open the door once you’ve unlocked it., But it’s just definitely a different approach.. We’Ve seen some other cars do stuff like this. Where door handles present themselves or things like that., But this is definitely a bit of a different.
Take that we haven’t really seen here in the US, and especially from a company like Ford.. One of the most remarkable things about the Mustang Mach-E. Is that it basically didn’t exist in pretty much any form? Two and a half years, ago. Ford was actually working on what they call. Basically, another compliance car, something based on the Ford Focus, but the company’s new CEO came in and he took a look at the landscape. Looked at all the other automakers moving into the electric vehicle space trying to chase Tesla and said no, we need to come up with something more exciting..
They put a team together and that team came back to the company and said: let’s make a Mustang.. They actually convinced them to do it and two and a half years later we’re here with the Mustang Mach-E. It’S pretty remarkable to see that quick of a turnaround from a traditional automaker.. They have a lot of work to do on the software still and I’m sure, there’s a lot more work to do on the tuning to make sure that the car really does feel like a Mustang..
But it seems like Ford’s on the right path of this. And honestly they better be because they’re calling this thing a Mustang and people aren’t going to take that lightly., Hey everybody thanks for watching. Make sure you like and subscribe, and let me know in the comments What you think of this car., Do you hate the front end? Do you hate that there is no door handles? Do you really love that there’s an electric Mustang coming, I wan na hear about it. Let me know.
Thanks for watching .