It’s a bold move by Ford, and it reflects the reality that utility vehicles blending wagon or hatchback practicality with higher ride height and all-wheel drive are displacing passenger sedans across the globe. It’s the first four-door Mustang, the first all-wheel-drive Mustang, and the first Mustang powered by electricity rather than internal combustion. The battery-electric crossover utility is actually becoming a part of the Mustang model line. Two years ago, a few reporters who were shown an early model of the revised electric car described it as “literally a four-door Mustang SUV.” And that’s exactly what Ford unveiled, with one hugely important new detail: It’s not just “inspired” by the 55-year-old pony car. It ultimately evolved into “Mach-E” (with a hyphen to ensure it didn’t become “Mache”). Over the next two years, Ford marketing materials called the future model a “Mustang-inspired, 300-mile electric SUV.” Rumors said it was to be dubbed “Mach 1,” though a backlash from Mustang enthusiasts seemed to doom that label. The difference Hackett brought during the summer and fall of 2017, the Mach-E team said, was simply to say, “Why aren’t we making it a car people will want to buy?” ![]() The tone was set at the 2011 launch, when Ford managers spent a great deal of time explaining all the reasons US drivers wouldn’t buy it-and no time on how the company planned to explain the advantages of electric cars.įew automakers have been quite so explicit as Ford in acknowledging that it had started with a functional but unexciting EV that was intended solely to meet regulatory requirements. The battery-electric Focus pretty much defined the term “compliance car.” It sold in low volumes (10,000 over almost a decade), its range never competed with the best EVs (76 miles from 2012 through 2016, and 115 miles thereafter), and it was available only in a limited number of regions. Unexpectedly, executives gave a full rundown of the twists and turns in the development process-including how radically it changed after Jim Hackett replaced Mark Fields as CEO in May 2017.Īt that time, the company’s designers and product developers were midway through the creation of what the company itself called a “compliance car” to replace its outdated, uncompetitive Focus Electric hatchback. The fact that the hangar sat next door to Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne was, according to a smiling Bill Ford, “a coincidence.”įord invited a handful of journalists to a lengthy briefing on its then-unnamed EV at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, a few weeks before the LA reveal. The extended debut of the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E electric SUV culminated in its formal unveiling in an aircraft hangar last November, just before the start of media days at the Los Angeles Auto Show. ![]() ![]() It’s almost enough to make you think Ford plans to offer electric cars shoppers may actually want to buy. Posted Maby John Voelcker & filed under Features, Vehicle Features. 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E: An electric crossover with “the soul of a Mustang”
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