Ford Mustang Mach-E Analysis: Ford Swings for the Fence
Mustang Mach-E (Image: Ford)
In late 2017, Ford CEO James Hackett, in the job since just that summer, had a decision to make. Ford had an EV for sale, the built-for-compliance Focus Electric, but that was becoming obsolete with its tiny, approximately 100 mile range and converted platform. A new EV had been in development for about six months but it too was a compliance car. Meanwhile, Tesla had been delivering the Model S to customers since 2012, the Porsche Mission-E (soon to be Taycan) concept had been shown in 2015, and the Jaguar I-Pace concept in 2016, both clearly heading for production in some form. Should Ford spend the next few years developing a low-risk car to satisfy regulators or, seeing what way the wind was blowing, put aside the existing work and start over on something customers, in volume, would hopefully want to drive? Hackett decided to go for it.
Six weeks later, at the January 2018 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, and lacking anything physical, Ford showed a short film to convey the emotional intent: An electric car with the utility of a small crossover and the driving excitement of a Mustang. The proposed name, Mach 1, referenced the high performance Mustang originally put on sale in 1969.
Traditional enthusiasts were, I think it’s fair to say, unenthusiastic about the name being used on an SUV, an especially an electric SUV. And so it became “Mach E.” Styling, it came to be known, was inspired by the Mustang, causing more angst in the enthusiast forums. And now, almost two years later, Ford has shown us the production car and it isn’t just inspired by the Mustang, it is a Mustang, albeit a new kind of one. Upon hearing the news, traditionalists were, once again, somewhat unenthusiastic. “What the hell is Ford thinking?” seems to be the zeitgeist.
Aside from the obvious, getting into the EV business for real, Ford’s strategy appears to be making both Mustang and Bronco into sub-brands, each containing a variety of products but sharing some essential character. In this case, Mustang for performance, Bronco for off-road. Although, as quoted in MotorTrend, Hackett knows he has to be careful with regards to Mustang:
We have to thread the needle on this really carefully because this franchise has just got such clarity that it is not going to evolve away from what its leverage is. It’s not going to be that. But there’s a couple derivations there.
And so it appears we should now be thinking of the traditional form as the Mustang Coupe, available with a variety of powertrains both pure combustion and, soon, electrified.
What are we to think of this? As a business decision, I’m not sure. It reminds me of that period late last century when it seemed like somebody at GM directed that every single Oldsmobile had be a Cutlass, rendering the name essentially meaningless and valueless. But I like to think that Ford knows more about marketing cars than me and if they think they can sell more electric vehicles by having it be a Mustang crossover, then I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.
We need to keep an eye on the big picture here. It is vitally important from a global warming standpoint that we transition mostly away from combustion vehicles as soon as possible. Of course that means things like better public transport, e-bikes and better lightweight vehicle infrastructure, and things like that, but it also means convincing as many people as possible to buy electric cars. If Mustang branding and styling makes an EV crossover sell better then I am absolutely in favor of it, memories of 50 year old muscle cars be damned.
One of the Mach-E’s signature characteristics is a notably long range at a very reasonable price for the segment. An imperfect but still useful way to see this is to examine the cost per mile of range for a number of vehicles at their base MSRP without tax incentives or anything like that:
Audi E-Tron: $74,800 / 204 miles = $367/mi
Jaguar I-Pace: $69,500 / 234 miles = $297/mi
Tesla Model X Long Range: $84,990 / 328 miles = $259/mi
Tesla Model S Long Range: $79,990 / 373 miles = $214/mi
Ford Mustang Mach-E Select: $43,895 / 230 miles = $191/mi
Tesla Model 3 Performance: $56,990 / 310 miles = $184/mi
Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium: $50,600 / 300 miles = $169/mi
Nissan Leaf Plus: $36,550 / 226 miles = $162/mi
Chevrolet Bolt: $36,620 / 238 miles = $154/mi
Tesla Model 3 Long Range: $48,490 / 322 miles = $151/mi
Hyundai Kona EV: $36,950 / 258 miles = $143/mi
What we’re seeing here is a combination of production efficiency and a rough measure of how much car you get relative to the size of the battery. The Audi and Jaguar are both clearly premium products in terms of features and perceived quality. The Tesla Model 3 has a very low cost per mile because, designed to be as low cost as possible to produce, it is approximately the minimum viable premium car wrapped around the largest possible battery. The Kona’s extremely low cost per mile of range is probably due in large part to Hyundai’s production efficiency. The Mustang is, characteristically for a Ford, placed mid-pack indicating that it will hit what may be the sweet spot of the market: premium features in an affordable package.
This affordable pricing, and the timing of the Mach-E coming to market, is very much a function of decreasing cost of Li-Ion batteries. I strongly encourage you to read this excellent article at Bloomberg on the topic, but I’m going to shameless share this plot of historic and projected bulk battery pricing.
Historic and Future Battery Pricing (Image: Bloomberg)
The exact numbers probably aren’t so important as the big picture takeaway: Li-Ion battery prices have plummeted over the past decade but we appear to have rounded the inflection point towards a more gradual but steady decline. In other words, only recently have battery prices decreased enough that vehicles such as the Mach-E, Bolt, and Kona have become viable.
Mustang Mach-E Interior (Image: Ford)
As for the car itself, it features the latest generation of Ford’s infotainment system, Sync, and that allows features such as using your smart phone as a key, internet connected maps containing charging station data, and over-the-air updates. There are two battery sizes, 75.7 and 98.8 kWh, and the choice between rear and all wheel drive. The batteries are good for 230 and 300 miles of range respectively in most models, although AWD will cost about 10% of range (210 and 270 miles).
The GT trim, available only in AWD, ups the power output from 332 to 459 HP but costs another 13% of range, taking it from 270 to 235 miles. In other words, fun will cost you more than just money. You also get larger (20 inch, up from 19) wheels and larger brakes.
The cost-conscious Select trim, available only with the smaller 75.7 kWh battery, also reduces cost by only supporting 115 kW DC fast charging, down from 150 kW in the other trims. It also has smaller wheels (18 inch, down from 19).
The front trunk is drainable, possibly an EV first. Ford’s tremendously useful and underrated SecuriCode external numeric keypad is still a feature and, once you’ve used it to unlocked the door, you can enter a code on the screen to activate the vehicle without a key.
The exterior design is typical modern SUV Coupe, in that it has a sloping rear roof, with the vertical thickness we’ve come to know from electric vehicles using a skateboard chassis. Black lower body trim visually slims in the vehicle in this regard, a common design solution. The charging port is on the left front quarter panel, just ahead of the driver’s door.
The “Mustangness” of the design is in the front and rear fascia including the head and tail lights, and the bulbous front hood. The rest of the vehicle is, frankly, visually pretty generic but nicely proportioned if you like this sort of thing.
And so, two big questions remain. First, is it a Mustang? Yes, of course it is. A Mustang is whatever Ford says it is. Ford said the Mustang II was a Mustang, and so it was. My mother owned an early fox body with an anemic 86 horsepower inline-4 and automatic transmission. That was a Mustang and so is this.
Will it sell? It should. The price and content appear right, the design looks good, and Ford is probably doing the right thing by pushing the fun to drive nature of an EV. We will not move significant numbers of people into electric cars by pure environmental guilt, or probably even fuel cost savings until gasoline becomes extremely expensive. What will do it is making an EV that is desirable, that is better to drive than a combustion car, that a customer wants to drive and is affordable enough to justify making the leap. The Mustang Mach-E feels like a major step in that direction.
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