With a new electric vehicle seemingly launching every week, each promising all sorts of advancements in technology, you’d be forgiven for comparing the electric vehicle market to the home PC market in the early 2000s. Judging by spec sheets, electric cars are getting so much better so quickly that it’s almost scary to buy one, only to find that it might be outdated by next year. However, cars are supposed to be more than the sum of their spec sheets, and the best-selling non-Tesla EV in America last year actually went on sale way back in 2021. It’s the Ford Mustang Mach-E, and while its name might be contentious, it was still worth spending a week in one to remind everyone why so many Americans buy them.
What’s more, since few people buy loaded trim levels, this particular Mach-E is the base Select model with two key options — the larger extended range battery pack and dual-motor all-wheel-drive — along with heated seats and a heated steering wheel. Other than the upgraded powertrain, this is pretty much identically equipped to the cheapest Mach-E you can get. Bring it on.
[Full disclosure: Ford Canada let me borrow this Mustang Mach-E for a week so long as I kept the shiny side up, returned it with at least 70 percent charge, and reviewed it.]
The Basics
Battery pack: Standard 72 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack, optional 91 kWh nickel manganese cobalt battery pack.
Drive: Standard single-motor rear-wheel-drive, available dual-motor all-wheel-drive.
Output: 264 horsepower and 387 lb.-ft. of torque for the standard range rear-wheel-drive model, 325 horsepower and 500 lb.-ft. of torque for the standard range all-wheel-drive model, 365 horsepower and 500 lb.-ft. of torque for the as-tested extended-range, all-wheel-drive model.
EPA Range: 260 miles for the standard-range, rear-wheel-drive model, 240 miles for the standard-range all-wheel-drive model, 300 miles for the as-tested extended-range, all-wheel-drive model.
Peak DC Fast Charging: 150 kW
Base Price: $42,685 including freight ($57,690 Canadian)
Price As-Tested: $53,875 including freight ($65,790 Canadian)
Why Does The Ford Mustang Mach-E Exist?
Over the past six years, the electric two-row crossover market has grown from essentially just the Jaguar I-Pace to the predominant form of EV, and this is Ford’s controversial entry into the ever-crowded segment. Look, using the Mustang name on an electric crossover is gonna piss some people off, but many people put off by the name probably wouldn’t buy an electric crossover anyway. It might’ve been a bold move, but considering the Mach-E now outsells the combustion-powered Mustang and was America’s best-selling non-Tesla EV in 2024, it seems to have paid off.
How Does It Look?
Right off the rip, the Mustang Mach-E doesn’t look like much of its competitive set, partly due to its long dash-to-axle ratio. While the packaging of EVs lets manufacturers pull the base of the windshield way forward for aerodynamic and space efficiency, it’s not a muscular look, so Ford went more traditional to add a little classic DNA. Speaking of Mustang-y styling, the black roof rails and cladding on the Mach-E do a reasonably successful job of hiding the bulk, while the strong haunches and heavily contoured hood also work to cut the flab of the format.
Functionally, the biggest styling element worth talking about is the door handle setup, or rather, the lack of them. Buttons on the window frames release electronic latches, while adorable little rams push the doors open so you can grab an edge, or one of the little winglets on the front doors. While still not as user-friendly as normal door handles, these buttons are way better in the snow than retractable door handles that get packed up with ice, and mechanical interior door handles ensure easy emergency exits.
How Does It Drive?
While the standard single-motor small-battery configuration is no slouch with 264 horsepower, 387 lb.-ft. of torque, and a claimed zero-to-60 mph time of 5.6 seconds, loads of cold climate dwellers will tick the right boxes for much quicker acceleration than that. An available extended range battery pack and all-wheel-drive bestow this sensible crossover that isn’t even a performance trim with 365 horsepower and 500 lb.-ft. of torque. That’s 50 more horsepower than a 2010 Mustang GT and 20 more lb.-ft. of torque than a 2007 Shelby GT500. As a result, Ford claims a zero-to-60 mph time of 4.1 seconds from this powertrain and I have no reason to doubt it at all. This thing’s properly swift, and can seriously shift despite its 4,759-pound curb weight. Sure, things mellow out up top when you’re going for a freeway overtake, but unless your last name is Force, you wouldn’t exactly call this Mach-E slow. As a bonus, a claimed 300-mile range means that even in snowy conditions where you’re working the electric heater pretty hard, you’ll likely still have enough range for what you need to do. I saw nearly 243 miles at temperatures just below freezing, and I wasn’t exactly using a light foot.
See, your range may vary is a real statement with the Mach-E because it’s genuinely fun, and it all starts in the steering. Not only does effort build with load as you’d expect, but the steering wheel wriggles and writhes over rough tarmac and camber changes in the road as individual front wheels move up and down. That’s real feedback, leagues beyond what you get in a combustion-powered Mustang coupe. It’s the sort of tactility that goads you on a bit, and if you decide to get keen, you’ll learn a few things about the chassis. While you certainly have to manage the front end on the way into corners, once you’re turned in, it’s all about managing the rear. Although you can’t fully defeat stability control, turning it as off as Ford will let you will teach you a thing or two about tail-out shenanigans. This family crossover rotates enough out of damp corners to earn its Mustang badge, and that’s a rarity in this mainstream electric crossover segment.
However, for those seeking comfort over everything, this playfulness comes at the expense of firmness, particularly over larger bumps. There’s plenty of travel and you’re rarely on the bump stops, but the springs and dampers are stiff enough that you feel more of the road than you do in a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Toyota bZ4X. The Mustang Mach-E does do a better job of rounding off the bumps than the pre-facelift Tesla Model Y and a better job of damping light chatter than a Honda Prologue, and every tarmac nasty is dispatched with quickly, but it’s very much a ride quality suited more for former BMW 3 Series owners than former Toyota RAV4 owners.
How’s The Interior?
Spinning the shifter dial into park and contemplating the cabin of the Mach-E, just about everything feels as agreeable as steak frites. Not only does everything work like a normal car, from the wiper and indicator stalks to the volume knob to the steering wheel controls, the cabin of the base-trim Mach-E feels worth the price of admission. I’m particularly fond of the stitched leather-like textile on the center console, the big swaths of fabric across the dashboard, and the large fabric speaker covers on the door cards. Even the Active-X faux leather upholstery seems soft enough to come from the finest faux cows, and it all adds up to a sturdy, well-appointed place to eat some miles in.
Let’s circle back to ‘sturdy’ for a second. It’s no secret that Ford’s had a difficult time ramping production on several models over the past few years, but the Mustang Mach-E is now in its fifth model year and feels screwed together with the sort of imperious sturdiness as ’90s Japanese tin. The center console may as well be an immovable object since it doesn’t so much as wiggle when you lean on it, all the panel gaps are quite reasonable, all the stitching’s where it should be, and the doors close with the damped, monumental thunk of two feet worth of snow falling off a chalet roof. Here at The Autopian, we love to see automakers do things well, and Ford certainly seems to be putting together Mach-Es nicely.
As for room and comfort, you certainly aren’t left wanting. The front seats seem to use two stages of foam, allowing occupants to dig into the bolsters while still being supported. In back, Ford’s packaging solution of stacking components under the rear seat means the squab is high enough to offer actual thigh support, and headroom is plenty competitive thanks to the deceptively traditional roofline. There’s genuinely enough width for three across the bench, and legroom is abundant for this 5’10”-ish author sitting behind his own driving position.
Does It Have The Electronic Crap I Want?
For the most part, absolutely. You get a massive 15.5-inch touchscreen with a physical volume knob, a digital gauge cluster, power seats, a wireless phone charger, plenty of USB ports, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, games to play while charging, satellite radio and GPS navigation all as standard. It all works pretty well, screen quality is great, and this litany of toys should ensure that almost all base model buyers won’t feel shortchanged. For the most part, I didn’t.
So what are Mach-E Select buyers missing out on? Well, the standard six-speaker audio system is fine but certainly not great. You definitely get some distortion and it can’t keep up with modern dance music, but it has enough power to kick and ’90s soft rock sounds bitchin’ through it. The 10-speaker Bang & Olufsen system on the Premium trim is definitely an upgrade, but the only other big gizmo you can’t get on the base model is a power liftgate, so it’s likely only worth jumping up a trim if you really like your tunes.
However, if you live in a place that gets winter, you’ll want to tick the option box for the Comfort Package Lite. Sure, $1,500 is spendy for a heated steering wheel, heated front seats, and heated mirrors, but once you live with them, you won’t want to live without them.
Three Things To Know About The Ford Mustang Mach-E
- It’s way more fun to drive than you think.
- You don’t really need much more than the base trim.
- The plastic-lined front trunk has drains so you can use it as a cooler.
Does It Fulfil Its Purpose?
As a mainstream electric crossover that serves up a usable dose of fun, the Ford Mustang Mach-E is a home run. It’s a more engaging vehicle than a BMW X3 M50, and up there with the Porsche Macan on the list of crossovers to buy if you still enjoy driving but need more space. What’s more, the long-range pack offers plenty of range, the whole vehicle feels well-made, and the base Select trim justifies its price tag well with nice materials and an abundance of standard features. With the hype and discourse having died down since the launch of this crossover, what we’re left with is a fundamentally good car, regardless of what it’s powered by.
It’s also worth noting that the Mustang Mach-E gets a price cut for 2025 provided you’re south of the border. Sure, red’s no longer on the menu, but if you want an otherwise identically specced 2025 model to this extended range AWD test car, you’re looking at a price tag of $50,280 before incentives, or $65,335 in Canada. That’s a few grand cheaper in America or about a wash in Canada.
What’s The Punctum Of The Ford Mustang Mach-E?
America’s most popular non-Tesla EV is still one of its best.
(All photos by Thomas Hundal)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The Mustang Mach-E Rally Is The Most Hoonable Electric Car You Can Buy
-
Why I Wouldn’t Recommend The 2024 Honda Prologue Unless You Lease It
-
Here’s Why The 641-Horsepower 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N Is Proof The Future’s Gonna Be Okay
-
The 2024 Nissan Ariya Evolve+ E-4ORCE Is A Stylish EV That Needs A Little More Time In The Oven
-
The $36K Chevy Equinox EV Is The Best Electric Car For Most People
Please send tips about cool car things to tips@theautopian.com. You could even win a prize!
I’m still holding out for the day when that touchscreen stops looking like someone left their iPad velcroed to the dash. God, I hate that trend.
Is there evidence and data that suggest more people would buy one if it did not have the Mustang name?
I know it’s off trend so unlikely to happen, but my interest would be greater if it was smaller, especially in width, and the styling were less ornate, especially in the front. Proper door handles and some more common function knobs/buttons on the inside would be important to me too.
I strongly considered a Mach E, but there were a couple big issues for me: HVAC on a screen and drive mode control in a menu on a screen.
I could live with the door handles and I could add seat ventilation, but there’s not much I can do about the screen controls.
I really liked it otherwise, but I like to change throttle mapping on the go and I am not a person who can set the HVAC and leave it.
Yep… The Mach E will definitely be on my list the next time I’m in the market for a car.
Though if I bought one, I would remove the ‘Mustang’ part of the badging. It’s a nice vehicle, but it’s not a Mustang.
Ford should just call it the Mach E and leave it at that.
Considering that Ford is headquartered in Dearborn, MI, I’m surprised it took this long to come with a heat pump instead of inefficient resistive heating. Better late than never.
It’s by far the most interesting BEV to me, but a few times a month, I travel over 200 miles in a day even in the depth of winter. 300 rated miles just doesn’t leave quite enough cushion for cold weather, unexpected detours and battery degradation.
It’s very close, though. They’re doing great work. I have three friends who bought them within the last year, and everyone’s been pretty ecstatic about their purchase so far.
If I was going to get a pure EV (my home is not ideal for it), this is the car I would buy. A friend has one, and it’s excellent. He says that other than recalls, it has been 100% reliable. Interior space and amenities are nice.
I drove in a Ford Lightning the other day.
Center console screens are getting completely out of hand in size!
If you need a screen that large to see something, you shouldn’t be driving because you’re blind!
I didnt realize how big a footprint the Mach-E has until I was behind one in the dealer service lane. Black was not best color for that one.
I’ve always heard black is slimming
Maybe it needs a shot of Ozempic every 5k miles.
Are you calling me fat?
Never, you frighten me.
To be fair, everyone does.
No sir… you’re not fat… just a little ‘husky’… but no sir… not fat… not fat at all!
lol
Had to jump in and rep my 2022 Mach e with extended range as the best car I’ve ever owned. It’s my 3rd EV and I have driven a Model 3 as well. None as solid a car as this. It sucks I paid $55k for it back then, but Ford is desperate to move the 2024s so you’ll do much better than this dumbass early adopter. Oh and thank you for putting at least a single tactile dial on the screen. It’s a start.
Don’t cars always seem to get cheaper right after we buy one 🙂
Count it as a character flaw but I still can’t accept a plain vanilla looking crossover getting the Mustang nametag. It’s great that it’s a good car and that it’s selling well, but if I were to buy one, I’d have to pry everything that said “Mustang” off of the car. Even if they called it something else, the giant touch screen would be a deal breaker.
Probe II, perhaps?
The name doesn’t bother me at all, and I’m a Mustang owner. It has enough styling cues to work and I can’t fault a company for using name recognition to help sell their wares.
Ford’s built over 10 million “real” Mustangs, and most of them were relatively mundane base models (shades of the four-cylinder Fox bodies littering many high school parking lots as I was starting to drive). It’s always been kind of a cheap car with aspirations of fun that start to come true if you load up on options. I have a hard time seeing it as some untouchable icon, especially when Ford is pretty clear the Mach E is just Mustang-adjacent, and by most reports, built something more engaging and fast than like 90% of Mustangs ever built.
It’s not vanilla as an SUV. It stands out, and doesn’t look blocky to me. What more do you want? (Right. A Mustang. You want a Mustang.)
Think of the “Mustang” Mach-E the same way my spouse views ‘vegetarian meat products’. They are their own thing. Ignore the ‘meat’ label and decide if you like it, not whether it tastes like ‘real meat’.
“Real Mustangs” didn’t even have headrests. Until they did.
Like I said, count it as a character flaw. I just can’t go with the Mustang name on these. Whatever else they’ve been, they’ve been pony cars. Good ones, bad ones, fast ones, slow ones. Headrests, no headrests. I guess you could say that the crossover deserves the name more than the Mustang II did, but at least they put the “II” after the name on that one. Maybe if they’d called it the Mustang III? (Anyway, this is just me. I get that I’m in the minority on it.)
260 mile range (0-100% of battery capacity, which is completely fictitious).
182 mile range (10-80% of battery capacity, which is a real world realistic value).
164 mile range (90% of advertised range, probably more realistic).
140 mile range (driving at highway speeds since “range” is advantaged by not being measured at sustained highway speeds).
Uncertain charging infrastructure.
Plan your trips accordingly.
Don’t forget cold weather.
I mean for me at least 140-160 miles is more miles I am going to drive in one in one shot, let a lone a whole day, about 350 days out of the year.
Any car that lacks external door handles is not sensible.
Still think it’s too expensive, at least in base trim, but healthy sales probably mean I’m wrong. So, too expensive for me.
Drove one of these as a rental within a week or so of also renting a Model 3. Like you said, much more engaging to drive even though it was slower in a straight line. Real physical buttons made the learning curve a lot easier. And given how much they’ve depreciated, it’s probably the best deal on the used EV market.
In 10-15 years, this era will go down as “That goofy period where we were so phone-obsessed, we just put giant phones on the dashboard and ignored everything else.”
I thought Tesla and Volvo were pretty bad about this, but Ford takes the cookie. The only Mach-e owner I know has been stranded twice due to the screen bricking. The fears are not unfounded, above and beyond the ergonomic quibbles.
I’d be much more interested in 2 distinct double-din sized screens embedded in the dash, which could be upgraded as needed if the hardware doesn’t age well. “But people only keep the cars during the lease period, lol!” Yes…but that’s coming to an end, and the peril that automakers will face is that their reputations will no longer be tied to how well their cars hold up over 5 years. It’ll be 10-15 years. Because cars are expensive, and a lot more durable than they used to be.
yup. especially when there’s no engine/transmission components to maintain.
Hopefully, the complex cooling systems for these large battery cars will prove to be reliable.
Yessir…I’ve been saying since even before the EV push, one very realistic option for dealer service centers is to shift to a “customer upgrade center.” Think about all the margin on dealer-installed options, but just imagine that trickling in over future years instead of a lump sum at the point of sale.
So 5 or 10 years down the road, if Honda has a better, faster HU/screen they can sell me for $1,000 or so — since my obviously-reliable Honda is still going strong, mechanically speaking — I have some incentive for another dealer “touch point” that’s mutually beneficial. This is even more crucial for EVs for the reason you mentioned.
This is pretty much how aviation works, where the airframe and engine outlive the electronics. When it’s time to sell, you can list the OE upgrades you’ve invested in along the life of the vehicle. There’s no reason a 10-year-old car shouldn’t be able to have a better screen, Carplay/AA, etc. And when manufacturers have made those upgrades impossible for the DIY market (due to customization), they also screwed themselves over by not doing exactly what I’m talking about.