It's not the Mustang we know but it’s a clever move by Ford to use the name of its gas guzzling sports car icon for its first all-electric SUV.
The Mustang sports car will continue as a two-seater - with engines ranging from 310 horse power to a massive 419 horse power - but with a questionable future in a post-Cop 26 world. It makes sense for Ford therefore to use the Mustang name to send a message that it is committed to electric, even if it has been slow to embrace the technology compared to its competitors.
The Mach E Sure is a five-seater SUV that owes more than an acknowledgement to Jaguar’s iPace and it has a claimed range of 610 kilometres, which we’ll believe when we see it. Car manufacturers usually cite the optimum figure for range rather than the real-world figure experienced during everyday driving.
The Mustang SUV comes in rear-wheel and all-wheel drive option with a staring price of 53,100 Euros for the first and 64,000 Euros for the latter. This includes the SEAI grant. The rear-wheel drive version has a single motor while the all-wheel drive version has two motors.
With a nod to the original Mustang, the SUV gets a long bonnet and a sloping rear roofline.The rear lights are also borrowed from the original. The car is badged purely as Mustang and I didn’t notice a Ford logo anywhere during a short drive.
Like other luxury electric cars, the interior is dominated by a big screen - 15.5" in this case - and the emphasis is one graphics, displays and clean finishes. For that, read Tesla competitor.
And, as other companies, tech and connectivity are the big sellers. The Mustang has Apple and Android capabilities, can adapt your smartphone as a key, has over-the-air updates and uses cloud connectivity and has a big range of safety features. It has already secured a 5 star Euro NCPAP crash safety rating.
In another nod to the original Mustang, Ford has named the drive modes "whisper", "active" and "untamed". The car is, like all other electric cars, fast on the acceleration stream, with a 0 to 100 KPH time of just over six seconds and a third less than that on the GT-rated version.
Ford claims you can charge the car from 10% to 80% when using a 150 kW fast charger. Also using a fast charger, you should be able to get an extra 119 km of range in 10 minutes. Expect these times to vary dramatically considerably when relying on anything less than a 150 kW.
