NEW Ford Mustang Mach-E Review: Is it a REAL Mustang?

[Music] this is a ford mustang more to the point this is my ford mustang it's a five liter naturally aspirated v8 beast manual gearbox lively at the back end i'll admit not a lot of people can handle this car and it's not exactly practical and it's not exactly fashionable in today's world but i love it even if to a lot of people it's probably a bit of a dinosaur cars like this won't be around for much longer they're being replaced by cars like this the world is going electric and ford has had to go with it this is the all-new mustang mark e a new breed of mustang powered not by dinosaur juice but by electrons this is ford's attempt to conquer an electric future hurtling towards the car industry at breakneck speed but how does it compare to its rivals and does it deserve the iconic batch i'm not going to judge well i am going to judge because it's my job to judge but i'm not going to bring any of my old school mustang preconceptions to the party i'm just gonna evaluate this car on its own merits and it's that's an suv isn't it it's about the size of a bmw x3 or a nissan cash guy but they've tried to shoehorn a bunch of mustang elements into it so you've got the horse on the front no ford badges at all by the way they're leaning into the mustang thing very heavily you've also got a set of very squinty looking mustang-esque headlights with some vertical elements in it which is quite reminiscent of the standard car and then you've got a very long bonnet with some very unfortunate looking handlebar moustache-esque plastic glossy sections on the front but the advantage of having a very long bonnet is that you can get frunky what we have here is a hundred liter front trunk and it is very useful for carrying extra bits and bobs slightly annoyingly depending on how you look at this it's been partitioned what that means is you can't get a large bag in there unless you remove the partition but it also means that your groceries won't go rattling around side note if you're a manufacturer and your ev hasn't got a front trunk if all you've got is a bunch of electronics i'm looking at you vw id3 yeah mercedes eqc you're doing it wrong right follow me around the back all right around the back probably this car's best angle by far i love the muscular haunches by the way really strong very mustang also very mustang are these tri-bar leds around the back which are straight off the sports car what isn't very mustang is the fact that this car has a large boot and a motorized tailgate before i show you the boot it's also got the world's worst parcel shelf this car is what 57 grand this parcel shelf is from poundland no matter because that flimsy parcel shelf also doubles as a blanket if you ignore that what you get is a 400 liter boot loads of room in there for all your bits and bobs large suitcases etc and there's even a hidden partition underneath with all your cableage type 2 and standard 3-pin i should probably mention as well that this parcel shelf i'm not letting it go it's actually snapped off this section is meant to hook into the tailgate but this is snapped off completely it's the second time it's happened to me on a ford happened in the puma st and it's happened again on the mustang marquee ford please fix this because this is i'm not i'm not having this i'm not happiness sort it out immediately follow me around the side you might notice this car has a slightly unusual roof line there's a black glossy section just here and then a body colored section below it the body colored section is just there to make it look like a coupe to give it a more sporty look the actual roof is the darker section which means that for the first time in a mustang you get loads of headroom apart from in my convertible where there's infinite headroom i'll show you that in just a second but let me show you the doors because they're really cool how do you get into this car well there's a couple of options on the driver's side b pillar there's actually a keypad that allows you to tap in your own personal code and the car will unlock or you can use the traditional key or you can use your mobile phone as a key once you've used one of those three methods then you push a button on the b pillar and the door opens using actuators little motors that open it very stylishly for you then you use this little weird door handle thing to get it open the rest of the way why is the door handle this shape apparently it's for better aerodynamics and i would believe you ford if it wasn't for this enormous wing mirror in the way on the back pretty similar deal press a button the thing opens and now i shall reveal as promised the head room in the back it's really roomy with loads of space for people over six foot tall and with good leg room it also has a totally flat floor which makes it easier to sit in the center seat and has loads of cubby space cup holders in the middle and a couple of usb ports the car also has dedicated vents for rear passengers although not 4 zone climate control up front the mach e looks good with a modern interpretation of the mustang's double bubble dashboard it has a thin screen ahead of the driver for all driving related data wireless charging mats in the center console plenty of cubbies and storage comfortable electric seats and of course that infotainment display i really like this it's an enormous 15 and a half inch touchscreen in portrait orientation it's bigger than the display you get in the tesla model 3. ford are leaning quite heavily into the virtual buttons thing but they're stuck with one very very important button and that is the volume knob you twist it and it's integrated directly into the screen itself and that controls the volume on this beautiful looking b o sound bar which sounds tremendous by the way i'll talk you through a little bit of the functionality so all of your climate controls are on the bottom level right here they're permanently there so they never get lost really easy to use and then you've got your main menu up here on the top giving you short access to things like the radio phone navigation and even waze is built in as well but if you don't like any of that you can use apple carplay connect your mobile phone and use that or android auto if that's what you prefer but on the whole decent system now we're on the road i want to talk about the name a lot of people hate the fact that this car is called a mustang me not that fast i understand why ford has done it see the thing is they had to make a splash with their new big electric car they couldn't afford to release a new car after spending billions in r d and then have people look at it shrug and then go by a tesla now they had to make an enormous impact in the ev world and they had to do that with their most popular nameplate i mean think about it nobody wants an electric ford focus or a fecus and nobody wants a electrified ford galaxy galaxy you can have that ford by the way i'll just have some royalties and they couldn't have called it mac e on its own because it's a brand new name and nobody's interested in a brand new name think about cars like the mercedes eqc or jaguar i-pace fantastic electric cars but did they make as big a splash as maybe mercedes and jaguar had expected i would argue not so mustang it is let's get over it now that that's out of the way what's the mustang mackie like to drive well you know what the first thing you notice is the suspension it's a little bit jiggly it's a little bit i wouldn't say firm but i'd say the damping isn't as good as i'd expected it's a bit kind of porridgey a bit knobbly it really shows up imperfections in the road i'm on a relatively smooth road right now and yet i can still feel vibrations coming up through the cabin it's a lot like my mustang s550 v8 in fact it's it's i would actually say that my car is probably a bit smoother has better damping even though it has lower suspension i'd say they've tuned this car to try and imitate the feel you get from a proper mustang sports car but i'm not 100 sure that it suits an suv the next thing you notice is the steering which could definitely be improved it's a bit unresponsive around the dead center but then gets maybe too responsive once you start to turn left or right it's not very linear or consistent but after about an hour on the road you do start to forget about those issues there are three driving modes in the mustang mach e the first is whisper and that's your kind of quietest most economical mode everything's whisper quiet as you might expect then there's active which is slightly more active a bit sportier it makes the steering a little bit more resistive it makes the throttle response a little bit sharper and just makes the car feel a little bit more alive then there's untamed push that button and that's essentially your sport plus mode where the car comes truly alive the ambient lights in the footwell glow red and the car suddenly feels a lot more eager and you also get this propulsion sound ford call it they've designed it if you can hear that to kind of mimic the noise you get from a v8 mustang sounds nothing like a v8 mustang by the way but it definitely adds to the driving experience and makes you feel a little bit more involved with the car plus if you don't like it you can turn it off the mach e is quiet so you'll occasionally hear the noise of the road and the tyres intruding into the cabin but the peacefulness outweighs the occasional annoyance it's even quiet on the motorway with absolutely no wind noise even at 70 miles an hour it lacks the autopilot features of teslas but it can hold its lane fairly well on a motorway and follow traffic without the need for pedals this car has the option of one pedal driving you can switch it on or off depending on what suits you with one pedal driving switched on you can accelerate with the accelerator and then lift off and the car will break and even come to a complete standstill it's quite aggressive but i actually quite like it and it means that you don't really have to concentrate on moving your foot from one pedal to the other i know first of world problems having to move your foot but yeah that's that's just how i roll my one complaint is the fact that you can't adjust the amount of brake regen you get in the car you have to stick with only one level as for performance at launch in the uk the maki is available in a few different versions including an entry-level rear-wheel drive model with one motor offering 265 horsepower and a top spec all-wheel drive model with two motors delivering a healthy 346 horsepower that's not as much as the 400 horsepower i-pace or the 408 horsepower polestar 2 but ford is promising a faster performance addition later down the line this is the all-wheel drive extended range and it's actually pretty enjoyable to drive but not for the reasons you might think electric cars are known for their straight line acceleration straight line acceleration in this is good nor to 60 in 5.5 seconds but where it really excels is with the handling when you chuck it into a bend what you find is that there's very little if any body roll in this car the batteries are mounted so low down in the vehicle that the center of gravity is rock bottom and that means it's so composed through the corners there's loads of traction on the exit thanks to all-wheel drive acceleration and it's just a really really capable car through the bends i don't know if i'm having fun but i'm not alarmed like i would be in certain cars there are cars like the mercedes eqc which are faster than this in a straight line but through a bend they wouldn't see where a mustang marquee went trust me the brakes are really good as well they're consistent they're strong really confidence inspiring you can chuck it into a corner and have total trust in this car i like it and check this out as you go into a corner you can get on the power and it starts to rotate a little bit it actually starts to step out like a proper mustang i don't know if i'm enjoying it certainly not in the same way that i might enjoy doing that in my own car but the fact that ford have dialed that into the mustang marquee to give it that little sense of oversteer that's that's quite commendable i respect that i think one key question you've got to ask yourself when you're driving a car that costs this much money is how does it make you feel does it make you feel important i think the answer is yeah the marquee does make me feel good when i drive it and i think a lot of that is from this really really nice cabin it feels quite upmarket and i love the fact that it's got so much tech inside it i really really like this big screen some people might complain that doesn't have as many toys as you get in a tesla model 3 for example there's no karaoke mode there's no fart noises when you indicate and there's no netflix etc i think there's two ways of looking at that one is that the maki is lacking in a few features or you could look at it like the maki is just a much more serious grown-up car i'll leave that one for you to decide as for range well that'll depend on which version you go for the rear wheel drive versions have the best range while the all-wheel drive models have the best performance the car that goes the furthest is the rear wheel drive extended range rated at 379 miles on a single charge 20 more than an equivalent model 3. i won't mention the model wires yet as that's not out in the uk right now and we don't have official uk mileage figures this all-wheel drive extended range mac e i'm driving today officially delivers 335 miles but in my hands on a cold winter's day it delivered closer to 250. as for charging it's worth talking about it's not always going to be seamless in any electric car and that includes the mackie i pulled up into this bay today and i had a couple of issues i learned that the charging port is on the front left of this car which means that on some bays the cable might not reach so i don't know whose fault that is that might be forwards for not choosing a more sensory located charging port or maybe the likes of pola from bp pulse should have chosen longer cables on their charge bays but anyway a bit of a pallava having to move from one bay to another to make sure that the cable could reach in terms of recharging well you can top up overnight from a seven kilowatt wall box in around 11 hours or you can use rapid charging there are two rapid charging options in the mach e the standard range car can top up at a rate of 115 kilowatts and this extended range car can top up at speeds of up to 150 kilowatts that means that you can top up an extra 73 miles of range in around 10 minutes sadly this is only a 50 kilowatt charger i'm trying to do the mental mass here but essentially that means it's gonna take around twice as long three times as long in fact again not as quick as a tesla supercharger which can work up to 250 kilowatts meaning they can add 73 miles of range in around five minutes but here we are it's plugged in and it's working not detected welcome to the future on the whole i think ford have done a very good job with this firm suspension and vague steering aside i really like it i think it's better than the eqc it's cheaper and has better range than a jaguar i-pace and it's slightly nicer and more practical than a vw id3 on the whole this is a great car the question is though is it a great mustang the answer honestly speaking is no when fiat launched the fiat 500x was that really a fiat 500 and if porsche launched a new suv version of the 911 and called it the 911 max would it be a 911 i don't think so this is very clearly a marketing exercise albeit a very good marketing exercise so no it's not a very good mustang but it is a very very good car the good news though is that this isn't here to kill the v8 at least not immediately the mac e is a car for the weekdays for family life and the v8 is for everything else they complement each other well of course ford will be forced to stop the sale of new v8s in the uk at some point and the only new mustangs left will naturally be electric so the mac is very much a car for the future and credit to it but let's be glad that ford still gives us an option to celebrate the past [Music] [Music] you

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 442,591

Keywords: mustang mach e review, mach e review, ford mustang mach e review, mach-e review, mustang mach-e review, ford mustang mach e, mustang mach e, mustang mache, ford mustang mache, mustang mach e 0-60, mustang mach e acceleration, ford mustang review, 4k review, mach e mustang, mach e test drive, autotrader, rory reid, rory reid autotrader, car review, 4k car review, electric suv, electric car review, ford electric car, ford electric suv, ford ev, new ford ev, autotrader.com

Id: jmTWpdC4-9I

Length: 17min 18sec (1038 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/g1aiz]

I think it lookes better than the yellow one in the video.

Maybe it is not as good as the Tesla Model Y but who cares? Ford Mondeo is not as good as a BMW 3 series but people still buy it. As long as it is not utter shit or crazy overpriced the consumer gets more choices and we all win.

[u/JB_UK]

Looks really good in that colour. The physical knob embedded into the screen is also a great idea.

Think he’s wrong about the frunk, particularly for small cars you want the passenger compartment to be as extended as possible. Frunks are for EVs on shared platforms or for cars that want to maintain the long bonnet, more aggressive look of combustion cars.

[u/jolteonthetesla]

I disagree with a lot of his little criticisms on most cars, but overall agree.

Like the cargo cover - it's absolutely brilliant. It allows odd-shaped cargo to get covered, because it stretches over the cargo. Just because he didn't bother to hang it up on the liftgate doesn't mean it's a bad idea. The Mach-E's cargo cover is the best I've ever seen.

And he didn't care for the VW ID.3's lack of dedicated switches to roll the rear windows down from the front seat - but I think that's absolutely brilliant. I wish all cars had VW's toggle button for the rear windows rather than a second set of switches.

[u/silverelan]

Overall, Rory was positive about the Mach-E. I think he missed a golden opportunity to drag race it against his S550 GT which would have been a YouTube first. Bummer he used the Mach-E to throw shade at Polar charging stations. If he had gone to Ionity or the Electric Forecourt in Braintree, would he have had a different and more positive story to tell?

[u/[deleted]]

Rory is spot on about the handling bit. It's the most underappreciated aspect of EV vs. ICE. Everyone talks about the torque but the handling can be just as good. There is a reason why Randy Pobst called the Pikes Peak Model 3 the best handling car hes ever driven. The damn things are scalpels when setup right. In the next 5 - 10 years the best handling "driver's cars" in the world will be EVs. Id bet on that.

[u/Maximum_Bug_5259]

Rory tends to obsess over 0-60, and if it’s not fast enough he’ll just say it’s not fun to drive.

[u/sdoorex]

Every time I see it, I wish they would have gone with "trot, canter, gallop" for the driving modes instead of "active, whisper, and untamed/unbridled".

[u/nod51]

I skimmed through it and sad to see it is mainly compared to other BEV so much and in this reviewers opinion is not as good, or at least too different, as the ICEV. It is a BEV review so it belongs in this subreddit.

[u/protovack]

I didn't know he had a mustang GT. It's funny, looking at his yellow mustang, he refers to it as a "dinosaur" and he's absolutely right! That thing looks so old, even though its from the current generation of mustang. The proportions just look archaic already.

We all know the whole "mustang" thing is pure marketing, but I think when the GT arrives people will change their tune a bit. Plus its pretty obvious that there will be an electric mustang coupe at some point as well. I don't think there's going to be a shortage of quick good handling EVs in all body configurations in the future.

For now, we have limited options, and the Mustang Mach-E is among the best of those limited options. I really want one. I'd get a premium ER RWD in red, or grabber blue if they offered it in the premium trim. Wish they had rally green.