Ford Mustang Mach-E test drive: An entirely different pony

The Mustang Mach-E is the first fully electric passenger vehicle to arrive in Australia from the US car giant Ford. While it shares the Mustang name and design cues with petrol powered Mustang coupés, the Mach-E is an entirely different pony.

The Mach-E is an electric SUV built from the ground up on a dedicated EV platform, which delivers features such as the spacious interior with flat rear floor and a generous frunk (front trunk).

During a test-driving event on the Gold Coast in September, Ford shared a fun little detail with the media that can be found on the Mustang Mach-E: The electric motor housing has the words “Electric ponies live here” cast on the outside.

The Mach-E is interesting in the context of Ford’s struggles to manage its legacy car business and grow EVs. Ford is hedging its bets and will continue selling petrol powered Mustang coupés for the foreseeable future. Legacy automakers like Ford need to keep their profitable ICE business going because they still don’t know how to make as much money out of EVs.

The Mustang Mach-E is not cheap though. The Select variant starts from $79,990, before on-road costs, and offers up to 470 km of WLTP driving range from its 71 kWh usable capacity LFP-based battery.

The top of the range GT starts at $107,665, again before on roads, and would be overkill for most people, but is a great high performance EV for those who want them.

Full pricing and detailed specifications for Mach-E Select, Premium and GT variants can be found in the table at the end of this article.

Exterior design and storage

The rear of the Mustang Mach-E features those same iconic three vertical taillights that started with the original 1964 Mustang coupé, but the Mach-E is a four door SUV with plenty of space for a family. Die hard Mustang fans may not like the Mach-E, but I think it’s a good looking car in isolation.

There are subtle exterior differences to the Select and Premium variants so you can tell them apart if you know what to look for, but the most noticeable difference comes with the GT.

The body colour front grilles on Select and Premium are replaced by a black coloured fake grille on the GT. The GT also features more aggressive aerodynamics such as the air curtains to decrease drag caused by the front wheels.

One of the benefits for manufacturers designing cars with dedicated EV platforms is the ability to make the most of packaging. This is most noticeable with the generous 134 L frunk found across all variants of the Mach-E including the all-wheel drive GT. 

The Mach-E frunk also features drainage holes which is a unique feature I wish my Model 3 had, as we often throw wetsuits and towels in our frunk after a trip to the beach.

In what I presume is a carryover from left-hand drive markets, the physical frunk release lever is located on the passenger side footwell rather than driver’s side. However, drivers can also open the frunk via the central touchscreen.

Exterior door handles are another area where EV manufacturers like to optimise design to reduce aerodynamic drag and improve range.

On the Mach-E Ford has replaced traditional door handles with little round buttons which pop out the door several centimetres. You then grab onto a little winglet on the front door or the frame of the rear door to open them wider and get inside.

I found the door buttons a little awkward to use at first and I’m sure Mach-E owners will need to explain them whenever new people are riding in their cars. As an owner you would get used to them fairly quickly though.

Interior and infotainment

Ford has obviously put a lot of effort into the interior of the Mustang Mach-E, as it feels spacious and premium as well as being very quiet on the road. Interior specifications and infotainment features are very consistent across the whole Mach-E range so you don’t need to go for the Premium or GT to get the best options. 

Key features like the panoramic glass roof and 10-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system are standard on all Mach-E variants. Multi-colour ambient LED lighting is the only thing missing from the base Select variant, which isn’t a big omission. The glass roof has a low emissivity or Low-E coating to minimise heat build up in the cabin while still allowing visible light through.

There is loads of storage space for small items throughout the centre console, front and rear door bins and back of seat pockets for the rear passengers. Passengers in the back should also be pretty comfortable with rear air vents, USB-A and USB-C charging ports, a folding centre armrest with cup-holders and a great view out of the glass roof. 

The car audio sounded great to me as I tested out my favourite tunes, definitely in the same league as other premium sound systems I’ve spent significant time with such as Tesla’s Premium sound and Polestar 2’s Harmon Kardon system from the Plus Pack.

Seats throughout the Mach-E range are made from Ford’s Sensico artificial leather and they felt comfortable and nice to touch. The front seats are fully electric and can be heated as well if you’re cold. 

Moving on to the infotainment system in the Mach-E, it comprises a 10.2 inch digital instrument cluster and a 15.5 inch portrait mounted central touchscreen. There is a huge amount of customisation available if you dive into the settings. For example, you can even change things like how energy usage is displayed from kWh/100km to km/kWh. 

Customisation aside, the touchscreen was responsive and fairly intuitive to use with easy shortcuts available to navigate between the home screen, car settings, audio and so on. The  instrument cluster shows key driving information such as current speed and detected speed limit, next turn information while navigating and cruise control settings if enabled.

If you prefer smartphone mirroring, the Mach-E supports wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There is also built in mobile connectivity to enable features like over the air updates.

Overall it’s hard to find any negatives from the inside of the Mustang Mach-E. If anything, I felt the central touchscreen was mounted slightly too upright for my liking. In other words, the bottom of the screen where the volume knob sits is slightly hard to see or reach at times, but this feels like nitpicking.

Driving experience

I had the opportunity to drive both the Select and Premium variants on the road as well as the top-spec GT on the skidpan and racetrack at Norwell Motorplex. The road testing loop while I was driving the Select included beautiful scenery and twisty roads winding up and down Tamborine Mountain.

In my time behind the wheel I found even the base model Select with rear-wheel drive felt powerful, handled very well and was loads of fun to drive. When I was stuck behind a car towing a trailer up the mountain, I had no hesitation and it felt effortless to overtake when a brief opportunity arose on a straight piece of road. 

The Premium felt very similar to the Select, the main upgrades being an extra 130 km driving range and slightly more power. Interestingly, even though the Premium has 23 kWh more batteries on board, it is 6 kg lighter than the Select due to much higher energy density from the nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) extended range battery.

Back at the racetrack, the Mach-E GT impressed me with huge amounts of grip from its 50:50 balanced all-wheel drive system, upgraded MagneRide dampers and double the torque of the rear-wheel drive variants. I think the GT would be overkill for most people, but if you want a high performance EV then this car should be on your shortlist to test drive.

One of the other upgrades you get in the GT are Ford Performance sports seats. However, I completely forgot to pay attention to how the seats felt in the GT as I was having so much fun on the racetrack and sliding around the skidpan.

I don’t remember moving about in the seat at all, so that’s a good sign they must provide ample support when you’re pushing the car to its limits.

Under normal driving conditions, I found the Mustang Mach-E was smooth to drive and preferred the full one pedal drive mode which can also hold you still once stopped.

If you’re new to an EV or prefer to coast along, both one pedal drive and/or hold mode can be disabled separately via on screen settings.

All Mach-E variants come with Whisper, Active and Untamed drive modes. Whisper, Active and Untamed modes are akin to eco, normal and sport modes found on most cars and adjust both acceleration and steering response in the Mach-E. The GT also features an Untamed Plus mode, which contrary to the name actually reduces power slightly to maintain drivetrain temperatures for more consistent performance during a track session. 

On the busy M1 motorway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast I tested out the adaptive cruise control and lane centering system. The Mach-E had no issues adjusting its pace with the surrounding traffic and kept well to the middle of the lane. The digital dash also features a nice visualisation of the car and its surrounds to help you maintain a safe following distance even when cruise control is not enabled.

In terms of efficiency, I didn’t get a chance to measure this myself during the launch but from what I’ve seen in overseas reviews the consensus is that Ford’s real world range calculations displayed on the dash are very accurate or even slightly pessimistic. This helps to alleviate range anxiety as you’re not watching range disappear faster than the distance travelled.

Charging and ownership

When it comes to charging, maximum speeds are the same for all Mach-E variants with 150 kW DC and 10.5 kW AC. Note that the car only comes with a mode 3 type-2 cable so you’ll need to ensure you have a portable EVSE, wallbox or public charging plan sorted out before you take delivery.

The charge port on the Mach-E is located near the front of the vehicle on the passenger side, which is good for kerbside chargers but could be awkward at some DC fast chargers such as Tesla Superchargers with short cables. State of charge can be seen while charging in 20% increments via LEDs around the charge port unlock button.

Built-in navigation includes proper EV trip planning with detailed information on charging stops along the route, showing estimated charging time and arrival and departure state of charge. Ford also confirmed the system will avoid broken or unavailable chargers but does not consider how busy a particular station may be when generating a route.

Servicing intervals for the Mustang Mach-E are every 12 months or 15,000 km and should be fairly easy to schedule given how many Ford dealerships there are. Warranty for the Mach-E is fairly standard at 5 years and unlimited km for the vehicle and 8 years or 160,000 km for the high voltage battery pack.

Conclusions

Overall the Mustang Mach-E is a very solid and well built EV that I found hard to fault in any meaningful way. The Mach-E range does start with a reasonably high price tag, but the fit and finish of the vehicle as well as included features across the range make it a worthy contender against other EVs in this category.

People will naturally compare the Mach-E with a Tesla Model Y because they’re both electric SUVs, although Ford says they’re not trying to compete directly with Tesla. I think the Mach-E is much more of a driver’s car than the Model Y, especially when comparing both in rear-wheel drive form.

The petrol Ford Mustang has consistently been Australia’s best selling sports car in recent years, time will tell if Ford can replicate that kind of success with the Mach-E. Initial customer deliveries of Mach-E will begin in December this year so you will start seeing them on the road very soon. 

Detailed specifications for the Mach-E range are below.