We road trip in the Ford Mustang Mach-E to find out if it's a capable EV. Turns out, it's among the best EVs you can buy today.
insideevs.com
Tesla advantages are software, updates and charging infrastructure. Ford advantages are lots of service centers to get help, and hardware build quality. Can't get locked out etc since ford's use a B pillar combo lock to gain entry.
If charging infrastructure improves alot over time it will help Ford and the ev industry overall most.
I think cost will still matter most to the masses with the EV push though.
I hate reviews like this and how they are written, but I'm always curious about efficiency, just as a means of comparing technology and aerodynamics. Since I'm obsessed.
This was a RWD vehicle, so I guess the closest comparison would be a Model 3 RWD (not really equivalent, but close...will compare to Model Y too)?
So the Mach-E has a (nominal) 88kWh (usable) battery (it's 98.8kWh, so that presumably may mean that some degradation is hidden over time, depending on the implementation details and how they allocate that excess 10.8kWh).
In EPA testing it took 104kWh AC to charge that 88kWh (compare to 89kWh AC for the 79kWh Model 3 RWD battery - same for Model Y). So a bit worse charging efficiency for the Mach-E, but it's unclear how "real" that is since we don't know how much of the Mach-E battery is ACTUALLY usable - maybe it's actually 90kWh.
In this test the Mach-E got ~280Wh/mi roundtrip efficiency. So effective (avg roundtrip) range was about 315 miles.
Overall, I'm sure a Model 3 RWD (which no longer exist of course) would get a lot better efficiency for this trip. I'm not sure how the 2021 AWD Model Y would do; I think it would do a little better (after correcting for the correction factors, raw highway cycle efficiency for the two vehicles are 221Wh/mi for the Model Y, and 261Wh/mi for this Mustang). So I'd guess the Model Y would probably get about 250Wh/mi (round trip) on this trip. (But it's just a guess - I couldn't find an equivalent Model Y test.)
However, they'd be tight on getting into Tahoe in a Model Y, and they might decide they couldn't make it (though they definitely could in the same conditions!) - significant uphill to deal with (and a high pass close to the destination which is problematic due to limited energy storage) - they'd probably be getting ~310Wh/mi on the way up, which means just 239 miles to 0% (77.8kWh/310Wh/mi*0.955). For a 228-mile drive I could see them bailing, not wanting to arrive at 2-3% (which is really 6-7%).
Anyway, I'd guess the Model Y with AWD is about 10% more efficient than the Mach-E RWD, but with the capacity differences, the range is probably roughly equivalent. And that's not accounting for heat pump differences; I've removed their effect from the comparison (the Mach-E does not have a heat pump). That's still a pretty decent gap in efficiency, and I wonder whether this guess is correct and how real-world results would play out. Obviously the gap is larger when comparing to the AWD Mach-E (8% higher energy use).
As a competitive analysis: My overall impression is that Tesla still holds a pretty significant efficiency advantage, though I'd like to see more real-world, preferably side-by-side, comparisons. Someone should get together with a buddy with a Mach-E and do a road trip together with their Model Y!
However, depending on the way they deal with capacity loss, the Mach-E might show less degradation in range than a Tesla over time (maybe just a couple %, as compared to the fairly common 5-10% in a Tesla).
This was funny: I guess that is arguably accurate for around town driving, but not for a road trip...
"But something was up because even though the SOC was 100%, the estimated range was only 180 miles.
That evening the low temperature at Tahoe was 10˚F, but by the time we were ready to go the next morning, it had risen to 21˚ but the estimated range was still estimated at 180 miles. What was going on here? Would we be able to make it back on one charge even going downhill? For the downhill run, we chose the “Engage” or Economy drive mode.
The “Where did my energy go?” screen on the Mach-E gave us a clue to this situation. The estimation of battery usage had allocated 57 percent of the battery to climate use given it was so cold in Tahoe and 43 percent to the route."