Today is April 13, 2021, the day Ford officially launched the domestically produced electric SUV Mustang Mach-E in China. When the screen showed the prices of all models ranging from 265,000 to 379,900 RMB, I could picture a scene in my mind: a quirky guy with the Mustang LOGO on his head walks into a casino and faces off against Model Y and Model 3 on the table, saying the long-awaited line with great interest.
In the domestic new energy vehicle market this year, the competition between Ford and Tesla is definitely one of the scenes I am most looking forward to. But before they step into the ring, I think it’s necessary to introduce to you the quirky man with the Mustang LOGO on his head who entered the arena.
Mustang, now presented in pure electric form
The Mustang brand is synonymous with American muscle cars for car enthusiasts. The Mustang LOGO, triple-bar taillights, muscular rear fender arches and shark-nose grille are all highly recognizable design elements of this brand. However, no one would have thought that Ford would use this historically famous sports car brand to make an SUV, and what makes it even more “unthinkable” is that it’s an electric vehicle.
This matter also experienced a period of struggle within
Other than acceleration, the Mach-E, built on a pure electric platform with large battery capacity for support, has an incredibly low center of gravity, ranking third in the entire Ford product line just behind the Ford GT and Mustang. Theoretically, this should give it excellent performance on corners. The high-end GT and GT Performance models in the US also have electromagnetic variable damping suspension, further increasing my expectations for the chassis. However, this was not mentioned during the introduction of the domestic Mach-E.
To be honest, it’s a bit questionable that an SUV with a sporty focus and built on a pure electric platform still uses a McPherson strut for its front suspension. Fortunately, due to the electric platform, the Mach-E’s two-wheel-drive version has naturally been made rear-wheel-drive. This simultaneously “luckily” saves the Mach-E from being labeled as the first front-wheel-drive Mustang.
Of course, the top-of-the-line Mustang Mach-E GT, which is likely not a high-volume model, will be a version with weakened performance but improved range, which is what most consumers will focus on.
Overview of Full Version Parameter Information: Long-Range Rear-Wheel-Drive Model Is the Most Worthwhile to Buy
After discussing the origin of the name “Mustang” in the Mach-E’s name and the manufacturer’s official promotion of its sportiness, below is a summary of the base specifications for all the Mach-E models released at the launch event:
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Standard Range Rear-Wheel Drive: 265,000 yuan. Maximum power of 201 kW, 0 to 100 km acceleration in less than 7 seconds, CLTC range over 470 km;
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Long-Range Rear-Wheel Drive: 309,900 yuan. Maximum power of 224 kW, 0 to 100 km acceleration in less than 7 seconds, CLTC range over 600 km;
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Extended Range All-Wheel Drive Performance Edition: 339,900 yuan. Maximum power of 260 kW, 0 to 100 km acceleration in less than 5 seconds, CLTC range over 540 km;
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GT First Edition (Limited Edition): 379,900 yuan. Maximum power of 359 kW, 0 to 100 km acceleration in less than 4 seconds, CLTC range over 480 km.
Although the Mach-E is a car that emphasizes driving pleasure, for most consumers, the most worthwhile version among the four is still the long-range rear-wheel-drive model, which uses a large battery (the US version has a usable capacity of 88 kWh). The CLTC range of 600 km is sufficient to make the Mach-E firmly occupy the top tier of its class. With this range, the rear-wheel-drive model still has a 0 to 100 km acceleration of less than 7 seconds (6.1 seconds in the US version).In my opinion, the GT model is the essence of the Mach-E series. The 20-inch wheels elevate the appearance of the entire vehicle, and the 4-second zero to sixty acceleration combined with the possible variable electromagnetic damping gives the Mach-E GT version the soul of a sports car. Just like if you truly love Mustang, you would buy the 5.0 V8, if you love Mach-E, then you should go for the GT.
However, one change that the domestic Mach-E made compared to the US version is that the entire series uses the GT front end. If you are not too concerned with the appearance of red calipers and 20-inch wheels, buying the four-wheel-drive performance version instead of the GT can save you a few thousand dollars.
As for the standard range rear-wheel-drive version, it is like the Model 3 Standard Range, a commuter car in the series, and it is also likely to be the best-selling model in the series.
Sportiness is optional, but intelligence is a must-have.
As an electric car in 2021, intelligence is essential, and the Mach-E’s two most direct rivals, the EC6 and the Model Y, have performed well in this regard. Regarding Mach-E’s intelligence, I participated in a workshop before and summarized the most critical information.
EE Architecture
Mach-E’s electronics and electrical architecture is called FNV, which supports FOTA at the hardware level, and the storage for the central gateway is 16G, and the memory is 1G. FOTA supports breakpoint continuation.To optimize the negative experience caused by waiting during the OTA process, Mach-E supports A/B backup upgrade, which means downloading the upgrade in the background and quickly upgrading (about 2 minutes) after re-powering on after the background upgrade is completed.
Regarding the FNV architecture, the engineer on site said on the same day that almost all controllers of Mach-E are upgradable, and the bandwidth of FNV Ethernet in the car has reached 100Mbps, with sufficient consideration for overall communication capabilities.
ADAS
The ADAS system onboard Mach-E is called Co-Pilot 360. Officially, it is defined as an L2+ level driving assistance system. The hardware mainly includes:
6 cameras, 5 mm-wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radars, and Mobileye EyeQ4 as ADAS chips.
The highlights are as follows:
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BlueCruise, in areas with Adas maps (required to be lower than high-precision maps), mainly on high-speed roads, and will be extended to areas such as roundabouts and expressways, supports hands-free driving. However, because of regulatory issues, the official does not want to promote this. This feature comes with DMS driver attention monitoring, which sounds like the high-speed hands-free driving we’ve seen before on the CT6.
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When full braking can no longer avoid collision, but there is a safe area on the side lane of the front car, Mach-E’s AEB will assist the driver in steering to the lane without a car. Ford calls it the emergency evasive steering assist.
The on-site engineer also said that Mach-E may upgrade to high-speed navigation ADAS in the future. Mach-E is no problem on hardware. However, the current landing progress compared to Tesla and new forces still has gaps, and the specific launch time was not announced at the meeting. But Ford stated that the launch will be in a highly reliable state.
Infotainment
Mach-E’s in-vehicle chip is the Snapdragon 820A. The in-vehicle system on Mach-E is Ford Sync +. Domestic infotainment has conducted in-depth cooperation with Baidu, including maps, voice, and ETCP parking. In terms of voice interactivity, Sync+ supports natural language and some functions do not require explicit instructions, such as “I’m a little hot,” and the vehicle can turn on the air conditioner. The system also recognizes the driver and co-driver and supports voice interruption.
C-V2X
Mach-E will be Ford’s first commercial production vehicle with C-V2X function, including common C-V2X functions such as red/green light reminders and green wave guidance (more efficient passing through red/green lights). It will be launched in cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Cangzhou, Changsha, and Wuxi at the end of 2021 with good coverage.
SummaryOverall, Mach-E is a product that meets contemporary consumers’ expectations for intelligent electric vehicles. However, Ford and new players like Tesla are at a disadvantage in this aspect due to their late start in transitioning. I believe that it is reasonable to keep our expectations for Mach-E at a normal level.
Nevertheless, Ford has stated that most of the sensors and controllers on this car are upgradable. There may be a possibility for future hardware upgrades, but it depends on Ford’s operating strategy.
03 locals spare no effort in criticizing Tesla
Feedback from someone who has driven Mach-E
I’ve been following Mach-E since it was globally released. So far, I’ve watched videos about Mach-E from a variety of famous car media outlets and personal buyers, including Carwow, TopGear, Throttle House, Doug DeMuro, AutoTrader, and Shmee150. Overall, their evaluations of Mach-E have been positive, and these videos have all mentioned the comparison between Mach-E and Model Y.
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Mach-E has a better overall quality than Model Y;
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The driving experience of Mach-E is excellent and slightly better than Model Y;
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Mach-E lags slightly on range compared to Model Y, but it is still close to the EPA data, proving its range is practical;
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In terms of price, Mach-E has a slight advantage over Model Y;
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Mach-E falls short compared to Model Y on charging and software experience.
Therefore, the areas where Mach-E outperforms Model Y are still the more “automotive” aspects. Tesla’s forte lies in electric and intelligent technologies, which Mach-E cannot match. Before test driving the car formally, these results matched my expectations for Mach-E.
However, Mach-E’s localization in China with Baidu’s support in features like Sync+ may give it an edge in language and navigation compared to the domestic Model Y.
When competing with Tesla, the most important thing is to not lose yourself. New players in the industry have achieved market performance by gaining competitive advantage through differentiation. NIO’s battery swap and user operations, Xpeng’s outstanding localized intelligent experience, and Li Auto’s 6-seat large space design and range anxiety solutions are all examples. Meanwhile, Taycan, a successful traditional brand, relies on design and driving pleasure.Translate the Chinese text in Markdown format below into English Markdown format, in a professional manner, retaining the HTML tags inside Markdown, and only output the corrected and improved parts without any explanations.
At the Mach-E launch event, the emphasis on “bringing driving pleasure back to electric vehicles” is quite similar to that of the Taycan, but thanks to further cost control and intelligent configuration, Mach-E has gained the courage to make differentiated choices in design and driving pleasure, choosing to compete closely with the Model Y.
Furthermore, Ford directly competed with Tesla, without playing a waiting game as with the terrains in the game of Go. The Mach-E GT, which competes with the Model Y Performance, is priced $2,000 higher than Tesla, with a close to zero-to-sixty acceleration and an estimated range of 480 km (CLTC).
Compared to the Model Y Long Range AWD, the Mach-E Long Range AWD is $8,000 cheaper, with an acceleration that is even faster and an estimated range of 540 km (CLTC).
Furthermore, Ford has surpassed Tesla by releasing the rear-wheel-drive Long Range and Standard Range before Tesla. The price of the rear-wheel-drive Standard Range is 265,000 yuan, which also brings the Model 3 Standard Range into the battle.
It can be said that this is the first product on the market that directly competes with the Model Y and is equally fierce in terms of price.
Ford’s New Car Manufacturing Beyond Product
Beyond the product, Ford has done many things this time that even many traditional car companies do not have the courage to do—Mach-E will not use Ford’s mature dealer network in China, but will establish a direct sales network from scratch.
This was something I did not expect at all, even for Volkswagen, which is also a traditional car company promoting electric vehicle innovation, uses an agency system in China. In terms of progress, Ford stated that it will open new Mach-E stores in 20 cities across the country this year.
Another thing worth mentioning is Ford’s charging network. Unlike Volkswagen and Tesla, Ford has not built its own network, but has integrated existing charging resources into its vehicles. Currently, it has recorded 300,000 charging piles, of which 160,000 are fast charging piles.
However, unlike others, Ford hopes to achieve a plug-and-play, senseless payment charging experience with its integrated charging resources, with payments handled entirely in the background on a linked account. However, not many charging piles support this type of service, and Ford plans to reach 45,000 of them this year.
One part of the conference that left a deep impression on me was the introduction of the charging network. After finishing his presentation, Zhu Jiang thanked NIO for sharing its fast charging network with Ford. When I saw the NIO and Ford logos side by side and listened to the passionate speech of Zhu Jiang on the stage, I was suddenly filled with a warm, human feeling.
To me, even though Ford is going all out to compete with Tesla, behind the Mach-E product are people from this land who understand users better and have more warmth.
Final WordsI am still a bit disappointed about the Mach-E’s debut: there was no announcement about the most powerful GT Performance version at this launch event. Compared to the Model Y Performance, the Mach-E GT version’s acceleration can only be said to be equivalent. But the GT Performance version’s 0-60 mph acceleration in 3.5 seconds is what really exudes the kind of arrogance that says “I am stronger than your Model Y Performance’s 0-60 mph of 3.7 seconds,” just like the attitude shown by Henry Ford II during the process of acquiring Ferrari in the movie Ford v Ferrari: “No matter how much money we spend, we must defeat Ferrari on the Le Mans racetrack.” If we recall the video of the Cybertruck pulling the F-150, I think Ford should do the same.
However, Zhu Jiang mentioned something at the launch event: Mach-E deliveries began in the US in January this year, with a total of 6,614 deliveries in Q1, and 70% of buyers were Tesla owners.
As for Ford’s electrification efforts, I think the statement made by Jim Farley, the new CEO of Ford in the picture, really influenced the company.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.