Ford’s New Mustang Mach-E Owes a Lot to Tesla
My ride in the company’s latest electric car
Among those of us who cover the auto industry, one of the biggest annoyances is a press release and presentation about a vehicle that is “all new” or “first ever.” But every once in a while, a vehicle rolls out that actually qualifies as both all new and the first ever, and the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E is just such a unicorn.
In the 117 years since the Ford Motor Company started building vehicles, it has never produced a fully battery electric vehicle designed that way from the ground up. In the nearly 57 years since the Mustang debuted, the company’s cars have all been coupes or convertibles with internal combustion engines mounted up front, driving the rear wheels.
Not anymore.
Ford has previously produced three battery electric vehicles: a Ranger pickup in the 1990s and a Transit Connect and Focus in the early 2010s. All were conversions of existing products with batteries shoehorned into places they were never intended to be. The bestselling model of the trio was the Focus Electric, which wasn’t even developed by Ford, but was instead adopted from supplier Magna to fulfill a commitment made during the period following the great recession.
