Living with the Mach-E GT
Review by Jacob Lerklint.
Ford’s first electric car, the Mustang Mach-E has been in production for over a year now with massive success in sales. I have spent several thousands of kilometers in the Mach E with the big battery and overall it is a terrific car with good range. The only thing missing with the Mach E was the performance and was a rather melancholy experience behind the wheel. Well, there might be a way to solve that with the car I have spent the last couple of days in. The all new Ford Mustang Mach E GT. No, it doesn’t have a big lumping V8 motor, but it has 120hp more than the regular Mach E and a new exciting drive mode.
The new Ford Mustang Mach E GT comes with the same 88,8kwh battery, and two electric motors like the long range car; one in the back and one at the front but this time there is 120hp more bumping the total up to 480hp and an impressive 860nm of torque.
Zero to 100kmh now comes in at 3,7 seconds. The car has got a new fascia and wider arches to get that sportier look and in this cyber orange color it looks good! Especially with the new 20 inch rims. One of the bigger changes with the Mach E GT is that it now comes with the Magnaride 2 adjustable suspension instead of the fixed setup on the normal Mach E. Interior looks largely the same and still comes with the enormous portrait 15.5 inch infotainment screen. The only noticeable change is the hugely bolstered sport seats.
Just cruising around the Mach E GT doesn’t feel too dissimilar to the normal Mach E, it still is very easy to drive, especially with the one pedal driving mode. The new sport seats are heavily bolstered but they lack some adjustments to feel perfectly comfortable. With the Mach E GT you get an additional driving mode on top of the standard three you get in the regular Mach E. The new drive mode is called untamed plus and is set up for a more spirited drive reducing the ESP making it slightly more tail happy. The driving conditions for my time with the Mach E GT were sub optimal with massive snow storms and zero grip at times, because of that reason I couldn’t really test the driving dynamics to the max.
My issue with the normal Mach E was the harsh ride and no option of adaptive dampers but with the GT version you get the adaptive Magnaride suspension. However, I can’t really say I felt any difference, it still is on the firm side of things. The Mach E GT is supposed to be the sportier version but unfortunately this is where the issues start. The zero to 100kmh is impressive coming in under 4 seconds but with 480hp you expect it to keep accelerating beyond 100kmh but for some reason it just gets extremely slow after said speed. I would even say long range Mach E felt faster beyond 100kmh and up. Another unfortunate mishap is the rear seats; they are rock solid and it feels very cramped even for me who isn’t taller than 173cm’s. You can’t even get heated rear seats as an option on the Mach E GT.
In the middle of testing the Mustang Mach E GT I was caught in a snowstorm and suddenly all the safety systems and most of the car's functions started to fail. I presumed the radar and the sensor were blocked but even after cleaning the car and letting it rest for a day the issues wouldn’t go away. I haven’t received any answer from Ford what the issues was but I can only hope that it is a bug that easily can be resolved with an update. The range is supposedly around 500km but with winter weather and temperatures below zero I managed around 320km of range which isn’t all that bad. I reckon you’d get 450km in the summer.
The normal Standard range and Long range Ford Mustang Mach E's are great family cars with a lot of advantages over other cars in its class but the “performance” Mach E GT is neither sporty or fun to drive compared to the regular Mach E. There is no way the Mach E GT justifies the 300 000sek premium over the normal Mach E. I would suggest you stick with the non performance variants.
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