Why we’re running it: To see if the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric SUV is worthy of the famous Mustang name and, more importantly, if it augurs positively for Ford’s future
Month 7 - Month 6 - Month 5 - Month 4 - Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs
Life with a Ford Mustang Mach-E: Month 7
The electronic hiccups just won’t go away and it’s alarming - 25 November
I've been enduring a dramatic start to every journey recently, with a red alert flashing on the dash to warn me of an unspecified door failure being accompanied by a dramatic three-bongs-and-it's-gone audible caution.
Despite there being no evidence of an issue - and plenty of evidence of the Mustang throwing electronic glitches regularly - I'm going to have to get it checked out if only to extend my life expectancy. I just can't get used to it, and my heart skips a beat every time the warning tune sounds the alarm.
What it has done is get me thinking about quirky - some may say weird - the decision to embed a combination lock in the door frame, an alternative route for accessing and locking the car instead of walking up to or away from it with the key in your pocket.
When I first had the Mach-E, I quite enjoyed what was an obvious conversation point. The numbers are discreetly designed into the door until you get up close and only really noticeable when it illuminates. It gives the car a bit of digital je ne sais quois, and all with a little more sophistication than Tesla's in-build electronic whoopee cushion.
But have I used them for their intended purpose? Once When I was having a play, but thereafter no, never. For me, they are an answer to a question I have never asked, although if I were a keener sufferer or paddle boarder - the type beloved by SUV marketers - I might find it useful to leave the key in the car, safe from an inevitable dunking or perilously being shoved under a towel, while I indulged my active water-based hobby.
Feels a bit niche, right? Especially when the key does all the same functions for approximately half the effort. Although I do worry that attitude is coloured by the time my then toddler son was holding some blipper-style car keys when I strapped him into his child seat and he promptly locked the car a nano-second after I'd shut his door. Ever tried coaching an 18-month-old how to use something electronic through a closed window while your wife yells at you? It's not a risk you want to take twice.
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Then to put it in a poor riding, not so appealing car.... what were they thinking???
I'd get that price right Autocar, Ford are just not cabable of building a family BEV for under 50k, how the mighty have fallen in Europe