Ford Mustang Mach E Unveiled As Electric That Will Make Profit

Ford Mustang Mach E Unveiled As Electric That Will Make Profit

Ford Motor Co. is reinventing one of its marquee models 鈥?the Mustang muscle car 鈥?as a battery-powered crossover to become a player in the electric-vehicle market that is expected to take off in the coming decade. In a splashy ceremony Sunday ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show, the carmaker unveiled the Mustang Mach-E, a swoopy hatchback with distinctive pony-car haunches and familiar shark nose that it claims has the power to take on Porsche. When it goes on sale next fall, Ford hopes to convince mainstream buyers its electrified Mustang is an alternative to the Tesla models dominating the EV market. Electrics have not had a history of making money. And Ford, which exited the battery-car business last year when it pulled the plug on its slow-selling Focus EV, is betting it鈥檚 cracked the code on turning a profit on plug-ins. 43,895, the automaker says it will avoid the losses automakers typically suffer selling high-cost EVs. The company is even considering making the car in China, depending on how the trade war plays out, Ford Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett told Bloomberg News.

The Mach-E will make a profit 鈥渙n vehicle one,鈥?he said in a Bloomberg TV interview. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 surprising a lot of people because electrics have not had a history of making money. 30,000 when U.S. subsides on electric cars are factored in. Ford is building it in Mexico because it had an open factory there and it needed to be overhauled to build an electric vehicle, Hackett said. 鈥淎s we start to adopt more electric vehicles 鈥?we had capacity down there, we had no capacity in the United States 鈥?we鈥檙e going to have electric capacity here in the United States. Still, it鈥檚 a high-risk gambit. The Mustang is Ford鈥檚 signature sports car, having sold more than 10 million units since it debuted in 1964 with simultaneous cover stories in Time and Newsweek. When Ford decided to abandon the traditional passenger-car business last year, it spared only one model: The Mustang. For more than half a century, the Mustang has embodied high-octane power and unbridled strength. And Ford will continue to make gasoline-fuelled versions of the classic muscle car.

The Mach-E is not only the first electric version of the Mustang, it鈥檚 also the first time it has been configured into a sport utility vehicle. That will test the elasticity of a brand built on low-slung speedsters. 鈥淐alling this a true sports car would be stretching it,鈥?said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for researcher LMC Automotive. 鈥淭he market obviously has gone in the direction of the SUV body type, that鈥檚 what鈥檚 selling. But the Mustang is not an SUV. Ford, having struggled to sell more mundane electric cars, is embarking on a strategy to electrify its icons, starting with the Mustang and following quickly thereafter with a plug-in version of its top-selling F-150 pickup. 鈥淲e changed our whole strategy two years ago,鈥?Ted Cannis, Ford鈥檚 global head of electrification, said at a briefing on the Mach-E at the company鈥檚 design studios in Dearborn, Michigan. Regulations to curb emissions will drive demand for electric vehicles over the next decade, especially in China, the world鈥檚 largest auto market. In the U.S., where President Donald Trump has eased fuel economy rules, EV growth will be slower, but still strong.

Sales of battery-powered vehicles will quadruple by 2025 to 809,537 models, accounting for 4.8 per cent of the U.S. 1.3 per cent now, according to LMC Automotive. New electric offerings will mushroom to 110 choices in the U.S. 19 now, LMC predicts. Standing out in such a crowded field will be difficult, especially for Ford, which ranked fifth behind Toyota, Tesla, Honda and Nissan among consumers surveyed recently by CarGurus on which brand of electric vehicle they would consider buying. That鈥檚 a key reason Ford decided to affix the Mustang pony to the front of the Mach-E, which originally was conceived in 2017 as merely inspired by the sports car. But as Ford executives were shown design concepts by the small team working on the project, they kept asking for more Mustang influence. By early last year, the decision was made to call it a Mustang. 鈥淭his had massive implications,鈥?said Jason Castriota, brand director of battery-electric vehicles for Ford. That pressure was most acute on the engineers, who had to come up with a way to translate fossil-fuel fury into clean-running power from lithium-ion batteries. 鈥淲hen we realized we weren鈥檛 really doing a Mustang-inspired thing, we were doing a Mustang, the pressure ratcheted up,鈥?said Ron Heiser, the Mach-E鈥檚 chief engineer. Electric motors have some inherent advantages, such as immediate thrust. Heiser鈥檚 engineers placed them between the wheels fore and aft, which, combined with batteries configured like a skateboard beneath the car, create an even weight distribution. That allows the car to ride low and hug the road like a Mustang. Heiser says the base all-wheel-drive Mach-E can beat a Porsche Macan SUV from zero to 60 miles per hour, and he claims the 450-horsepower GT version comes 鈥渧ery, very close鈥?to a Porsche 911 GTS. For those who miss the roar of a big V8, he says the Mach-E will have tunable technology to create an 鈥渁uthentic鈥?sound.