12 Reasons Why The Ford Mustang Mach E Will Be A Huge Hit

12 Reasons Why The Ford Mustang Mach E Will Be A Huge Hit

200 was a lost sale of an iPhone. No, Android hasn鈥檛 killed the iPhone, it has greatly expanded the market for smartphones to people who either can鈥檛 afford or don鈥檛 want an iPhone. As Steve Hanley covered about 6 months ago, 1 in 5 Americans plan to buy an electric car as their next car! So, why do EVs have a 1% market share instead of 20%? I鈥檒l start off with my history with the Ford Mustang. My father bought a 1964 Ford Mustang the same year I was born. Growing up, I remember him driving it on snowy roads and showing me the fun of oversteer. Once when I was 5 we got stuck in a ditch (in rural Iowa) because the car spun out. We had to find a farmer with a tractor to pull us out. I also remember the danger of no safety belts. My father was having something repaired and the car had no passenger seat. I was sitting in the back with no belt (I鈥檓 pretty sure cars didn鈥檛 have rear belts, but if they did, nobody used them in those days).

My father stopped suddenly and I flew into the dash. I caught myself with my nose and bled all over for a few minutes. 1. The name. Ford gave this car 3 of the most valuable trademarks it owns. The Mustang name has huge emotional value to 55 years of fans. I鈥檓 less familiar with the Mach name, but it appears it was a highly respected performance package for the Ford Mustang (but not as expensive as the Shelby Mustangs). The Model E trademark was filed by Ford in 2013 and prevented Tesla from using it to spell S-E-X with its first 3 vehicles. The Mustang name has by far the most value and the fact that Ford is willing to use this valuable asset on an electric car speaks volumes. If this car wasn鈥檛 awesome, it would hugely dilute Ford鈥檚 Mustang brand, so I expect Ford to do everything in its power to ensure this car is successful.

2. It will be advertised by both Ford and its dealers. Now, we don鈥檛 know how much, but this will help the car reach buyers who watch TV and get their cues from it. 3. It will be sold by dealers close to you. According to Statista, Ford has around 3,000 dealers around the United States, vs. Tesla having only about 100. In rural areas like I grew up in, this makes a huge difference. There are 3 Ford dealerships within 20 miles of my small hometown (population of 1,598). The nearest Tesla showroom and service center is 183 miles away in Minneapolis. This will make a big difference in many rural areas. It adds a lot of risk to the buying experience if you are 3 hours from the nearest service center. On the other hand, Ford has its work cut out for itself in training this dealer network. 4. The car isn鈥檛 ugly.

It might be a little early to say that, but I can tell from the teaser images that it鈥檚 going to be reasonably good looking. Many automakers have greatly hurt their EVs鈥?sales potential because they were designed to look different to attract the environmentally aware consumer looking to show everyone how 鈥済reen鈥?they are. This strategy worked very well for Toyota and its Prius 10 to 20 years ago, but is now obsolete. Now you just want to design your car to look good to 鈥渞egular鈥?people. 5. It鈥檚 not slow. Somewhere in the 2000s, manufacturers got the idea that EVs should be slow and boring (maybe from the Prius). Most of these cars focused on fuel economy instead of providing the one-two punch of fast acceleration and efficiency. I don鈥檛 have access to exact figures, but zero to 60 times should be similar to the Tesla Model 3. Somewhere around 5 seconds for the cheaper models and somewhere around 3 seconds for the higher priced cars.