Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
New pony in the stable: Ford has launched its first full battery-electric car, the Mustang Mach-E.
Diehard Mustang fans might want to close their eyes and block their ears, because there’s a new model in the line-up, and it doesn’t need petrol. Iconic design and legendary status meets battery-electric with the Mustang Mach-E.
IT’S AN IRREFUTABLE fact. The world of motoring is turning to electric-powered vehicles, and it’s not a moment too soon. There’s no going backwards to internal combustion systems – their days are numbered. You might argue that this fuel-burning technology will still be around for some time – global oil reserves are not yet depleted. And that’s true – something that will no doubt make a certain leader of the free world rather happy. But the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to global warming and climate degradation, so finding cleaner ways of propelling us from A to B must be a priority for the continuation of life as we know it. In short, it’s crucially important.
Step back for a moment and get some perspective on the bigger picture. The world is more than 4.5 billion years old, and humans have occupied only a minute blip in the chronological sequence of the planet’s existence. Within that blip, internal combustion technology – or the burning of fuel to drive machinery – occupies an infinitesimally small portion of time. But it’s that minuscule period of burning fossil fuels that’s had an almost irreversible effect on our ancient planet. That’s right – internal combustion engine technology isn’t even 150 years old, and yet its impact (along with other modern technologies and industries) has had a near catastrophic effect on the world’s natural systems. Every technological advancement, from here on out, ought to have offsetting greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability as guiding principles.
Consumers might not be aware, but the Mach-E isn’t Ford’s first modern-era vehicle to be powered by electricity. There are in fact already some 800 000 electrified Fords on the roads, including hybrids and plug-in hybrids – just, until now, no full battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). In the arena of global motor-manufacturing giants, it might seem as if Ford is a bit late to the BEV party, but in the grand scheme of things we’re still very much in the early adoption phase of this technology. Some vehicle brands took the plunge a few years ago, but Ford has now made one of the loudest statements in the EV realm, attaching its most celebrated model nameplate to its first full battery-electric vehicle. Love it or hate it – and I’ve certainly encountered many proponents in each corner – the Mustang herd now boasts an all-electric vehicle.
‘There are so many factors that are making the shift to electrification not a question of if, but a question of when,’ says
Hau Thai-Tang, chief product development officer for Ford Motor Company. Granted, the world is a very different place nowadays, but a brief glance back at Ford’s history gives us a new-found perspective on that statement, and it makes you wonder just how different things might’ve been if Ford’s founder, Henry Ford, had made a few different decisions at the outset. It’s interesting to discover that Mr Ford and his good friend Thomas Edison were already seriously considering electrification for cars more than 100 years ago. Accounts vary on why Ford’s first EV project was ultimately shelved. Some rumours – or conspiracies – mention the influence of oil cartels, while others suggest it was a major fire that destroyed the programme’s research and development facility and brought everything to a grinding halt. One report mentioned how Ford was only interested in fitting his cars with a particular battery that was developed by Edison, however, the battery turned out to be inadequate for the vehicle’s needs, and this prompted Ford to abandon the operation.
Whatever the reason, we all know how this story turned out – internal combustion became Ford’s and every other manufacturers’ focus, and for more than a century, petrol-powered engines have propelled the world’s vehicles. But now, so many years after it was initially considered, things are turning back to electrification, quickly.
It’s due to only reach customers later in 2020, at least in US and European markets, but the Mustang Mach-E is here. It’s
the culmination of years of intensive work, and I guess you could argue it’s actually been 56 years in the making, with the first Mustang having galloped on to the streets way back in 1964.
To prioritise this pivotal project, a handpicked group of 21 people dubbed ‘Team Edison’ was assembled at Ford, and given the mandate and freedom to think outside the box – like a startup – without the customary constraints that might come with developing a new car for a leading car company. The name of this group, as you can guess, harks back to the close friendship shared by Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, and is a tribute to the accomplishments, drive and visions of these great men. The team, comprising experts in the fields of design, engineering, software development, aerodynamics, marketing and more, were tasked with creating the first full battery-electric car for Ford. This car would have to be noticed through the existing (and future) crowd of BEVs, of which it is predicted there will be around 100 models in the US, 150 in Europe, and more than 350 in China by the year 2025. Even more importantly, whatever the team created needed to be worthy of wearing the Ford badge.
‘So how do you break through and get noticed by consumers?’ asked Ted Cannis – who is the enterprise product line director for global electrification at Ford, and head of strategy and business execution for Team Edison – at the global reveal of the Mustang Mach-E. ‘You can’t just be another zero-emissions vehicle. You have to do something special to break through all that design and marketing language to really create demand, and that’s what we spent a lot of our time thinking about.’ It’s a really interesting and important question for a brand like Ford. When you commit multiple billions of dollars to a new project, you want to be confident the end product will be noticed, and that people will want to buy it.
It’s undeniable that reducing the impact on the environment is the biggest driving force behind electrification technology for motoring brands. ‘We regard the climate issue as a truly global problem, and at Ford, with our electrification solutions, we believe we need to do our part,’ says Cannis. So Ford has stepped up and taken responsibility by investing heavily in electrification – some $11 billion by 2022. ‘Many consumers won’t decide to go electric, but many will – the so-called early adopters, and that’s who we’re targeting,’ continues Cannis. With the Mustang Mach-E, Ford intends having a product that these buyers will want to own.
But why, you might wonder, are we now looking at a Mustang Mach-E, and not a totally new nameplate for the brand? Why didn’t Ford just create a Mach-E, for argument’s sake, without any association to Mustang?
When Ford initiated the battery-electric vehicle programme, the intention was to do something completely new. ‘We got pretty far along to where we actually had a design theme developed,’ explains Thai-Tang. ‘But it was around 2017, when many of us started in different roles under our new CEO, James Hackett, that we used the opportunity to take a fresh-eyes look at what we’d started.’
The Team Edison initiative, Thai-Tang explains, was conceived to disrupt the status quo, the accepted way of thinking brought about through a 115-year legacy of building internal combustion engines. With their mandate they were able to look at the initiative from an external point of view, assessing where in the adoption curve we are with EV technology. Indicators from all global markets revealed we are still in the early adopter phase, meaning those who are opting to buy in are still very much the initial customers of the different brands. These people are different, they’re looking to make a statement, whether it’s political, emotional or technological within their social groups or peer groups. ‘Ted and the team also looked at the competitive landscape, to determine what would be
happening by the time Ford’s product would reach the market,’ says Thai-Tang.
All of these factors challenged the role players at Ford to look at the initial direction they were headed with their EV project, and they realised it wasn’t differentiated enough, it wasn’t compelling, and without the Ford oval on the front it could’ve been anyone’s product. ‘There was nothing about it that made it unique to Ford,’ explains Thai-Tang. ‘So, we decided that the best opportunity we had was to leverage our strengths, and leverage one of our iconic brands and nameplates.’
It was at this point that James Farley, the president of new businesses, technology and strategy at Ford made the suggestion of making this car a Mustang. ‘It was a very provocative suggestion; there was a lot of angst,’ says Thai-Tang. ‘But as soon as he said that, the design team really got excited, because they could visualise what a Mustang is; they knew how to interpret Mustang.’
Within weeks different concepts had been rendered, and when the first 3D representation was presented, the Ford leaders knew they were on to something special. Playing to their strengths, the engineers and designers worked tirelessly to create a vehicle that’s cutting edge in so many areas, yet carries with it the spirit of a legend.
‘Team Edison was challenged to think like a start-up; to be scrappy and nimble in our approach,’ says Mark Kaufman, Ford’s global director of marketing distribution for the Mustang Mach-E, and one of the original members of Team Edison. It was through intensive market research, talking not only to Ford and Mustang customers, but to a diverse spread of people too, that the decision was made to brand it as a Mustang. Then, to make things even more interesting, the team took the bold approach to make it an SUV, and offer the benefits of utility that this configuration provides. ‘People appreciate utility and space, so giving consumers something that’s got that iconic Mustang design, as well as practicality, really ticked all the boxes,’ says Kaufman.
In the time that’s past since the Mustang Mach-E was revealed to the world, I’ve pored over footage and pictures of the vehicle, listened to numerous interviews, and evaluated its design and styling, weighing it against the existing ecosystem of internal combustion cars, as well as EV competitors it’ll face. I’ve also considered the technology bundled into the onboard systems, pondered its association with the icon that is Mustang, and considered the pros and cons of making it an SUV. Indeed, for some of the diehard petrolheads the notion of a Mustang that has no V8 tailpipe growl, and boasts four doors in an SUV guise might cause them indigestion, but this is the type of progress we need. One just has to look at Porsche to admit how successful the addition of an SUV option to a line-up can be.
Now that the global-reveal hype has settled, my assessment is that an electric Mustang is simply the evolution of a legendary marque in a world that needs change but perhaps also feels reassured by familiarity. Ford has definitely made something that’ll stand out in a crowd. And isn’t that how brands sell cars, after all?