Ford Mustang Mach-E Review & Prices

The Mustang Mach-E is an exciting blend of past, present and future. It mixes a distinguished name from the 1960s with an SUV body that is very much of the moment, and on-trend fully electric power.

So you get an electric SUV with Mustang bits like the long bonnet and muscular haunches, EV bits like the blanked-off grille, and a tall, upright body. The all-new electric car is an alternative to SUV EVs such as the Tesla Model Y, BMW iX3, Kia EV6, Audi Q4 e-tron and Skoda Enyaq.

Thanks to a completely flat floor in the second row and plenty of headroom, the Mustang Mach-E has enough passenger space for five adults to sit comfortably enough over short distances.

There are lots of storage cubbies for various bits and bobs, and two boots as well: a small one up front, and a full-size one at the back. However, the cabin’s star attraction has to be the massive touchscreen infotainment system – it looks fantastic and is impressively responsive.

Ford Mustang Mach-e: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 292-372 miles
Efficiency: 3.1-3.8 miles per kWh
Battery size: 72kWh / 91kWh
Max charge speed: 150kW
Charge time AC: 12hrs, 0-100%, 7kW / 14hrs 40mins, 0-100%, 7kW
Charge time DC: 33mins, 10-80%, 150kW / 45mins, 10-80%, 150kW
Charge port location: Left front
Power outputs: 266hp / 290hp

As far as the power line-up is concerned, you’ve effectively got a choice between price, range, and performance. If you want the cheapest option, go for a rear-wheel-drive car fitted with the 70kWh battery.

For the longest range, you can go for a rear-drive 91kWh model, which Ford claims is good for up to 379 miles between charges – although we saw closer to 250 miles out in the real world. If you want to focus on performance, go for the 91kWh car, but with four-wheel drive and twin motors. This model will get from 0-60 in about 5.5 seconds, which is by no means slow. Or, if you want to go entirely nuts, there’s the 487hp GT version which will get you to 60mph in just 3.7secs.

You definitely get a taste of its sports car heritage when you point it down a twisty country road. The steering feels a bit rubbery, but it grips well and can get around corners quickly. It’s just a pity that it can ride in quite a bouncy, energetic fashion – as if it’s had one too many espressos before setting off.

And as for charge times? Well, a wall box should charge the battery from empty to full overnight. You could use a three-pin plug on a domestic outlet too, but that’ll take ages. Away from home, you should get 80 percent battery charge in about 45 minutes if you can find a fast DC charger.

If you go for the smaller 70kWh battery in your Mustang, that DC rapid charge time will drop to just under 40 minutes. That said, a Tesla Model 3 will do the same in less than 30 minutes via the brilliant Supercharger network.

The Mustang Mach-E comes with a full suite of active driving aids, which can accelerate, decelerate, and help keep you in your lane on the motorway. It can also apply the brakes if you try to reverse out into oncoming traffic. Plus, if it senses an imminent forward collision and there’s no time to stop, its Evasive Steering Assist can guide you around the potential accident.

Head on over to our deals page to find out how much money we can save you on a new Mustang Mach-E, or check out our range of used Fords.

By Ford standards the Mustang Mach-E is pretty expensive, with a starting price close to £50,000 — that makes it almost as expensive as an actual V8-engined Mustang Coupe(!). Mind you, it’s not totally out of step with rivals. The Kia EV6, for example, is only slightly cheaper but it does come with a bit more battery capacity for more on-paper range. The EV6’s real-world battery performance is also better than that of the Mustang Mach-E. You say much the same for the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which can be had for significantly less, albeit in base form it comes with a smaller battery and a sub-300 mile range.

Then again, Ford reckons that the Mustang badge means that the Mach-E is a premium product (that’s unquestionably true in the US market, but you might feel differently here in Blighty) and so competes with higher end models. On that basis, the Mach-E is on surer ground, as it significantly undercuts rivals such as the BMW iX3 (which also has a much shorter range), the Mercedes-Benz EQC and the Tesla Model Y (although the Tesla has a little more range, standard four-wheel drive, and access to the Supercharger network). 

 Fast and fun, but comfort levels leave a lot to be desired because you feel every bump in the road

In town

Sitting up high in a car with a Mustang badge still feels weird, but the good news is that lofty driving position does give you a decent view out of the Mach-E when you’re driving around town. However, there’s a chunky windscreen pillar which means that there’s quite a big forward blind spot, and the door mirrors are pretty small too. The sporty styling also means that the rear window is pretty shallow and the raised-up lines at the back end of the Mach-E ensure that your over-the-shoulder view isn’t great. The parking camera on the big screen does at least help, though. 

The biggest bugbear is the ride quality. The Mustang Mach-E is really firmly sprung, and while it’s not quite hard-springed enough to feel crashy, it does fidget and bounce a lot and that can be very annoying. If you want an EV SUV that rides comfortably around town, take a good long look at the Audi Q4 e-tron.

It doesn’t help that the brakes are really strange — the initial bit of regenerative braking is quite soft, and then as the mechanical brakes start to take over the Mach-E pulls up really suddenly. It takes quite a bit of getting used to. It does help that there’s a one-pedal driving mode, which can bring the Mustang Mach-E to a complete stop on the regenerative braking, so you don’t use the brake pedal at all. 

On the motorway

On motorways, the Mustang Mach-E’s best trick is how fast it gets from 40mph to 70mph, which it does really, really quickly. Once you’re up and cruising, it’s mostly fine but that fidgety ride quality never goes away completely, and you’ll notice more wind noise than you’ll find in the rival Audi Q4, or the Kia EV6. The Mach-E’s battery also seems to suffer from too many motorway miles, and it’ll start to run out of charge quickly. If you’re doing a long motorway haul, your useable range could drop to as little as 200 miles. 

On a twisty road

The Mustang Mach-E has three driving modes — Active, which is a sort of good at all things mode; Whisper, which is for quietly cruising around and extending the battery range; and Untamed, which sounds silly but is meant to reference the fact that a Mustang is a wild horse. The Mach-E is definitely more sporty to drive than most of its rivals, and feels properly enthusiastic on a twisty road. It is held back by steering that feels really rubbery and disconnected from the front wheels though, and that ride quality once again feels awkward unless the road surface is glassy-smooth. The Mach-E’s 0-60mph time is also odd — it’ll do that sprint in 6.5secs, which is only slightly more than the claimed time, but it feels strangely slower than that from behind the wheel. So it’s quick, but if you want ‘bonkers-quick’ look at the Tesla Model Y. Overall, the Mach-E is good to drive, but it’s maybe not quite as good as you want it to be.

There's plenty of space inside whether you sit in the front or back, but the boot is quite small

The Mustang Mach-E has a pretty practical cabin, although most of the available storage space in the front is clustered on the centre console. Under the armrest, there’s a lidded storage area that has both a USB and 12-volt socket, and in front of the rotary gear selector there’s a couple of good-sized cupholders and a flat tray that’s home to the wireless mobile phone charger. It’s big enough to hold large-screen phones, which is helpful. Underneath that, there’s another flat storage tray which is handy, but you might tend to forget things that are down there. The glovebox is an average size, but while the door bins are reasonably big, their shape is a bit awkward as the speaker for the stereo juts out above them, meaning that it’s trickier to fit larger items in there. 

Space in the back seats

Even with that sloping, sporty roofline, the Mustang Mach-E’s back seats are absolutely massive. There’s almost three metres of space between the front wheels and the rears, and that really shows in the back seats where you’ll find lots of legroom and a surprising amount of headroom. The floor in the back is completely flat (the battery’s mounted underneath) and so thanks to a wide back seat there’s space for three adults to sit side-by-side in the back. If you go for the Tech Pack, you’ll get a panoramic glass roof, which is designed to be heat-absorbing instead of needing a retracting blind, which helps with that rear headroom. Rear seat passengers also get pockets on the backs of the front seats, and a pair of USB sockets, one of which is the newer USB-C type. The rear seats are super-comfy, too — Ford has clearly been putting in the thinking hours back here. 

Boot space

Is 402 litres of boot space enough? Well, it’s OK but it’s no better than OK. Certainly, there are rival EVs with much, much more space — a Volkswagen ID4 has 563 litres for instance. There’s quite a deep load lip, but the boot floor is adjustable so you can lift it up to get rid of most of that lip, although you’re costing yourself a few litres of volume if you do. Fold down the back seats and you get an almost-flat floor all the way to the front seats, and 1,420 litres of space but there’s no handle in the boot to flip those seats down; you just have to lean in and do it yourself. On the upside, there are tie-down points, shopping bag hooks, a 12-volt socket, and even a little blue Mustang logo on the boot light. The load cover is good too — it’s a simple piece of stretchy fabric with tent-style tensioners. It’s easy to unhook and stashes under the boot floor when you don’t need it. 

Up front, the Mach-E has something that a lot of competitors lack — a frunk (front trunk, although as we’re British we should really call it a front boot, or froot). With 81 litres of space, it’s quite useful and comes with divider panels so that you can fit in your charging cables and still have space for some small backpacks or bags of shopping at the sides. Oddly, and this is probably down to American legislation, there’s actually a button to open the ‘froot’ on the inside, in case anyone gets stuck in there. Who could fit in an 81 litre space, though? It’s handy that the bonnet release to get at the ‘froot’ is just a simple double-pull of the lever in the cabin, and there’s no messy fumbling around for the safety-catch release under the edge of the bonnet. It gets good sturdy gas struts to hold it up, too. 

The Mustang Mach-E isn’t great for towing though, with a maximum tow weight of 750kg. Not much use if you want to tow a pony’s horse box with your pony-logoed car. 

You get a smart cabin and excellent screen, but the door releases are a little odd...

You will find some cheap bits and pieces in the Mach-E’s cabin (those steering wheel buttons are straight off a basic Focus, for example) but for the most part this is a better cabin than what Volkswagen gives you in the ID4 and ID5.

The small, shallow driver’s display screen is really good, as it gives you the basics of what you want to know (range and speed, mostly) but without being massively bright and in your face. It’s especially good when driving at night. It’s well-positioned too, as no matter where you move the steering wheel (which has lots of adjustment) it never gets blocked off or obscured. We like the style of the cabin, too — the design of the dash is meant to ever-so-slightly reference the look of classic 1960s Mustang dashboards (although you’d have to be a colossal car nerd to spot that…) and if you get the (expensive) tech pack, then the Bang & Olufsen stereo set includes a huge soundbar that basically runs the full-width of the dash, and gives it an interesting fabric-covered finish. 

Obviously, it’s the big 15.5-inch screen in the centre of the dash that dominates things. It’s a very high-definition screen, and it comes with wireless connections for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay which means you’ll probably not use the built-in Ford software all that much (although it’s pretty responsive when you do). There are some neat tricks, such as being able to set up all your preferences for screen layouts and heating etc from your phone, which you can even do on the way to the dealership to collect your new Mustang Mach-E, so that it’s all ready for you to drive off.

Oddly, there is a big physical volume knob built into the bottom of the screen, which is kind of easier to use than a touch-sensitive slider (hello, VW…) but it does look a bit strange and most of the time you’ll probably end up using the steering wheel controls instead. The system does get over-the-air software updates, just like a Tesla.

The heating and air conditioning controls are on the screen too, which we normally don’t like but the Mustang makes a good job of them as they’re easy to use and they don’t move or disappear when you’re calling up other on-screen menus. You do still have to take your eyes a good way off the road to use them, though. There is one physical heating control — a proper button for the max-demist function, but it’s buried down by your right knee, next to the headlight switch so that’s pretty useless. All Mustang Mach-Es also get a electrically heated QuickClear windscreen as standard, which is great on cold frosty mornings. 

There are some odd things about the screen, though. It’s the only place you’ll find a Ford badge on the Mustang Mach-E, as a big blue oval pops up on the screen when you start the car up. There’s also a couple of sounds — a ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ style drumbeat as you press the start button, which we guess is to build up a bit of excitement before you set off. Then there’s an annoying bing-bong when you switch off, which asks you if you want to turn off the in-car monitoring for the alarm, and reminds you to check the rear seats for any small children who might be dozing back there. It’s kind of a laudable safety item, that last one, but it can become irritating. 

Then there’s the door handles. The exterior handles are great, just a tiny electric push-button that unlatches the door with a small, aero-friendly tab that you can use to pull it open. There’s even a little digital key-pad which means you can still open the Mach-E if you’ve lost or forgotten your keys (and your mobile phone can be used as the key too). On the inside, though, Ford has buried the door handles down in between the armrest and the door, and they’re quite stiff and heavy to move. Why not just have an electric release button inside, too?

Being a zero-emission EV, the Mustang Mach-E feels almost like cheating. You’re getting a really handsome, roomy SUV with some of the style and performance of the Mustang coupe, but you pay zero road tax. Brilliant, isn’t it?

You can have the Mach-E in a couple of different configurations. There’s a single-motor, rear-wheel drive version that comes with either a 70kWh or 91kWh battery (those are the net, usable capacities). It’s the rear-drive 294hp, 91kWh model that has the longest range of 379 miles. A rear-drive 70kWh model with 269hp will manage a claimed 273 miles.

Then there’s a two-motor, all-wheel drive model with the same batteries. The big-battery AWD model comes with 351hp and a 335-mile range, while the small-battery version gets the same 269hp as the rear-drive model, but much more torque and 248 miles of range.

Finally, at the top of the range there’s the all-wheel drive GT model, with a stonking 467hp and the 91kWh battery, returning a range of 310 miles. 

In real-world testing with the longest range version, we achieved 288 miles from a battery, which is 77% of its capacity. This is similar to what we've found with its competitors, as is the 3.3miles/kWh efficiency figure. The Standard Range RWD version fared a little better, achieving 3.7miles/kWh and 228 miles from its battery, which is 83% of claimed.

Thankfully the Mach-E recharges pretty fast too — small battery models get 115kW recharging from a high-power public charger, while all-wheel drive and GT models get 150kW charging. That’ll top you up to 80 per cent in around 40-45 minutes, and at the higher charging speed will add 73 miles of range in just ten minutes. But, once you’re above 80 per cent charge the charging speed slows right down, almost to home charger speeds.

The Mustang Mach-E is a very safe car, with a full five-star score from crash test experts Euro NCAP, and a 92% adult occupant protection rating, with an 86% child occupant rating. Those are really impressive scores, and the Mach-E comes with good levels of safety equipment too.

All models get radar-guided cruise control with lane-centering steering, and the Mustang’s system is a bit better to use than those of some rivals (such as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 which constantly jiggles and moves the wheel in your hands). There’s also a rear-view camera, parking sensors, and a blind spot monitor.

If you go for the optional Tech Pack, as well as a 360-degree camera system with active parking assistant, there’s also an ‘Evasive Steering Assist’ that, along with the emergency automated braking, can actually help you swerve away from danger.

Ford doesn’t tend to do all that great in reliability surveys — the days of the Focus topping the German charts for solidity seem to be long gone. The Mustang Mach-E does seem to be well-made — the cabin in particular has very good quality and the big screen looks great and works well — but the model has had some high-profile recalls including one for possible faulty battery terminals that could leave your car without power entirely. If Ford wants the Mustang to play with the big German premium boys when it comes to quality and reliability, it’s going to have to step up its game.