Ford Mustang Mach-E Extended Range AWD – long-term review

Brings into focus how low and swoopy the Mach-E styling is, doesn’t it, when you park it next to the brick-on-wheels Wrangler or Defender. Obviously we didn’t risk the Mustang on any of the trails at our recent big TG off-road test, even if it does have AWD, but to be fair it equipped itself surprisingly well on the cratered path leading up to our bunk house. While Charlie’s Peugeot 508 was busy re-sculpting its chin, the Mustang sailed through. This is an SUV with a very small ‘u’, but you can’t beat a bit of ride height.

This month though, I want to talk tech. At first glance this is a car ladened with any and all of the technology Ford could get its hands on, but the application is a lot more thoughtful than that. It doesn’t have cameras for wing mirrors or a screen for a rear-view mirror for starters, because why waste money on unecessarys? It doesn’t pretend to be more autonomous than it is, but deploys radar cruise and lane keep on the motorway gently and smoothly. It has an app which can lock and unlock the car, start it up and shows your charging status, but nothing fancier than that.

Then there’s the slightly wackier stuff. The push buttons that electrically pop the doors out instead of handles, to keep the profile of the car blemish-free. Thought I was going to hate them, but they work brilliantly when you have an armful of bags and only a pinky to spare. Still haven’t figured out what the neon number pad on the door pillar is all about though.

The mega-screen smacks of Tesla chasing but the layout is great – the things you need all the time in winter (heated-seats, heated-wheel, the heater) are right there in the bottom right corner where you can find them without stretching or diving into sixteen sub menus, and unless you’re Danny DeVito the panel is set low enough so won’t ever impede your view out the front. Oh, and the idea of turning the entire dash into a sound bar is genius, this 10-speaker B&O sound system slaps.

Complaints? There’s a bit of light-bleed on the left-hand edge of the screen. Not enough to make what you’re looking at illegible, but if it was my £58k I’d be complaining. And the predicted range is just plummeting with the cold weather – settling at around 200-miles on a full charge however carefully I drive it – that’s 38 per cent less than the claimed WLTP. Setting the timer to preheat the car and battery works well and probably gives you another 10 per cent on a cold morning. But it does require a little forward planning and for the car to be plugged-in overnight, which isn’t always possible on account of me being lazy/forgetful and plugging-in requiring I get the parking space directly outside our house.

In other news I can confirm that with the seats down you can fit a chest of drawers into the back of a Mustang. Great news for all you muscle-car loving, eco-conscious, Lovejoy wannabes out there.