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

If ‘family farm holiday to Cornwall’ isn’t right up there with ‘repeatedly driving into a 20cm kerb’ or ‘max speed runs in 45-degree heat’ on a manufacturer’s list of testing requirements for a new car I want to know why. It has to be one of the most rigorous family-EV examinations imaginable. 

For starters there’s the matter of getting a pile of stuff into a car that is clearly much larger than the space available. Amazing what you can cram in when you fill the boot to the roof, jam it into the rear footwells, build a small tower of bags between the kids on the back seat (also useful for preventing hairpulling and food theft en route) and force all the squidgy stuff into the frunk. More useful than its galloping haunches and windswept roof suggest, the Mach-E. 

Then there’s the small matter of getting to Higher Lank Farm in Bodmin from South West London – a 241-mile game of chicken between driver and range-o-meter. Here’s the dilemma: making it there in one bite is feasible, safe in the knowledge that there’s a 7kW charger when we get there, but to do so comfortably you need to set the cruise to 65mph… and I’m not that patient. So we plan a stop 160-miles in at a vineyard that has 50kW Instavolt chargers, a café and a playground for the kids to stretch their legs. This way I can drive swiftly and without anxiety. I can also have a Danish swirl. 

But the test is far from over, for once you arrive in actual Cornwall, the roads have been built for Borrowers, which means you spend most of your time reversing back to let oncoming cars and tractors past and wincing as they miss your wing mirrors by the width of a meanly-filled pasty. Suddenly the Mach-E feels on the upper-limit of acceptable size for round these parts. 

And then a week of interior punishment begins. Crumbs – so many crumbs – muddy boots, muddy trousers, muddy jackets and muddy fingers. Then a trip to the beach and more crumbs – so many more crumbs – sandy boots, sandy trousers, sandy jackets and sandy fingers. You get the idea – the GT’s Alcantara upgrades are mostly wasted on the children and soon covered up by a sea of detritus. And just a word on the black paint, which manages to look dirty within about five minutes of me washing it. 

But as a car to soothe my children to sleep one minute, then make them shriek with delight when I launch us down a slip road the next, the GT is one hell of an allrounder. I’m warming to it enormously, probably more so once I’ve given it a hoover.