Assimilator

Now is a good time to point out that if you want a Mach E in the first year, the US allotment is almost spoken for. Turns out more than half of the Mach E's 50K volume is going to the EU because of the regulatory environment there.

I'll take 5! BTW... So suck it haters! And yeah, I'm kidding...counting a $100 deposit as an order is something only Elon Musk can get away with.

I will be the first to admit that I think Ford interior design is lackluster across the board, and the Escape for me grows the gap wider. I don't really understand what is happening at Ford, but the Mach E and 2021 F-150 are promising turns IMO. I think allot of this is just waiting to get out of the Fields era. Ford is pretty good at the switchgear and tech bolt-ons which I think is where they prioritize their interior investment. The highway economy isn't so good on the Escape at 32 vs 37. I don't know, Ford has different priorities that don't always look good on the specs.

Yep, Maquis is all I hear, but I'm a Star Trek fan and learned early on that few others made that connection. Instead I'm hearing others say "Mercury Grand Mach E". LOL

Meh, another converted ICE, barely counts.

Excellent illustrated write-up and interview for the Mach E. It's just too bad they took the photos with a Potato 3GS or something. https://jalopnik.com/a-look-at-the-engineering-behind-the-2021-ford-mustang-1839911078?rev=1574451051022&utm_source=jalopnik_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=socialflow_jalopnik_twitter

I might be into it once the design is actually final and doesn't look like something assembled in the metal shop out back. In terms of Specs, I don't know how F-150 BEV is going to compare, they certainly can't do it at these prices, not even close.

A $500 commitment should hopefully mean fewer cancellations.

This vehicle is having a strange lifecycle in my head. It went from horror, to laughing, to schadenfreude, to hmmm, to maybe, to I kinda get it, to maybe I should order it, to nope it's stupid design passed off as innovation. It basically looks like a one-off hand-built concept. I think we are a long way from a final product regardless. BTW, the blindspots in this vehicle re STUPID bad, the forward view is largely obstructed by enormous pillars and a tall cowl.

People who don't care about cars tend to buy Teslas and their limited understanding of the industry is a constant frustration to me. I'm actually a Tesla fan, but I recognize the fandom as extremely off-putting to the point it's like a religious or political ideology, completely imbalanced and irrational. Ford certainly has the biggest reputation shift to make and the Mach E seems to have started it. Unfortunately, Ford does NOT have a good reputation for smooth launches anymore than Tesla does, but you expect better from Ford as an experienced "legacy" automaker. There is so much new tech here that Ford has never shown great competency in before (software UX and OTA updating, autonomous tech, BEV tech). The Mach E is still an experiment, it's going to take Ford much longer to figure this out than Day 1 of Mach E. So at this point I would certainly trust the Model Y more than Mach E. Personally I would still recommend the Model Y over the Mach E for at least the first 2 years. There are just way more unknown quantities with the Ford at this stage, but we already know what we're getting with Model Y. Ford has a huge struggle ahead of them, if they don't deliver on all these promises, it's going to be a huge problem.

Oh the Compliance car, I'm sure it would have been more efficient however, but it would have doomed Ford's EV future to trucks and vans only. The Mach E has probably the worst drag coefficient among all the EVs at .30 which seems to hit their range quite hard. And indeed the Mustang has really awesome lights with directional chase lights added to the directional chamber lights. All sorts of extra going on in those fixtures and it makes me happy. The most exciting aspect of car design to me right now is lighting design and Ford hasn't been great at it until this car.

I think the Trax and Encore will be phased out as these two slightly larger and newer utilities take over, but we'll see. The US is not on tap to get the next-gen EcoSport so I'm not sure where they are going with this segment. They've mentioned they had quickly developed a new affordable utility to address the missing entry-level car segments. I've mentioned before that the Compact Pickup has a companion Utility suppose to arrive for 2022. That might be the Fusion replacement however. Right now I don't have a clear understanding of Ford's North American compact utility future. But I think this Trailblazer points int he direction of larger and cheaper. If Ford is going to tackle this segment, it probably needs to go in that direction. Obviously this is very low priority for them since it's not very profitable. It's quite possible Ford will be able to fill it's factories without the need for this vehicle, but I doubt it.

This is one of those look-alike segments with the same weird design motifs that remind you this is the cheap and cheerful segment. Kia, Hyundai, Chevy...basically anything Korean. It's actually a decent vehicle for the price, certainly much better than EcoSport which is severely overpriced for the substance, quality, and extreme age. I don't think I've expressed by absolute disgust of the EcoSport here recently, LOL. Definitely another Mark Fields desperation turd like everything that guy did, absolute minimum effort at the 11th hour.

FCA is such a predictably treacherous company, I'm kinda excited to see this exposed. Go get 'em GM!

Pricing could mean a world of difference. It's possible this RAV4 is significantly more expensive than the Hybrid or the comparable Ford. If it prices like a Corsair, then you understand why there is only so much Ford can do within the price tolerance of these vehicles. Ford and Toyota tend to see the market with similar eyes with a huge focus on Hybrids. But Toyota is going in a very different direction on BEVs. Nobody was picking on Toyota for their lack of electrification, but they were railing Ford. Ford has been prepping to be an electrification volume leader and they were telling everybody who would listen.

Did they announce pricing on the RAV4 Prime? The Corsair isn't exactly cheap either. Ford does seem to be a generation behind here.

I've also advocated for the use of Thunderbird instead of Mustang for this product, especially since it alludes to Electrification without being so on the nose. Thunderbird had long lost the right to complain about what type of car it's attached to. The final T-Bird was largely considered the ultimate form of Boomer cornball so the image is pretty rough at this point and extremely risky to attach to something that is suppose to represent excitement, progress and the future. It was never a cool or exciting nameplate, it was always something sedate and ambiguous. But Thunderbird was also fairly malleable, it adapted to the era each time and survived. It could have worked, but Mustang is obviously far FAR stronger. People will get over it. Bronco is also starting right out of the gate as a sub brand, so it will start to make more sense in that context.

I'm a little surprised there is almost no performance benefit to this Hybrid setup. With very little in the way of benefit, I would personally have preferred to see a regular Hybrid setup since AWD economy on that Escape setup is so appealing. Once you add a plug, it just needs to do WAY more than this to be worth the expense. But this is probably a product I need to live with to understand, I tend to be very skeptical of Plug-In Hybrids with such marginal benefits.

AWD Corsair GT officially debuts with 26 miles of EV range and 265HP. https://www.autoblog.com/2019/11/20/2021-lincoln-corsair-grand-touring-plug-in-hybrid-revealed-la-auto-show/ https://youtu.be/00GY0Em2q0w Have to admit, not terribly impressed by these specs with RAV4 Prime substantially leaping ahead on power and range.

Apologies for posting in the Employee forum, please remove. Thanks!

Did you try pumping the handle twice to see if that resets the mechanism?

Elon actually had a great response on Twitter.

Here is that attention monitor.

I'm pretty infatuated with this vehicle, I can't wait! A few more things I've learned. This car gets a Hands-Free enhanced cruise control system that uses face tracking to monitor for attentiveness (very similar to Super Cruise but with more elegant hardware). The hardware will be available at launch but will require a software update to activate later. I assume this is what they are calling Co-Pilot360 2.0. You can actually see the hardware sticking up a bit behind the steering wheel and just under the instrument panel. Another YouTuber mentioned that the doors actually pop open when you approach closely, so you may not need to push the button? We'll see, it wasn't being talked bout by Ford but seems to have been mentioned in briefings. There are three drive modes "Unbridled, Excite, Whisper" with unique sound effects which can be turned off entirely if you prefer. It deserves repeating that the Mach E features Wireless CarPlay which is a HUGE deal to me.

I always buy black cars, but have long wanted white in the right car...this is the right car.