Ford Mustang Mach-E Charging Report: Fast, But Not That Fast

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The world of EVs is all atwitter these days with reports that prototypes of the upcoming Ford Mach-E are able to charge 30% faster than the company first reported last fall. The numbers from Ford all reflect how many miles of range can be added in 10 minutes using a 150 kW DC fast charger.

Here are the details:

For cars with the larger 98.7 kWh battery pack:

• 61 miles for rear wheel drive cars
• 52 miles for all wheel drive cars
• 10% to 80% charge in 45 minutes for both

For cars with the smaller 75.7 kWh battery pack:

• 46 miles for rear wheel drive cars
• 42 miles for all wheel drive cars
• 10% to 80% charge in 38 minutes for both

When the Mustang Mach-E was unveiled last year, Ford said the rear-wheel drive version with the larger battery pack would gain just 47 miles of range in 10 minutes using a DC fast charger, so these latest numbers are a 30% improvement.

The Mustang Mach-E & The Competition

For most drivers, rapid charging only matters when on the highway. Nobody wants to hang around a Burger King on the Garden State Parkway for 3 hours waiting to get enough range to cross the Tappan Zee bridge. Most EV drivers charge at home when their cars are not in use. Charging speeds under those circumstances are largely irrelevant, as long as the battery has enough charge for normal driving the next morning.

 

Still, charging speed is a metric shoppers want to know about. Even if they never use a fast charger in their lifetime, they still want to be able to tell their colleagues, “My Belchfire 5000 EV can add 62.7 miles of range in 15 minutes.” It’s like being able to say your intergalactic cargo ship can do the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs. Bragging rights are a big part of the car ownership experience.

According to Green Car Reports, these numbers place the Mustang Mach-E smack in the middle of the pack when compared to the charging times for the Audi e-tron and the Jaguar I-Pace.

Every Ford all-electric vehicle, including the Mach-E, will come with a 240 volt Ford mobile charger capable of adding 21 miles per charging hour. A 48-amp home charger available from Ford will add up to 30 miles per hour of charging.

Larger Charging Network

More important to those considering an electric vehicle from Ford is the number and distribution of chargers available to them when away from home. Ford says it has added 1,000 charging stations and 5,000 charge connectors to its FordPass Charging Network, which it bills as “North America’s largest electric vehicle charging network.” Those additions bring the total up to 13,500 stations and 40,000 connectors, many of them provided by Greenlots, Electrify America, and other partners.

Ford says the Mustang Mach-E will be Plug&Charge compatible, meaning that drivers will be able to just plug in the vehicle without the hassle of additional handshakes, fobs, cards, PINs, or button pressing. Convenience is an important asset for EV drivers. Ford also said this week that all Mach-Es would feature over-the-air updates right from the start of production.

Fast But Not That Fast

Of course, people are going to ask how the Mustang Mach-E fast charging experience compares to Tesla. The simple answer is a Tesla owner using a V3 Supercharger can get about twice as much added range as a Mach-E driver in a given period of time — a significant plus for Tesla. But not every Supercharger has been upgraded to V3 specs and not every driver needs to utilize fast charging on a regular basis.

The FordPass mobile app will also allow most of the same functionality at the Tesla charging app, allowing drivers to locate available chargers along their intended route and navigate to them with ease.

So is a Mustang Mach-E a Model Y killer? Of course not. Every car has its own set of strengths, some of which will be more important to one set of drivers but not others. What may be important to customers is that Ford has technicians at every one of its North American dealerships who are trained in how to service and maintain the Mach-E. That could be important to first time EV shoppers who are skittish about the whole electric car experience.

Consumers love choices and the the Mustang Mach-E will compare well with the offerings from Audi and Jaguar. There is every reason to expect it will be a serious competitor in the electric SUV segment of the market.