Ford Mustang Mach-E GT Available To Order Starting April 28th

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A number of news outlets are reporting about a forum post at MachEForum.com revealing the first day people will be able to put in orders for the performance version of the vehicle: the Mach-E GT. Customers will be able to convert reservations into orders for the vehicle starting on April 28th.

Called “Job 2” in a letter to dealers, details were given in a letter to Ford dealers giving them information about handling the orders. Dealers will have access to the order bank, order guide, and price list starting April 26th, and then customers will have direct access to start their ordering process two days later.

Another interesting thing in the dealer letter was that it says that dealers must “revisit Mustang Mach-E pricing rules” before they can go into the online portal to accept and process orders. This may be a result of some dealers adding up to $15,000 to the price of a Mach-E, over and above the MSRP. Once pictures of the inflated pricing hit Twitter, Ford’s head of marketing, Mike Levine, told everyone that the “adjusted MSRP” on that vehicle had been removed, restoring the vehicle to normal pricing. Later, he helped other customers get dealers to drop the vehicle to normal prices, so it was apparently a problem that was happening elsewhere.

In addition to the letter that was sent to dealers, customers who had put in a reservation for a Mach-E GT shared images from e-mails they were getting announcing the same ordering date, so that adds some credibility to the original forum post (as the dates match up).

One other detail that the letter gives is that customers shouldn’t try to get their GT earlier by placing a new retail order and canceling their existing reservation. The letter says new orders will only be made for model year 2022, and that the fastest way to get a Mach-E is to go through the normal reservation process and convert the reservation into an order.

In other words, there aren’t any tricks to jump in line, so if you’ve got a GT reservation in, don’t give it up unless you want the vehicle later.

Here’s the full text of the forum post’s letter excerpt:

Hello EV Leads and Dealer Principals, The 2021 Mustang Mach-E Job 2 (including Mustang Mach-E GT) order bank, order guide, and price list will launch on the afternoon of Monday, April 26th*. Customers will be invited to convert Mustang Mach-E GT Reservations on April 28th. There are two actions required of EV Certified dealers that will ensure a smooth transition to Job 2:

Action 1: Revisit Mustang Mach-E pricing rules in VL Plus. Please reference the attached letter and guide for more details.

Action 2: Accept any outstanding customer Orders Requiring Attention in the Online Order Acceptance Portal. (go to WBDO > Useful Links > Online Order Acceptance Portal > Customer Handling > Orders Requiring Attention > Accept)

*For Mustang Mach-E GT Reservation customers: Some customers may believe that they can ensure an earlier build date by placing a new retail order and cancelling their reservation. This is not true. New retail GT orders will likely be scheduled into the ‘22MY. The best way for customers to get their vehicle as soon as possible is to follow the intended reservation-to-order process.

One Big Thing We Can Learn From This

For me, the most exciting thing here is that we are seeing the successful launch of an EV by a manufacturer that doesn’t start with “T” and end with “esla.” Until very recently, Tesla was the only serious player in the EV game, because it offered compelling products that customers wanted on their own merits. Instead of offering an EV with minimal range and only selling it to people with enough climate guilt to take the punishment, Tesla made vehicles that stand well on their own as a car.

After almost a decade, we are finally seeing other manufacturers get serious about making good EVs. The Volkswagen ID.3 and ID.4 aren’t as good as a Tesla in most respects, but they’re built on a dedicated platform, have adequate range, and have reasonably fast charging on the Electrify America network. Porsche’s Taycan is similarly on-the-ball, and can even charge fast enough that it set a record New York to Los Angeles trip (beating Tesla’s time).

Now, the Ford Mach-E is showing that other US domestic manufacturers can not only make an EV with decent range, charging, and performance, but that they can also sell them in numbers.

There’s enough demand for the vehicle that people are looking for ways to jump ahead in line. People are getting information from friends at dealerships to see what the ordering date is. They’re excitedly sharing e-mails with the date that they themselves got. There’s enough demand that dealers felt they could get away with jacking up the price ten to fifteen thousand dollars (probably because they were initially getting away with it, and in some cases may still be getting away with it).

This successful launch is something we should all be cheering on. There’s no way Tesla can get its production up to cover the needs of all car buyers quickly enough to mitigate climate change as soon as we need to. It’s going to take an “all hands on deck” approach to get that important job done, and it’s great to see other manufacturers stepping up and starting to offer compelling vehicles.

Now, before you smash that comment button to castigate me about how Tesla is better, Ford isn’t doing as much as it can, etc., keep in mind that I largely agree. I just don’t see Ford as any kind of a threat to Tesla. Many of the people who want the Mach-E weren’t going to give Tesla a chance anyway, so it will never be a “tEsLa KiLLeR.”

In fact, there’s enough of an open market for EVs that the different manufacturers really aren’t competing with each other yet. It’s not a zero sum game where one sale to a manufacturer means the others lose out. Tesla continues to sell everything it makes, and Ford is now doing the same, so everyone has plenty of elbow room.

The transition to renewable energy is accelerating, and that’s a good thing.

Featured image by CleanTechnica.