Ford has told its dealers to stop selling the Mustang Mach-E, recalling nearly 50,000 of the high-performance electric crossovers over a battery safety issue.
The sweeping recall impacts as many as 48,924 Mustang Mach-Es built at Ford’s Cuautitlan, Mexico plant between May 27th of 2020 and May 24th of this year. The company has identified a potential defect that could cause contactors on the Mach-E’s high-voltage battery to overheat and malfunction. If that happens, it could could cause the electric vehicle to lose power unexpectedly— which reads like it’s just as likely to happen sitting in your driveway as it is dodging some annoying orange driving a Tesla.
It’s important to note here that this recall is coming from Ford, who identified the issue internally, and is not the result of any ongoing NHTSA investigation related to the issue. CNBC first reported the stop-sale and recall earlier today.
That said, it’s just as important to note that this isn’t the first recall Ford’s issued for its electric Mustang. According to NHTSA website, Mach-E recalls have ranged from issues with unintended acceleration that affected less than 500 vehicles to loose subframe bolts and inadequate bonding for a few thousand of the car’s glass panel roofs (which, as I’ve complained before, don’t do an awesome job insulating against noise and can’t be “closed”).
Ford’s comms people are saying that the “fix” for the Mustang Mach-E recall is a software update that the automaker expects to deploy as soon as next month. But, in a move that’s becoming increasingly rare in the EV space (outside of some truly back-assward states like West Virginia, anyway), the company seems to have indicated that this won’t be am over-the-air update. That means affected Mustang owners will have to take their EVs to a certified Ford or Lincoln dealer to install the update.
In addition to the recall, Ford has issued a stop-sale on the electric Mustang, according to a memo to dealers issued Monday and reported on by Automotive News. The hot-selling, $140,000 Ford F-150 Lightning pickup is not affected by the issue.
Source | Images: Ford.
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