The Ford Mustang Mach-E Joins Our Long-Term Fleet

Tesla caught mainstream automakers sleeping, essentially running the long-range EV game for five years before a significant number of electric rivals started appearing. But Tesla is far from alone anymore, with competitors from just about every automaker selling EVs today (plus a handful of startups looking to ride the wave).

That leads us to the Ford Mustang Mach-E. We were hugely impressed with Ford's first dedicated electric vehicle &mdash so much so that we named it one of the Edmunds Top Rated vehicles the year it debuted. Each new Mach-E variant we tested left us wanting more seat time, leaving us only one choice: We had to buy one and add it to our long-term fleet for an in-depth evaluation. Allow us to present: our 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E in Space White paint and all sorts of cool features.

The Goldilocks trim

We purchased a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium with the extended-range battery and rear-wheel drive. While the Mach-E Select is a bit more affordable and the GT offers pulse-pounding performance, our Premium trim has a great mix of features for the price and offers more range than either the Select or GT. While our window sticker carries an MSRP of $53,700, high demand and months of searching for a Mach-E in the spec we wanted meant paying $8,000 over sticker for a total of $61,700. For reference, that's about as much as the MSRP of a Mustang Mach-E GT and a little less than a base Tesla Model Y.

Ford offers all-wheel drive, but rear-wheel-drive models like ours get better range. To maximize driving distance on a charge, we opted for the 88-kWh extended-range battery at a cost of $5,000. It increases the EPA estimate from 230 to 300 miles (both standard- and extended-range packs have slightly higher range estimates for 2022). After conducting a loop on Edmunds' real-world EV range testing loop just days after the Mach-E arrived in our garage, we traveled a hugely impressive 341 miles before the battery drained completely. We plan to periodically retest the range to see how it changes over time.

Every Mach-E trim is loaded with a robust suite of driver aids and safety features, including adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring and rear parking sensors, and all but the base trim also include a surround-view camera. Ours is further equipped with Ford's new BlueCruise hands-free highway driving mode, though it's limited to certain stretches of highway for now. As with any system like this, BlueCruise requires the driver to pay attention to the road ahead and be ready to take control whenever necessary.

Edmunds says

There are few cars we've been as eager to get into our long-term road test fleet as the Mach-E. First impressions are strong, but will our feelings diminish as we spend more time with it? Stay tuned.