JoeDimwit
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Joe
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2021
- Threads
- 77
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- 1,832
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- 3,451
- Location
- Waterford
- Vehicles
- Grabber Blue First Edition
- Occupation
- Electrician
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- #1
So, I brought the Smurfmobile home on March 22nd, and crosse 5,000 miles this past Sunday April 23rd. Ive been thinking about the car a bit, and here’s what Ive come up with.
There is a lot to like about the Mach-E, and a bit to not like much, but at the end of the day, it’s a car. No more, no less. I think that when we elevate these cars to some other realm, we do them a disservice and we end up acting very irrationally about them. I am not a fanatic, nor do I want to be. I want a vehicle to get me to and from work, and to do my running around in.
There, that’s off my chest, here are my thoughts on how well the Mach-E meets my needs and wants so far…
Positives:
Not so positives:
With all that said, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that I’m disappointed with this vehicle, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I would recommend this vehicle to almost anyone, but with the caveat that they wait until the 2023 model if they don’t like living on the bleeding edge of technology. This platform has tons of potential, once they get the kinks worked out.
I still struggle with range anxiety. I know I shouldn’t, but my brain is still learning about the capabilities of my car, and I’m getting better about it. My lifetime average is right around 3.6m/kWh, so in theory I’m crushing the EPA estimated range, but I find myself irrationally not using the climate control system in order to save electricity that I’m not even paying for. You read that right, I haven’t paid a single penny yet to charge the Smurfmobile. The free charger at work died last week, and it got touchy because by my count there are 5 Mach-E’s here at my facility, and about as many various hybrids. So, charging spaces got a bit scarce for a minute. I got permission to replace the broken unit with a 14-50 plug, and am able to use my mobile charger without issues.
Speaking of issues… Ive only had 2 so far and they haven’t been large. The first is that 4 times now my audio system has crapped out. Resetting the 12v system has “fixed” it each time so far, but my dealership did some work on it this last time, so we will see. The second is new. The carPlay tile leaves a ghost image in the tile row when I select CarPlay for the main screen. I only noticed it today, so I don’t know what’s triggering it, or how to get rid of it. That said, it’s less of a problem than the audio system, so I’m doing ok on that front.
I am looking forward to trying out the BlueCruise mode once it becomes available this fall, I just wish it was coming online sooner as I am hoping to take a road trip to Colorado sometime this summer. That’s when I plan to use up all my EA kWh from the purchase.
Lastly, there are a few things that I wish Ford would do for us:
To wrap it up, while the car isn’t “perfect”, it’s perfect for me. 12/10 would recommend.
Joe
There is a lot to like about the Mach-E, and a bit to not like much, but at the end of the day, it’s a car. No more, no less. I think that when we elevate these cars to some other realm, we do them a disservice and we end up acting very irrationally about them. I am not a fanatic, nor do I want to be. I want a vehicle to get me to and from work, and to do my running around in.
There, that’s off my chest, here are my thoughts on how well the Mach-E meets my needs and wants so far…
Positives:
- Comfortable to drive.
- Looks. This car generates more side eye than the Brazilian Bikini Team. I end up talking to some random stranger about it for 10 minutes or so at least twice a week. And, I live in an area where I see 2 or 3 every day on the roads.
- Smooth (like I think the biggest reason people are having issues with wind noise and screen buzzing is because there is nothing to drown it out)
- While it’s not the fastest street car I’ve ever driven, it is far and away the quickest.
- PAAK. You mean all I need is my phone and my wallet? Yes please. Now, if it worked with any of my smart devices, it would be even better, because Id rather just take my watch and tablet with me. The phone screen is actually in a weird “too small for some things, too big for others” space.
- OTA updates. The idea of not having to take the car in and tie up a service tech for every little fix is genius.
- The tech is amazing. Intelligent cruise control is ticket insurance, and it’s the mode I do over 90% of my driving in. Even around town. Seriously, try it. Just don’t let it decide when to start braking.
Not so positives:
- PAAK, I get it, I thought this was going to be magical. I put a smart deadbolt on the house to cut down the number of keys I need to carry. PAAK would let me cut that from 1 key (car) to 0 keys, IF I trusted it. Also, while I think it was a great idea to launch PAAK, I think they should have included 2 fobs for the first 2 or 3 model years it is available. Then, once it’s stable, bug free, and in widespread use, they could have cut back to 1 fob and nobody would have complained. But this whole “We are going to make you our beta testers, and charge you $300 to opt out of the beta test” is straight bullshit. Figger it out Ford.
- FordPass. The problem with Windows is that it has to support so many potential configuration combinations that it became unwieldy. FordPass is headed down that road too right now. Im not advocating making a separate, unique app for every nameplate, but ICE and EV vehicles have very little in common, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to make a separate app for all EV’s and one for all ICE. Hell, get fancy and make 2 more ICE and EV for commercial fleets.
- OTA details. While it’s cool that you can fix stuff on the car remotely, not actually telling me what you fixed leaves me in no mans land where I can’t let you know if it solved the problem for me.
- The instrument cluster. I know some people are fine with it, but it irks me to no end that the eco boost Mustang gets 5 or 6 different instrument cluster screens that feed different data to the driver to suit their activity and desires, yet we get “This is all you can eat! Leave now!”
- The lack of a meter to show when we are in region vs friction braking means we are never going to truly extract maximum efficiency out of the car because we can’t possibly train ourselves where that threshold actually is.
With all that said, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that I’m disappointed with this vehicle, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I would recommend this vehicle to almost anyone, but with the caveat that they wait until the 2023 model if they don’t like living on the bleeding edge of technology. This platform has tons of potential, once they get the kinks worked out.
I still struggle with range anxiety. I know I shouldn’t, but my brain is still learning about the capabilities of my car, and I’m getting better about it. My lifetime average is right around 3.6m/kWh, so in theory I’m crushing the EPA estimated range, but I find myself irrationally not using the climate control system in order to save electricity that I’m not even paying for. You read that right, I haven’t paid a single penny yet to charge the Smurfmobile. The free charger at work died last week, and it got touchy because by my count there are 5 Mach-E’s here at my facility, and about as many various hybrids. So, charging spaces got a bit scarce for a minute. I got permission to replace the broken unit with a 14-50 plug, and am able to use my mobile charger without issues.
Speaking of issues… Ive only had 2 so far and they haven’t been large. The first is that 4 times now my audio system has crapped out. Resetting the 12v system has “fixed” it each time so far, but my dealership did some work on it this last time, so we will see. The second is new. The carPlay tile leaves a ghost image in the tile row when I select CarPlay for the main screen. I only noticed it today, so I don’t know what’s triggering it, or how to get rid of it. That said, it’s less of a problem than the audio system, so I’m doing ok on that front.
I am looking forward to trying out the BlueCruise mode once it becomes available this fall, I just wish it was coming online sooner as I am hoping to take a road trip to Colorado sometime this summer. That’s when I plan to use up all my EA kWh from the purchase.
Lastly, there are a few things that I wish Ford would do for us:
- Give us FordPass EV. I said it before, but I wanted to put it here again.
- It would be super beneficial to have a hotline staffed with subject matter experts so we didn’t need to clog service departments, that are still learning as much about our cars as we are, with silly issues that we can deal with ourselves at home. They could also facilitate service scheduling for us while we were on the phone should that be necessary.
- I don’t do much sitting in my car while charging, but if I could use the screen and the sound system to watch streaming services while in park, I feel like I would. Especially with this potential road trip coming up.
- I really want better information on charging. What was my peak rate? How many kWh did I put in? What was my effective rate? What were the things that slowed me down the most?
- In that same vein… Give us an instrument cluster to be proud of. Let me see what my discharge rate is in kW, what the temperature of the battery pack is. What the temperature of the motors is. A graphical representation of charge level that I can glance at and just get a quick feel for charge remaining wouldn’t be hated either.
To wrap it up, while the car isn’t “perfect”, it’s perfect for me. 12/10 would recommend.
Joe
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