On the Fence after watching Mach E's thermal system nightmare

[George Knighton]

1. Munro's entire schtick is increasing manufacturing profit / efficiency.

Exactly.

Sometimes home boy's just right. The Mach E thermal system could be simpler, maybe, and Ford said that they would be simplifying it even if that simplification does not include a heat pump.

He makes mistakes, though. His last video to do with a Mach E was with a GT P and Blue Cruise 1.2, and he and Corey positively waxed poetic about the car and the automated system.

What he says and does shouldn't be taken as Gospel, necessarily. And he should not exaggerate the way that he does, to the point that someone would not buy a perfectly wonderful vehicle because he thinks the HVAC is complicated.

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[dbsb3233]

1. Munro's entire schtick is increasing manufacturing profit / efficiency. If you watch a few of his videos (btw, if he was half as good as he thinks he is, he wouldn't have time for youtube vids) the script becomes pretty apparent: Everything made of steel should be made of aluminum. Everything aluminum should be plastic. Everything that's 2 pieces should be one. Everything that's welded should be molded.

His perfect car would be assembled entirely out of those shirty plastic clips that always break and as a consumer, I don't really want him to like my car.

All that said, not aware of any reliability issues with the MachE cooling system, so I don't think there's any reason to be concerned.

This. In 47,000 miles (mostly of those long road trips), I've never had any issue with the cooling system. Does it add a few more pounds to the car than it needs to? Yep. Did it add a little more $$ to the cost of the car to build? Sure. Did I end up paying a little more in purchase price because of it? Maybe. But that's a broader price decision we all make when we buy a car. You either like the car at that price or you don't.

I've never had a problem with the cooling system in mine, and I don't recall hearing of anyone else's failing either. It works, and does what it's supposed to. Sandy is the ultimate nitpicker, always finding fault in things that still work just fine.

The only way I even see the cooling system manifested in a way that impacts me is DCFC charging speed. And even then I'm not sure if that's really the cause when I might only get 80kw avg on a charge session instead of the normal ~100kw avg. And even if it is... eh. 35 minutes at a road trip charging stop instead of 30 ain't gonna kill me. More time for the bathroom and to get some steps in.

 

[Mirak]

This. In 47,000 miles (mostly of those long road trips), I've never had any issue with the cooling system. Does it add a few more pounds to the car than it needs to? Yep. Did it add a little more $$ to the cost of the car to build? Sure. Did I end up paying a little more in purchase price because of it? Maybe. But that's a broader price decision we all make when we buy a car. You either like the car at that price or you don't.

I've never had a problem with the cooling system in mine, and I don't recall hearing of anyone else's failing either. It works, and does what it's supposed to. Sandy is the ultimate nitpicker, always finding fault in things that still work just fine.

The only way I even see the cooling system manifested in a way that impacts me is DCFC charging speed. And even then I'm not sure if that's really the cause when I might only get 80kw avg on a charge session instead of the normal ~100kw avg. And even if it is... eh. 35 minutes at a road trip charging stop instead of 30 ain't gonna kill me. More time for the bathroom and to get some steps in.

Just anecdotally, a friend of mine with a 2019 Tesla M3 has told me that his entire HVAC system sometimes stops working when he superchargers. His car is out of warranty and Tesla is not providing a fix. And this is apparently a common Tesla problem.

I hope the Mach E doesn’t have similar latent defects which only manifest after my extended warranty expires, but bottom line is, all these EVs likely have some issues with the newer nature of the tech.

 

[Old_Norm]

Waiting for that EV-Vida aftermarket heat pump for the MME.

 

[Timelessblur]

Remember Monro is a MASSIVE and I mean MASSIVE Tesla fanboy and stock holder.
He also has a massive bone to pick with Ford always keep that in mind. He tends to bash anyone not Tesla and will cover up Tesla flaws. Good infomation but you need to put things threw the fanboy/ Tesla Filter. The best Videos are the ones with out Monro in them. If Monro is in them take them with a MASSIVE dose of salt.

I have an early job 1 2021 and have not had any issues with it. I have an AWD extended range Premium with its original HVBJB and not have any issues with it. Still waiting on its BC 1.3 update and the Frunk remote opening but the car has been great for me.

 

[SolarAB]

It's been a great car and my personal experience with dealer service has been a great one. We enjoy the vehicle and it brings a smile to my face whenever I drive it. The recent HVJBC recall has eased my worries about the risk of failure and it is, of course, covered by warranty. Still one of the best options out there.

 

[eleven24]

I'm ready to pull the trigger on a 23 Mach E Premium with extended range battery, but I just watch Sandy Munro's comparison of the Mach E's thermal system nightmare vs, the Model Y. In addition I am concerned about downtime with HVBJB and other issues. Is this all blown out of proportion? Would you buy another Mach E knowing what you know now? Thanks in advance

The short of it: I road trip 800 miles frequently & live in PA where it's 95 in the summer and 20 (-7 to 35 for those North of the border) in the winter. I had a Model Y and sold it for a 2023 Mach E GT. I'm also a data geek, so I record everything.

Comparing 818 mile road trip in 40-50 degree temps over undulating roads ranging from 240 to 2300 elevation & an average speed on the highway always around 68-72:

• 2023 Mach-E: Total time 16:00 | driving 12:50 | charging 3:10. Averaged 2.7 miles per kw
• 2021 Model Y: Total time 14:45 | driving 12:45 | charging 2:00. Averaged 3.4 miles per kw

I did get lucky with this trip though as I never had to wait for a charger to open up, and only had one where it wasn't working so I just moved to another open charger. That isn't even a thought in the Tesla because the Supercharger network just... works. Still, the actual road trip itself was really no different in the Mach-E than the Model Y Long Range.

Driver Assistance
Bluecruise is infinitely better than Tesla's FSD, and I had FSD beta. It shocked me how much better it was. No phantom breaking. No being in the right lane and having the Tesla center when a merge lane appears throwing my car to the right. Lane changes are smoother. Hugging the opposite side of the lane when a large truck is near is also reassuring. What I do miss - seeing the representation of other vehicles around me in the display on the Tesla

Charge Speed
The charging speed is also much slower in the Mach E - or so it seems. On those road trips my average charge speed in the Tesla was 103.3. In the Mach-E it was 77 kWh. The longer time charging represents this charge speed as well as the MME having a larger battery pack.

Charge strategy
This is the biggest difference between Tesla and everything else. On a road trip I could confidently unplug when my projection was 10% at the next charger stop in the Tesla. In the MME I find myself charging so I can reach a charger TWO stops away in the event the first one does not work or is full. I'll also stop earlier than needed (say if I'm at 30% SOC) with the thought that I should charge now in case the next one has an issue. The Tesla was drive and forget it. The MME was plan everything out before and during the drive.

 

[ChehRob]

Res heat pump. I read, and unfortunately cannot remember the link, that the heat pump is about 4% more efficient than resistance heating. If that is correct on a 300-mile range EV that is a difference of only 12 miles range.

res Blue Cruise and Tesla FSD or AP. Blue Cruise kind of overlaps the two, in many ways better than AP, and not as capable as FSD but better in some regards. BC is $75 a month, while FSD is $200. (I think those are still the right figures.)

 

[dbsb3233]

The short of it: I road trip 800 miles frequently & live in PA where it's 95 in the summer and 20 (-7 to 35 for those North of the border) in the winter. I had a Model Y and sold it for a 2023 Mach E GT. I'm also a data geek, so I record everything.

Comparing 818 mile road trip in 40-50 degree temps over undulating roads ranging from 240 to 2300 elevation & an average speed on the highway always around 68-72:

• 2023 Mach-E: Total time 16:00 | driving 12:50 | charging 3:10. Averaged 2.7 miles per kw
• 2021 Model Y: Total time 14:45 | driving 12:45 | charging 2:00. Averaged 3.4 miles per kw

I did get lucky with this trip though as I never had to wait for a charger to open up, and only had one where it wasn't working so I just moved to another open charger. That isn't even a thought in the Tesla because the Supercharger network just... works. Still, the actual road trip itself was really no different in the Mach-E than the Model Y Long Range.

Driver Assistance
Bluecruise is infinitely better than Tesla's FSD, and I had FSD beta. It shocked me how much better it was. No phantom breaking. No being in the right lane and having the Tesla center when a merge lane appears throwing my car to the right. Lane changes are smoother. Hugging the opposite side of the lane when a large truck is near is also reassuring. What I do miss - seeing the representation of other vehicles around me in the display on the Tesla

Charge Speed
The charging speed is also much slower in the Mach E - or so it seems. On those road trips my average charge speed in the Tesla was 103.3. In the Mach-E it was 77 kWh. The longer time charging represents this charge speed as well as the MME having a larger battery pack.

Charge strategy
This is the biggest difference between Tesla and everything else. On a road trip I could confidently unplug when my projection was 10% at the next charger stop in the Tesla. In the MME I find myself charging so I can reach a charger TWO stops away in the event the first one does not work or is full. I'll also stop earlier than needed (say if I'm at 30% SOC) with the thought that I should charge now in case the next one has an issue. The Tesla was drive and forget it. The MME was plan everything out before and during the drive.

Good synopsis. We do the same, usually leaving a large buffer in the "tank" to reach a backup DCFC, just in case. Which means I'd usually driving in the 30-80% SOC area. Most of my DCFCs simply charge 80%, not what any trip planner says to barely reach the next DCFC with just 10%, praying that it works.

A couple of comments... Your +1:10 hour charging difference is wholly valid, but it largely applies for doing all 818 miles in a single day. Or more precisely, no hotel charging. We do almost the exact same type of trip 6 times a year. Denver-Vegas, 785 miles each way. In fact we've leaving tomorrow for another one. But as we've gotten older, we prefer to stick to daytime driving. So we do 500 miles the first day, stop for the night (with hotel charging), and do the remaining 285 the next day. That 100% charge in the middle (as well as the 100% start) covers a lot of the miles. Means we only do 3 DCFCs on day 1 and 1 DCFC on day 2. And one of those day 1 DCFCs is lunch so a little extra time there is moot. Adds up just 3 DCFC that are each maybe 10 minutes longer than a Y would do. For us that's insignificant.

Second, with about 60% of he Supercharge stations opening to us next year, and more DCFC on the way from other networks, it continues to get better. That will shrink the gap further.

 

[tony488]

We are now onto our second Mach-E. Traded in a 2021 Infinite Blue Standard range for '23 Carbonized Gray Extended Range. So far it's been great overall.
The Mustang Mach-E is totally new for Ford so there were some items with the '21 we accepted and moved on but nothing that stopped us from getting a new one.

 

[dimes4slim]

I'm ready to pull the trigger on a 23 Mach E Premium with extended range battery, but I just watch Sandy Munro's comparison of the Mach E's thermal system nightmare vs, the Model Y. In addition I am concerned about downtime with HVBJB and other issues. Is this all blown out of proportion? Would you buy another Mach E knowing what you know now? Thanks in advance

I bought my 2021 in Dec 2021, and it has been close to, if not the best car I have owned out of 50+. This forum has probably done more to scare me than anything, but it serves its purpose to help us all better understand our Pony. Actual problems have been negligible, except for the early software issues which have been largely addressed. I have 1 year left on my Ford Options plan, and I would be hard pressed not to buy or lease another Mach-E, especially since I am way down the learning curve. Most importantly, my wife agrees.

 

[silverelan]

35 minutes at a road trip charging stop instead of 30 ain't gonna kill me. More time for the bathroom and to get some steps in.

I just gotta say, I'm really impressed with the evolution you've taken over the past 4 years when it comes to recharging times on a long distance trip in the MME.

You went from "I'd never take a BEV on a road trip because I want a 5 minutes stop" to "meh, it's 35 minutes and I've got all day, so no biggie." If that's not the perfect example of how EVs can change someone's perspective, then I don't know what is.

For context, check out @dbsb3233's comment from December 2019:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/vacation-trips-not-in-a-mach-e.161/page-3#post-3235

 

[ChehRob]

Incidentally, MME resale values having taken a deep dive, I have been looking for a '23 Ca. R1 - ain't no dives for this. Only a few thousand less than buying new. And here I was hoping!

 

[dbsb3233]

I just gotta say, I'm really impressed with the evolution you've taken over the past 4 years when it comes to recharging times on a long distance trip in the MME.

You went from "I'd never take a BEV on a road trip because I want a 5 minutes stop" to "meh, it's 35 minutes and I've got all day, so no biggie." If that's not the perfect example of how EVs can change someone's perspective, then I don't know what is.

For context, check out @dbsb3233's comment from December 2019:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/vacation-trips-not-in-a-mach-e.161/page-3#post-3235

Yeah, some things certainly changed from that scenario. For one, we decided to bite the bullet (and the 100 bucks) and get a hotel room to break that Denver-Vegas drive into 2 days. I still wouldn't do it in one day (as we did in the Escape prior to the Mach-E). It was 12 hours in ICE, which was right at the limit for keeping the drive almost entirely daytime. It would be about 15 in the Mach-E. Just too long of a day.

ABRP pegged it at 17 hours, which was way too long to consider. But in 2019 that was before EA added the Green River station. With 2019 infrastructure it was a no-go. But that changed when EA added that station (and more) in 2020. The calculation changed significantly at that point.

But yeah, that last statement about "anything over 200 miles we'll take the ICE" proved to be an entirely wrong prediction. 35,000 MME road trip miles later we're some of the biggest road trippers in the forum now (COVID helped that as well as we used to fly more). Learned a lot in the 14 months between that 2019 post and getting the car in 2021.

We've still driven the ICE (Escape before, Bronco Sport now) on 3-4 other road trips where the charging was poor. But the features of the MME are so nice for road-tripping that we prefer driving it if the route allows it.

 

[RMacon808]

Just 2 cents here since people chiming in on MY vs MME decision making. We have 2023 MME ER AWD, 3k miles and no big issues so far. Tailgate position sensor was bad at time of sale so that was only flaw, and was a few hour fix at dealer.

We went MME for nicer interior IMO, more intuitive UI, exterior styling mostly. Here in Seattle MY is everywhere so we liked the relative coolness of something different.

MME isnt as efficient on the road but for daily city driving and occasional weekend max range trips its going to be perfect.

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