EV and Mach-e Myths and Fallacies

[Marcelus_Mach_E]

I'm the first one in my extended family to get an EV. There are no crazy political people I have to deal with but I do inform them as much as I can about what it's like to own. They ask about power bills and I tell them they do go up, but definitely LESS than what they were paying for gas. I told them about the ease of charging, how long it takes to charge on a road trip, and how there's almost no maintenance. I see that it is scary to take the step of buying an EV, but once you get one You really never look back. Charging at home is the most convenient thing in the world.
I also tell them how brakes should last the life of the car because of the regenerative braking.

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[EB87]

One thing that is not a myth, never buy an electric vehicle from Ford. Been there, done that, one of the worst decisions of my life. Traded my Mach-e in at 17,000 miles for a gas guzzling Jeep and have never looked back.

Im confused. Why do you still have an account on this forum and are active on it then ? lol

 

[corradoborg]

Well actually you do need them if you like to have Amazon ship stuff to your house, or wear clothes, or drink water, or have paint on your house, or sit on the vinyl seat in your MME, or fly for business or vacation, or crazily, coat all those wires that get eletricty from the sustainable energy source to the windings inside your MME traction motor.

That's the dilemma, a lot of the stuff used to have a comfortable life comes from petroleum and gasoline and jet fuel is a primary by product of that process.

And if we slow down on the burning of it, we can drill a lot less while continuing to have these items. Not only can we use less petroleum for better purposes, but we have plenty of alternatives and synthetics, depending on the application, and will continue to develop more.

 

[vikingman]

When we were looking at replacing our previous car, a Volvo XC60, I was asking around about EVs in order to understand as much as possible up front.

It found it surprising how contrasting the conversations could be.

People with EV ownership experience could share valuable information and generally never mentioned range anxiety or charging issues.

People without EV ownership experience mostly would start with explaining how range is their showstopper and often bring up how the lack of engine noise is unacceptable.

Now, six months after getting the car, we don’t think much about the Mach E being an EV.. And if anyone asks, they get a nuanced response about owning an EV, and can then choose to ignore it or not..

 

[Teslaeata]

When we were looking at replacing our previous car, a Volvo XC60, I was asking around about EVs in order to understand as much as possible up front.

It found it surprising how contrasting the conversations could be.

People with EV ownership experience could share valuable information and generally never mentioned range anxiety or charging issues.

People without EV ownership experience mostly would start with explaining how range is their showstopper and often bring up how the lack of engine noise is unacceptable.

Now, six months after getting the car, we don’t think much about the Mach E being an EV.. And if anyone asks, they get a nuanced response about owning an EV, and can then choose to ignore it or not..

The people who tell me the most about EV ownership are those who know the least??‍

 

[Discwizard70]

The people who tell me the most about EV ownership are those who know the least??‍

THIS!
This is really the single largest deterrent of people buying EVs. The dealership I bought from had a solid salesman who actually owned a EV, so he was great. I actually like to do my homework first, so that helped, but I really couldn't find many people who knew squat that didn't actually own one. Most all of the negatives came from people with either opinion, or rumor, Not experience!
Eventually I made my own decision through educating myself on pros and cons of Evs and decided that they fit my lifestyle and budget perfectly. If you can believe it, I am actually very conservative politically too, as I have said before, I bought mine for purpose and budget, not for curbing c02, but if it does help, then great.

 

[2FlyMache]

Everyone has different experiences with different brands/models/fuel type. It's unfortunate that you had issues with Ford and EVs, and I do caution you that you bought a Chrysler with Jeep badges. I do hope you are problem free and happy with that like I am with both my EVs from Ford and the dealership I bought them from.
I am a traveling Auto Inspector, so I see tons of issues from All makes and models, and I see more Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep issues than literally every other brand. Now, as a side note, I am inclined to believe that a good portion of the issues I see are due to bad ownership practices with maintenance. So hopefully your Jeep will take care of you as much as you take care of it. That being said, I don't see anything with Ford or the EVs that spooks me out of purchasing 2 of them! It's still the early years for them, and some dealerships are, indeed, mismanaged, but... Yeah.... I look at vehicle issues for a living, and for me and many here, it's been a solid choice.

Yep, I have had my Mach E for 4 years now with 73K miles and it's been trouble free other than a 12V battery change out. Still love the car

 

[Mach1E]

People with EV ownership experience could share valuable information and generally never mentioned range anxiety or charging issues.

And yet the most common threads on this forum are around range and charging issues. ?

I’m guilty of this as well through, when I am asked about my car in public, all of a sudden I become a walking advertisement for how awesome EVs are.

I usually don’t bring up all the frustrations….. those are insider EV owner “forum talk.” ?

 

[Schmedlack]

More on misconceptions..........

1. I think that the press treats all "dealer resolved" and "OTA resolved" recalls equally. Thus, the 1 million Ford vehicle camera OTA recall is treated with the same seriousness as a recall where each vehicle requires multiple days of mechanical repairs. After seeing this exaggeration, an uninformed reader may conclude..... "Ford ain't nonthin' but problems" - I'll stay away".

2. Every now and then I still hear "I'm waiting for the Apple Car to go on sale".

 

[Snakebitten]

While I doubt that I will ever be without an EV for the remainder of my driving years, which ain't many I suspect, I also doubt that I will be without at least one vehicle with an ICE under the hood.

I'm long past declaring one the Victor.

I daily the Mach-E
It's absolutely the go-to the vast majority of the time. So convenient in so many ways. None more than it's ready with no concern for "warming up the coolant/oil/tranny fluid"

 

[devmach-e]

Charging takes way too long, like hours to add sufficient charge just to travel longer distances. I gently corrected this view. They may have been thinking about L1 charging. I did explain L1 through L4 chargers and that L3 DCFC can charge 20% to 80% in 25-30 minutes, generally.

To my knowledge, there is no L4 charging. There's L1 and L2 AC charging (120V versus 240V). Technically there is no Level 3. Or Level 4 for for that matter. Back in the late 'aughts, SAE International attempted to define an additional Level of AC charging called Level 3, and define 3 different levels of DC Fast charging, but that proposal was apparently not approved, so we just have Level 1 and 2 AC charging, and just DC fast charging.

Edited to add: I get that people think that Level 3 means DC Fast fast charging. They're just wrong. And yes, I will die on this hill. Along with a bunch of other hills...

That the battery and motor manufacturing processes require excessive energy and pollute more than the benefits gained. I don't have sufficient information to compare the entire production cycle and pollution between fossil fuels and battery-electric but I did explain that as battery material recycling matures, this will reduce both lifecycle costs and pollution.

Union of Concerned Scientists has a report about lifecycle emissions from cradle to grave. And while manufacturing a new EV, including the motors and battery, does have more emissions, those extra emissions are erased over the course of the vehicle's lifetime as compared to an equivalent ICE version. This typically happens within the first year or two of the EVs lifetime (around 18K miles). After that, the emissions are significantly lower than the ICE vehicle, even in coal dominated electricity generating areas. They even have a handy tool to to lookup how much cleaner an EV is in your area, or what the equivalent MPG you'd have to get in order to drive an ICE that is cleaner.

Latest report:
https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/electric-vehicles-help-combat-climate-change-heres-why/

Emissions lookup tool:
https://evtool.ucs.org/

 

[devmach-e]

One thing that is not a myth, never buy an electric vehicle from Ford. Been there, done that, one of the worst decisions of my life. Traded my Mach-e in at 17,000 miles for a gas guzzling Jeep and have never looked back.

I'm three years in with 54K miles. No issues. Sorry that you had an outlier.

 

[HuntingPudel]

I'm three years in with 54K miles. No issues. Sorry that you had an outlier.

Technically he didn't say he had issues, just that it was one of the worst decisions that he'd made. For me, I thought the 2021 MME was a good decision so I swapped that out for a 2024. ??

 

[devmach-e]

Technically he didn't say he had issues, just that it was one of the worst decisions that he'd made. For me, I thought the 2021 MME was a good decision so I swapped that out for a 2024. ??

I'm just saying that I've had no issues in 3-years.

 

[vikingman]

And yet the most common threads on this forum are around range and charging issues. ?

I’m guilty of this as well through, when I am asked about my car in public, all of a sudden I become a walking advertisement for how awesome EVs are.

I usually don’t bring up all the frustrations….. those are insider EV owner “forum talk.” ?

Sure, not all is black and white ? And as we seldom need to change using a public charger, we’re not really exposed to any issues, hence what we were told turns out to be true.

That being said, I get the impression that charging in the U.S. is more of a hassle than in Central/Northern Europe: No adapters needed, most chargers working fine (if sometimes rather expensive), even in the rural areas where we usually hang out.

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