First Week Impressions: Premium AWD Extended Range in Infinite Blue

JohnnyForensic

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“Everyone else is doing it…why not me?!” I’ve had the car for a week and about 500 miles, so here goes.

TL;DR - I’m extraordinarily happy with this car. I was very concerned moving from my 2019 Acura RDX Advance SH-AWD because I absolutely loved that car, but I’ve barely thought about it since. This is my first Ford car owned out of about 15 different cars in my life, so I am not a Ford loyalist by any means.

Comfort/Cabin
  • Seat comfort to me is very good. Not excellent, but very good. The non-separately adjustable tilt of the lower seat is disappointing as it tends to put some added pressure on the backs of my legs near my knees, but working through a combination of heights and distances led me to finding a comfortable position. The cushions are firmer than a luxury ride, but they’re less firm than the Acura’s; they’re a nice “Goldilocks” medium firmness. Lumbar support is good, and they’re comfortable for long stretches. Some people seem to feel there’s inadequate side bolstering, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I’m a larger guy, and what’s there cradles me nicely.
  • Being a larger guy, I find that the center console around the phone charging area tends to catch me on the side of my calf somewhat uncomfortably. Your mileage will vary here based on your body shape and your chosen seating position, but it’s worth mentioning. I have to consciously think about where to position my leg so the sharp edge of the tray doesn’t press into my calf muscle.
  • Your seating height is very nicely adjustable. You can put yourself lower and feel more like you’re in a sedan, or you can push yourself higher because of the ample roofline and feel more like you’re in an SUV. While the front windscreen is somewhat short in height, visibility is good out the front at any level.
  • The seating is more than spacious enough for four full-sized adults to be comfortable all the way around. The fifth seat, like in any car, is much more narrow, but still serviceable for five adults for a short jaunt. Three kids have plenty of space in the back to not rub elbows.
  • Interior lighting is plentiful, and it’s downright bright at night with the accent lighting, especially if you’ve turned up the brightness. It’s actually a little surprisingly bright inside at night compared to anything else I’ve ever driven.
  • Speaking of brightness, I do have the noticeable instrument cluster screen hum when it’s powered on. I’ve found that each setting on the brightness meter has a different and corresponding pitch. It’s NOT linear; different steps of brightness change the pitch, but not in a predictable way. By cycling through the different brightness levels, I found a pitch that is far less audible to me than the others, so I leave the screen brightness there to minimize the hum. (Hacky, I know, but it helped.)
  • Cabin storage is good. Not amazing, but good. The Acura RDX had very similar layouts for storage, almost identically so, but there’s less of it in each space with the Mach-E. Still, it’s pretty good in there for your EDC knickknacks.
  • The cabin’s look and feel isn’t luxury by “luxury” standards, and the Acura’s cabin is definitely nicer appointed with real wood trim and a high-end leather for a lower cost (yeah, BEV vs ICE, I know), but it’s definitely the nicest-appointed Ford I’ve ever been in.
  • The glass roof hasn’t been an issue with light or heat. Granted, I live in the east and not in the Arizona sun, but I *am* pretty light-sensitive/phobic, and even so, the open roof has never made me squint or feel like there was undue glare coming through. Ford did a good job on this. I can see the sun, but it doesn’t bother me or feel too bright. It just feels airy and open, which is the effect they were going for. Well done.
Audio System
  • First, not I’m not an “audiophile.” I know what sounds good to me and what doesn‘t though. Therefore, I adjudicate the sound system to be “fine.” “Good“ even. Not “great.” Bass gives out quickly and causes rattles in some of the panels when turned-up to compensate. The overall sound is a bit ”thin,” but it’s still good enough for what I’d want in a car.
  • That said, I’m coming from the RDX Advance which has been said to have “the best sound system in any car under $100,000,” so I’m probably a bit spoiled, but it’s true. The Mach-E’s B&O system doesn’t hold a candle to the Acura’s ELS Audio, and that’s unfortunate.
  • On-screen controls for the audio system are nicely laid out. The steering wheel controls work great too and need little time to become familiar with them. My worst problem is the muscle memory I’ve developed for the cruise controls and volume controls; every other car I’ve had has the reverse layout with cruise on the right and radio on the left, so I find I often turn up the volume when intending to increase speed.
Technology Stack
  • I actually like the Ford technology stack. The controls could be zippier—animations and transitions to subsequent menus and actions are a little slower than I’d like—but the general layout is pretty darned good.
  • Big, chunky on-screen buttons are very much better to stab at with a finger that’s bouncing with the road than small tap-targets, so I give Ford UX points on that one. Well done with the chunk.
  • I’m a huge Apple fan, so CarPlay support was critical for me. I’ve found CarPlay, both wired and wireless, to be excellent. There’s a slight delay when using the steering wheel controls to skip forward or back with wireless CarPlay, but it’s nothing I can’t anticipate. It works, and for me at least, it’s all worked very reliably. I’m also on the iOS 15 beta, and it’s been rock solid. MUCH better than the RDX which potentially has a class action lawsuit brewing about their poor CarPlay support. the MME’s screen makes CarPlay very large in comparison to most cars, again making the tap targets much larger and much more driving-friendly.
  • I disabled the wake-words for Ford, and I find that just using the voice assistant button (quick press for Ford, long press for Siri) works like a champ. They’re quick to activate and there’s no unexpected wake-ups from it hearing a podcast or someone on the radio.
  • The whole charging paradigm could use a little work. I’m not sure what exactly…probably more than two scheduled preconditioning times and a little more generic control on charging default settings, but it’s not AWFUL. It’s just not super-intuitive.
  • Phone as a Key (PaaK) has actually been pretty good for me. Maybe it’s because I work in tech and generally understand the handshakes that have to happen, but I really don’t have trouble with it and it really is nice to be able to walk out the door with just my phone (which has my driver’s license and credit card in a wallet case with it).
  • The Ford Navigation system has serious last-mile routing issues as far as I can tell in just a few short trips. Three out of four trips I’ve used it with put me at a destination that…wasn’t…my destination. (See my other post “Ford Navigation Last Mile Routing is Not Great, Bob” for more on that.)
  • For the love of god, please add a CHIME to “Charging Port Door Ajar,” Ford. Not just a dialog box. (See my other post “Taking One for the Team or How I Killed My Charge Port Door” for more on that if you want to laugh at me.)
  • FordPass is kind of the hot mess that everyone here says it is, unfortunately. Sometimes it seems to work great, and other times it will literally lay one interface element over another, making both unreadable. Like, really? That got out of QC? However, it has done the jobs I’ve needed it to do, but it’s pretty sad when the charging information on the front page of the app completely doesn’t match the charging information on the second page. Ever. (The front page is the wrong one.)
  • The car’s parking radars are well done and the heat map that it can show as an option in the camera view for how close you are to things all the way around is really well done and handy in the circumstances where you need it. I just wish I had a hard button or a quick link on the screen to go directly to the front cameras. If I were feeling like I was getting into trouble with the Acura when parking, for example, there’s a button at the end of the wiper stalk that turns on the front cameras instantly, and my hand is probably already RIGHT THERE while making a turn into a space. Super convenient. Two on-screen button taps is not ideal when I’m in the “OH DAMN AM I ABOUT TO HIT THAT CAR?!” mode.
Driving Experience
  • Electric torque is addicting. I absolutely see why people say they never want to go back to gas after driving an EV. I’m NOT/NOT a “speed guy” by any means, but when I want to move to pass a car or something, I want to move NOW. There’s almost zero latency between pedal push and go-juice. If I wanted to gun the RDX, I had to pre-plan knowing that it would take about a second for the turbo to spin-up before the passing power started, so I did the mental mathematics to decide when to accelerate and change lanes. With the Mach-E, you push it, it goes. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a stop light or if you’re already doing 60 and need to go to 70. You push it, it goes. Brilliant. Maybe on paper 0-60 in 4.8 doesn’t sound ”fast,” but I can assure you it feels fast.
  • Yeah, the ride’s bouncy. It’s bouncier than the RDX in Sports+ mode (with adjustable shocks). That said, I don’t at all find it uncomfortably bouncy. It’s just reactive to the road. You bounce, but you don’t bounce repeatedly.
  • The only time/place I’ve seen something to counter that statement, however, is when driving over a long concrete road or bridge span with expansion joints. Going over those at a solid speed can create this see-saw action where the front and back bounce up and down rhythmically, almost comically. If I lived where my main roads were concrete instead of asphalt, this might be an issue for me. But I don’t.
  • The MME is VERY quiet on the road. The RDX was known for its quietness and acoustic glass, etc. The MME also has acoustic glass. Using the decibel meter on my Apple Watch, the RDX would clock in at about 64 decibels on a smooth patch of road I drive regularly at 55 mph. The MME clocks in at 52 decibels on that same length of road. It’s not silent, but it’s amazingly quiet. Better tires might drop that number even more. (I turn off the propulsion sound effect.)
  • Handling is great within normal limits. For daily driving, it’s fantastic—smooth and planted firmly on the ground. You feel the thin tires when cornering hard though…they squeal like a Deliverance pig. But wow, does the MME feel like it’s on rails most of the time though. (Well, bouncy rails.)
  • It took me all of about ten minutes to get and feel very comfortable with one-pedal driving. I almost never tap the brakes. Unlike what some others have reported, my 1PD is completely smooth to a stop. It feels, dare I say, buttery. I just love it. Highway driving is in Intelligent Cruise Control, and around-town driving is in Unbridled + 1PD. Both are excellent.
  • That said, lane centering absolutely biases the right edge of the road as so many have said. It feels exactly as if it is centering the DRIVER in the lane instead of the CAR. I do the override by holding it where I want it for ten seconds, and that works every time, but I have to do it every time. Just center the car and not the driver here, Ford, and it would be great.
  • (Edited to Add) The automatic high/low headlight system is the best I've had in any car, hands down. It's quick to react, and I have yet to see it leave the brights on when someone is coming my way or someone is ahead of me. It's excellently responsive. The low beams are sharp but a little dimmer than my old, LASIK-contrast-loss eyes would like (this is a "me" problem, not a car problem), but the high beams are perfectly good.
  • In short, the MME is just damned fun to drive.
Trunk/Frunk
  • The Frunk is much more useable with the dividers removed. I have a nice trim tool and it took me all of about 10 minutes to pull them out. I replaced the pins with some smoother, lower profile trim clips and it looks fine. I’m an organizational freak, and I loved the IDEA of the dividers, but they cut the space up so much that nothing I wanted to put in the frunk (mostly a pretty stuffed day-pack sized go-bag) would fit well with the dividers in. Once removed, there’s a lot of space. The electronic unlock to come will be handy, as pulling the handle from the interior twice is kind of irksome. That said, I use the frunk for stuff like the go-bag that I’ll probably never need to get to but want to have available if I’m out and the crap hits the fan.
  • The under-floor trunk space is kind of useless. This was a big loss from the RDX that had a TON of under-floor space (enough for that go-bag and then some). The trunk space itself is also smaller than I’d hope, but it’s perfectly fine and then some for a grocery run for a family of seven. It’s just a matter of my expectation here. The Acura was a small SUV. The MME is really a large crossover more than a small SUV, so everything is just slightly smaller than a small SUV form factor.
  • I keep the trunk floor in the lower position. It’s not flat, but it makes more usable space, and I didn’t like the threads I’ve seen here with the floor panel or the side arms that hold it breaking under load in the upper position. There more support if it’s in the lower position, and it doesn’t open up THAT MUCH more space underneath if it’s in the higher position to make a difference to me. Plus, those aforementioned groceries can’t roll out if you open the trunk hatch on an incline.
  • Maybe I’m a rear panel unicorn, but I’ve had no problem with the privacy shade coming loose or falling out of position. Works well for me and interferes with the trunk less than the roll-out ones I’ve had in other cars.
Body
  • The body panels, paint, fit, and finish are all fantastic. The glass roof alignment issue I’ve read so much about is under control in the later builds. No wind noise at all that I can hear.
  • That damned charge port door. Look at the Cadillac Lyriq for a much better example. It pops out about an inch and then drops downward. If you accidentally leave it open and push the OK button to dismiss the dialog box screaming “CHARGE PORT DOOR AJAR” in your face because you’re running out the door with the kids to get them to school, you won’t almost rip it off with the side of the garage on the way out. If your side view mirrors can clear it, so can the port door. THIS IS NOT LIKE THE MME. Just sayin’.
  • I wasn’t originally in love with the shape of the car—the RDX is absolutely gorgeous to me—but it’s definitely growing on me. The MME is strong and muscular in a family truckster sense. I wouldn’t have minded if it were about six inches longer, but otherwise, I’ve got no complaints about the fitment of anything.
What I’d want to see improved for 2022/23 and beyond
  • Make the charge port door pop out and down so you don’t accidentally rip it off, and it will also make it easier to use with different parking angles and charging cable lengths if it doesn’t have to go “around” the door.
  • Improve the stereo system. See Acura RDX Advance. Or hear it, rather.
  • Lose a few miles of range for thicker wheels/tires. Squealing through curves is obnoxious and makes the otherwise very stable car feel like the tires are going to roll right under and off the wheels.
  • Add another few levels of adjustability to the driver’s seat at least.
  • Add heaters to the rear seats. Given that Ford wants us to use seat heaters instead of eHeat, the lack of seat heaters in the rear is a tremendous oversight.
  • Extend the accent lighting into the rear just like it shows on my screen in the MME where I can control the accent lighting. It’s great. It’s fun. The kids LOVE it, but they don’t get it in the back and that makes little children sad. Don’t make little children sad, Ford.
  • Add seat ventilation at least to the front, if not the rear as well. The ActiveX isn’t super breathable and gets hot and clammy.
  • Stop that damned screen whine on the instrument cluster. Buy a better part, provide better power to it—I don’t know. It’s an unnecessary annoyance that just doesn’t belong in a car with with rest of the quality it exhibits.
  • I’d like some trunk cargo tie-down hooks. Then give me a cargo net to stretch across the floor of the trunk to anchor to them.
  • Fix the issue with Qi charging and iPhones with MagSafe. It doesn’t need to be MagSafe (though, bonus), but it does need to actually charge.
  • Clean-up your charger database that you use for the Navigation system. It’s full of bad/old/nonexistent/broken chargers apparently, and that’s not good for routing. Also let me bias a particular brand of charger for or against.
  • Fix the last-mile navigation routing. This is a critical item. Three out of four trips routed me to something else; and now I can’t trust it at all. Additionally, activate what you need to to allow Apple Maps to calculate charging for me as well/instead, since that DOES route me to the right places but doesn’t know how much charge I’ll need and where to stop to get there.
I can’t believe you read this far. Go, you!
Sponsored

 
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Davedough

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Great write-up! When I get mine we'll have to do a swap and a side by side comparison =)
 

Profeprods

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“Everyone else is doing it…why not me?!” I’ve had the car for a week and about 500 miles, so here goes.

TL;DR - I’m extraordinarily happy with this car. I was very concerned moving from my 2019 Acura RDX Advance SH-AWD because I absolutely loved that car, but I’ve barely thought about it since. This is my first Ford car owned out of about 15 different cars in my life, so I am not a Ford loyalist by any means.

Comfort/Cabin
  • Seat comfort to me is very good. Not excellent, but very good. The non-separately adjustable tilt of the lower seat is disappointing as it tends to put some added pressure on the backs of my legs near my knees, but working through a combination of heights and distances led me to finding a comfortable position. The cushions are firmer than a luxury ride, but they’re less firm than the Acura’s; they’re a nice “Goldilocks” medium firmness. Lumbar support is good, and they’re comfortable for long stretches. Some people seem to feel there’s inadequate side bolstering, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I’m a larger guy, and what’s there cradles me nicely.
  • Being a larger guy, I find that the center console around the phone charging area tends to catch me on the side of my calf somewhat uncomfortably. Your mileage will vary here based on your body shape and your chosen seating position, but it’s worth mentioning. I have to consciously think about where to position my leg so the sharp edge of the tray doesn’t press into my calf muscle.
  • Your seating height is very nicely adjustable. You can put yourself lower and feel more like you’re in a sedan, or you can push yourself higher because of the ample roofline and feel more like you’re in an SUV. While the front windscreen is somewhat short in height, visibility is good out the front at any level.
  • The seating is more than spacious enough for four full-sized adults to be comfortable all the way around. The fifth seat, like in any car, is much more narrow, but still serviceable for five adults for a short jaunt. Three kids have plenty of space in the back to not rub elbows.
  • Interior lighting is plentiful, and it’s downright bright at night with the accent lighting, especially if you’ve turned up the brightness. It’s actually a little surprisingly bright inside at night compared to anything else I’ve ever driven.
  • Speaking of brightness, I do have the noticeable instrument cluster screen hum when it’s powered on. I’ve found that each setting on the brightness meter has a different and corresponding pitch. It’s NOT linear; different steps of brightness change the pitch, but not in a predictable way. By cycling through the different brightness levels, I found a pitch that is far less audible to me than the others, so I leave the screen brightness there to minimize the hum. (Hacky, I know, but it helped.)
  • Cabin storage is good. Not amazing, but good. The Acura RDX had very similar layouts for storage, almost identically so, but there’s less of it in each space with the Mach-E. Still, it’s pretty good in there for your EDC knickknacks.
  • The cabin’s look and feel isn’t luxury by “luxury” standards, and the Acura’s cabin is definitely nicer appointed with real wood trim and a high-end leather for a lower cost (yeah, BEV vs ICE, I know), but it’s definitely the nicest-appointed Ford I’ve ever been in.
  • The glass roof hasn’t been an issue with light or heat. Granted, I live in the east and not in the Arizona sun, but I *am* pretty light-sensitive/phobic, and even so, the open roof has never made me squint or feel like there was undue glare coming through. Ford did a good job on this. I can see the sun, but it doesn’t bother me or feel too bright. It just feels airy and open, which is the effect they were going for. Well done.
Audio System
  • First, not I’m not an “audiophile.” I know what sounds good to me and what doesn‘t though. Therefore, I adjudicate the sound system to be “fine.” “Good“ even. Not “great.” Bass gives out quickly and causes rattles in some of the panels when turned-up to compensate. The overall sound is a bit ”thin,” but it’s still good enough for what I’d want in a car.
  • That said, I’m coming from the RDX Advance which has been said to have “the best sound system in any car under $100,000,” so I’m probably a bit spoiled, but it’s true. The Mach-E’s B&O system doesn’t hold a candle to the Acura’s ELS Audio, and that’s unfortunate.
  • On-screen controls for the audio system are nicely laid out. The steering wheel controls work great too and need little time to become familiar with them. My worst problem is the muscle memory I’ve developed for the cruise controls and volume controls; every other car I’ve had has the reverse layout with cruise on the right and radio on the left, so I find I often turn up the volume when intending to increase speed.
Technology Stack
  • I actually like the Ford technology stack. The controls could be zippier—animations and transitions to subsequent menus and actions are a little slower than I’d like—but the general layout is pretty darned good.
  • Big, chunky on-screen buttons are very much better to stab at with a finger that’s bouncing with the road than small tap-targets, so I give Ford UX points on that one. Well done with the chunk.
  • I’m a huge Apple fan, so CarPlay support was critical for me. I’ve found CarPlay, both wired and wireless, to be excellent. There’s a slight delay when using the steering wheel controls to skip forward or back with wireless CarPlay, but it’s nothing I can’t anticipate. It works, and for me at least, it’s all worked very reliably. I’m also on the iOS 15 beta, and it’s been rock solid. MUCH better than the RDX which potentially has a class action lawsuit brewing about their poor CarPlay support. the MME’s screen makes CarPlay very large in comparison to most cars, again making the tap targets much larger and much more driving-friendly.
  • I disabled the wake-words for Ford, and I find that just using the voice assistant button (quick press for Ford, long press for Siri) works like a champ. They’re quick to activate and there’s no unexpected wake-ups from it hearing a podcast or someone on the radio.
  • The whole charging paradigm could use a little work. I’m not sure what exactly…probably more than two scheduled preconditioning times and a little more generic control on charging default settings, but it’s not AWFUL. It’s just not super-intuitive.
  • Phone as a Key (PaaK) has actually been pretty good for me. Maybe it’s because I work in tech and generally understand the handshakes that have to happen, but I really don’t have trouble with it and it really is nice to be able to walk out the door with just my phone (which has my driver’s license and credit card in a wallet case with it).
  • The Ford Navigation system has serious last-mile routing issues as far as I can tell in just a few short trips. Three out of four trips I’ve used it with put me at a destination that…wasn’t…my destination. (See my other post “Ford Navigation Last Mile Routing is Not Great, Bob” for more on that.)
  • For the love of god, please add a CHIME to “Charging Port Door Ajar,” Ford. Not just a dialog box. (See my other post “Taking One for the Team or How I Killed My Charge Port Door” for more on that if you want to laugh at me.)
  • FordPass is kind of the hot mess that everyone here says it is, unfortunately. Sometimes it seems to work great, and other times it will literally lay one interface element over another, making both unreadable. Like, really? That got out of QC? However, it has done the jobs I’ve needed it to do, but it’s pretty sad when the charging information on the front page of the app completely doesn’t match the charging information on the second page. Ever. (The front page is the wrong one.)
  • The car’s parking radars are well done and the heat map that it can show as an option in the camera view for how close you are to things all the way around is really well done and handy in the circumstances where you need it. I just wish I had a hard button or a quick link on the screen to go directly to the front cameras. If I were feeling like I was getting into trouble with the Acura when parking, for example, there’s a button at the end of the wiper stalk that turns on the front cameras instantly, and my hand is probably already RIGHT THERE while making a turn into a space. Super convenient. Two on-screen button taps is not ideal when I’m in the “OH DAMN AM I ABOUT TO HIT THAT CAR?!” mode.
Driving Experience
  • Electric torque is addicting. I absolutely see why people say they never want to go back to gas after driving an EV. I’m NOT/NOT a “speed guy” by any means, but when I want to move to pass a car or something, I want to move NOW. There’s almost zero latency between pedal push and go-juice. If I wanted to gun the RDX, I had to pre-plan knowing that it would take about a second for the turbo to spin-up before the passing power started, so I did the mental mathematics to decide when to accelerate and change lanes. With the Mach-E, you push it, it goes. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a stop light or if you’re already doing 60 and need to go to 70. You push it, it goes. Brilliant. Maybe on paper 0-60 in 4.8 doesn’t sound ”fast,” but I can assure you it feels fast.
  • Yeah, the ride’s bouncy. It’s bouncier than the RDX in Sports+ mode (with adjustable shocks). That said, I don’t at all find it uncomfortably bouncy. It’s just reactive to the road. You bounce, but you don’t bounce repeatedly.
  • The only time/place I’ve seen something to counter that statement, however, is when driving over a long concrete road or bridge span with expansion joints. Going over those at a solid speed can create this see-saw action where the front and back bounce up and down rhythmically, almost comically. If I lived where my main roads were concrete instead of asphalt, this might be an issue for me. But I don’t.
  • The MME is VERY quiet on the road. The RDX was known for its quietness and acoustic glass, etc. The MME also has acoustic glass. Using the decibel meter on my Apple Watch, the RDX would clock in at about 64 decibels on a smooth patch of road I drive regularly at 55 mph. The MME clocks in at 52 decibels on that same length of road. It’s not silent, but it’s amazingly quiet. Better tires might drop that number even more. (I turn off the propulsion sound effect.)
  • Handling is great within normal limits. For daily driving, it’s fantastic—smooth and planted firmly on the ground. You feel the thin tires when cornering hard though…they squeal like a Deliverance pig. But wow, does the MME feel like it’s on rails most of the time though. (Well, bouncy rails.)
  • It took me all of about ten minutes to get and feel very comfortable with one-pedal driving. I almost never tap the brakes. Unlike what some others have reported, my 1PD is completely smooth to a stop. It feels, dare I say, buttery. I just love it. Highway driving is in Intelligent Cruise Control, and around-town driving is in Unbridled + 1PD. Both are excellent.
  • That said, lane centering absolutely biases the right edge of the road as so many have said. It feels exactly as if it is centering the DRIVER in the lane instead of the CAR. I do the override by holding it where I want it for ten seconds, and that works every time, but I have to do it every time. Just center the car and not the driver here, Ford, and it would be great.
  • (Edited to Add) The automatic high/low headlight system is the best I've had in any car, hands down. It's quick to react, and I have yet to see it leave the brights on when someone is coming my way or someone is ahead of me. It's excellently responsive. The low beams are sharp but a little dimmer than my old, LASIK-contrast-loss eyes would like (this is a "me" problem, not a car problem), but the high beams are perfectly good.
  • In short, the MME is just damned fun to drive.
Trunk/Frunk
  • The Frunk is much more useable with the dividers removed. I have a nice trim tool and it took me all of about 10 minutes to pull them out. I replaced the pins with some smoother, lower profile trim clips and it looks fine. I’m an organizational freak, and I loved the IDEA of the dividers, but they cut the space up so much that nothing I wanted to put in the frunk (mostly a pretty stuffed day-pack sized go-bag) would fit well with the dividers in. Once removed, there’s a lot of space. The electronic unlock to come will be handy, as pulling the handle from the interior twice is kind of irksome. That said, I use the frunk for stuff like the go-bag that I’ll probably never need to get to but want to have available if I’m out and the crap hits the fan.
  • The under-floor trunk space is kind of useless. This was a big loss from the RDX that had a TON of under-floor space (enough for that go-bag and then some). The trunk space itself is also smaller than I’d hope, but it’s perfectly fine and then some for a grocery run for a family of seven. It’s just a matter of my expectation here. The Acura was a small SUV. The MME is really a large crossover more than a small SUV, so everything is just slightly smaller than a small SUV form factor.
  • I keep the trunk floor in the lower position. It’s not flat, but it makes more usable space, and I didn’t like the threads I’ve seen here with the floor panel or the side arms that hold it breaking under load in the upper position. There more support if it’s in the lower position, and it doesn’t open up THAT MUCH more space underneath if it’s in the higher position to make a difference to me. Plus, those aforementioned groceries can’t roll out if you open the trunk hatch on an incline.
  • Maybe I’m a rear panel unicorn, but I’ve had no problem with the privacy shade coming loose or falling out of position. Works well for me and interferes with the trunk less than the roll-out ones I’ve had in other cars.
Body
  • The body panels, paint, fit, and finish are all fantastic. The glass roof alignment issue I’ve read so much about is under control in the later builds. No wind noise at all that I can hear.
  • That damned charge port door. Look at the Cadillac Lyriq for a much better example. It pops out about an inch and then drops downward. If you accidentally leave it open and push the OK button to dismiss the dialog box screaming “CHARGE PORT DOOR AJAR” in your face because you’re running out the door with the kids to get them to school, you won’t almost rip it off with the side of the garage on the way out. If your side view mirrors can clear it, so can the port door. THIS IS NOT LIKE THE MME. Just sayin’.
  • I wasn’t originally in love with the shape of the car—the RDX is absolutely gorgeous to me—but it’s definitely growing on me. The MME is strong and muscular in a family truckster sense. I wouldn’t have minded if it were about six inches longer, but otherwise, I’ve got no complaints about the fitment of anything.
What I’d want to see improved for 2022/23 and beyond
  • Make the charge port door pop out and down so you don’t accidentally rip it off, and it will also make it easier to use with different parking angles and charging cable lengths if it doesn’t have to go “around” the door.
  • Improve the stereo system. See Acura RDX Advance. Or hear it, rather.
  • Lose a few miles of range for thicker wheels/tires. Squealing through curves is obnoxious and makes the otherwise very stable car feel like the tires are going to roll right under and off the wheels.
  • Add another few levels of adjustability to the driver’s seat at least.
  • Add heaters to the rear seats. Given that Ford wants us to use seat heaters instead of eHeat, the lack of seat heaters in the rear is a tremendous oversight.
  • Extend the accent lighting into the rear just like it shows on my screen in the MME where I can control the accent lighting. It’s great. It’s fun. The kids LOVE it, but they don’t get it in the back and that makes little children sad. Don’t make little children sad, Ford.
  • Add seat ventilation at least to the front, if not the rear as well. The ActiveX isn’t super breathable and gets hot and clammy.
  • Stop that damned screen whine on the instrument cluster. Buy a better part, provide better power to it—I don’t know. It’s an unnecessary annoyance that just doesn’t belong in a car with with rest of the quality it exhibits.
  • I’d like some trunk cargo tie-down hooks. Then give me a cargo net to stretch across the floor of the trunk to anchor to them.
  • Fix the issue with Qi charging and iPhones with MagSafe. It doesn’t need to be MagSafe (though, bonus), but it does need to actually charge.
  • Clean-up your charger database that you use for the Navigation system. It’s full of bad/old/nonexistent/broken chargers apparently, and that’s not good for routing. Also let me bias a particular brand of charger for or against.
  • Fix the last-mile navigation routing. This is a critical item. Three out of four trips routed me to something else; and now I can’t trust it at all. Additionally, activate what you need to to allow Apple Maps to calculate charging for me as well/instead, since that DOES route me to the right places but doesn’t know how much charge I’ll need and where to stop to get there.
I can’t believe you read this far. Go, you!
Great write up. Appreciate the detail.
 

ReelSweet

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Your forgot about that annoying spec of dirt on the right side panel ?

all kidding aside....nice review.
 


ChuckA

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“Everyone else is doing it…why not me?!” I’ve had the car for a week and about 500 miles, so here goes.

TL;DR - I’m extraordinarily happy with this car. I was very concerned moving from my 2019 Acura RDX Advance SH-AWD because I absolutely loved that car, but I’ve barely thought about it since. This is my first Ford car owned out of about 15 different cars in my life, so I am not a Ford loyalist by any means.

Comfort/Cabin
  • Seat comfort to me is very good. Not excellent, but very good. The non-separately adjustable tilt of the lower seat is disappointing as it tends to put some added pressure on the backs of my legs near my knees, but working through a combination of heights and distances led me to finding a comfortable position. The cushions are firmer than a luxury ride, but they’re less firm than the Acura’s; they’re a nice “Goldilocks” medium firmness. Lumbar support is good, and they’re comfortable for long stretches. Some people seem to feel there’s inadequate side bolstering, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I’m a larger guy, and what’s there cradles me nicely.
  • Being a larger guy, I find that the center console around the phone charging area tends to catch me on the side of my calf somewhat uncomfortably. Your mileage will vary here based on your body shape and your chosen seating position, but it’s worth mentioning. I have to consciously think about where to position my leg so the sharp edge of the tray doesn’t press into my calf muscle.
  • Your seating height is very nicely adjustable. You can put yourself lower and feel more like you’re in a sedan, or you can push yourself higher because of the ample roofline and feel more like you’re in an SUV. While the front windscreen is somewhat short in height, visibility is good out the front at any level.
  • The seating is more than spacious enough for four full-sized adults to be comfortable all the way around. The fifth seat, like in any car, is much more narrow, but still serviceable for five adults for a short jaunt. Three kids have plenty of space in the back to not rub elbows.
  • Interior lighting is plentiful, and it’s downright bright at night with the accent lighting, especially if you’ve turned up the brightness. It’s actually a little surprisingly bright inside at night compared to anything else I’ve ever driven.
  • Speaking of brightness, I do have the noticeable instrument cluster screen hum when it’s powered on. I’ve found that each setting on the brightness meter has a different and corresponding pitch. It’s NOT linear; different steps of brightness change the pitch, but not in a predictable way. By cycling through the different brightness levels, I found a pitch that is far less audible to me than the others, so I leave the screen brightness there to minimize the hum. (Hacky, I know, but it helped.)
  • Cabin storage is good. Not amazing, but good. The Acura RDX had very similar layouts for storage, almost identically so, but there’s less of it in each space with the Mach-E. Still, it’s pretty good in there for your EDC knickknacks.
  • The cabin’s look and feel isn’t luxury by “luxury” standards, and the Acura’s cabin is definitely nicer appointed with real wood trim and a high-end leather for a lower cost (yeah, BEV vs ICE, I know), but it’s definitely the nicest-appointed Ford I’ve ever been in.
  • The glass roof hasn’t been an issue with light or heat. Granted, I live in the east and not in the Arizona sun, but I *am* pretty light-sensitive/phobic, and even so, the open roof has never made me squint or feel like there was undue glare coming through. Ford did a good job on this. I can see the sun, but it doesn’t bother me or feel too bright. It just feels airy and open, which is the effect they were going for. Well done.
Audio System
  • First, not I’m not an “audiophile.” I know what sounds good to me and what doesn‘t though. Therefore, I adjudicate the sound system to be “fine.” “Good“ even. Not “great.” Bass gives out quickly and causes rattles in some of the panels when turned-up to compensate. The overall sound is a bit ”thin,” but it’s still good enough for what I’d want in a car.
  • That said, I’m coming from the RDX Advance which has been said to have “the best sound system in any car under $100,000,” so I’m probably a bit spoiled, but it’s true. The Mach-E’s B&O system doesn’t hold a candle to the Acura’s ELS Audio, and that’s unfortunate.
  • On-screen controls for the audio system are nicely laid out. The steering wheel controls work great too and need little time to become familiar with them. My worst problem is the muscle memory I’ve developed for the cruise controls and volume controls; every other car I’ve had has the reverse layout with cruise on the right and radio on the left, so I find I often turn up the volume when intending to increase speed.
Technology Stack
  • I actually like the Ford technology stack. The controls could be zippier—animations and transitions to subsequent menus and actions are a little slower than I’d like—but the general layout is pretty darned good.
  • Big, chunky on-screen buttons are very much better to stab at with a finger that’s bouncing with the road than small tap-targets, so I give Ford UX points on that one. Well done with the chunk.
  • I’m a huge Apple fan, so CarPlay support was critical for me. I’ve found CarPlay, both wired and wireless, to be excellent. There’s a slight delay when using the steering wheel controls to skip forward or back with wireless CarPlay, but it’s nothing I can’t anticipate. It works, and for me at least, it’s all worked very reliably. I’m also on the iOS 15 beta, and it’s been rock solid. MUCH better than the RDX which potentially has a class action lawsuit brewing about their poor CarPlay support. the MME’s screen makes CarPlay very large in comparison to most cars, again making the tap targets much larger and much more driving-friendly.
  • I disabled the wake-words for Ford, and I find that just using the voice assistant button (quick press for Ford, long press for Siri) works like a champ. They’re quick to activate and there’s no unexpected wake-ups from it hearing a podcast or someone on the radio.
  • The whole charging paradigm could use a little work. I’m not sure what exactly…probably more than two scheduled preconditioning times and a little more generic control on charging default settings, but it’s not AWFUL. It’s just not super-intuitive.
  • Phone as a Key (PaaK) has actually been pretty good for me. Maybe it’s because I work in tech and generally understand the handshakes that have to happen, but I really don’t have trouble with it and it really is nice to be able to walk out the door with just my phone (which has my driver’s license and credit card in a wallet case with it).
  • The Ford Navigation system has serious last-mile routing issues as far as I can tell in just a few short trips. Three out of four trips I’ve used it with put me at a destination that…wasn’t…my destination. (See my other post “Ford Navigation Last Mile Routing is Not Great, Bob” for more on that.)
  • For the love of god, please add a CHIME to “Charging Port Door Ajar,” Ford. Not just a dialog box. (See my other post “Taking One for the Team or How I Killed My Charge Port Door” for more on that if you want to laugh at me.)
  • FordPass is kind of the hot mess that everyone here says it is, unfortunately. Sometimes it seems to work great, and other times it will literally lay one interface element over another, making both unreadable. Like, really? That got out of QC? However, it has done the jobs I’ve needed it to do, but it’s pretty sad when the charging information on the front page of the app completely doesn’t match the charging information on the second page. Ever. (The front page is the wrong one.)
  • The car’s parking radars are well done and the heat map that it can show as an option in the camera view for how close you are to things all the way around is really well done and handy in the circumstances where you need it. I just wish I had a hard button or a quick link on the screen to go directly to the front cameras. If I were feeling like I was getting into trouble with the Acura when parking, for example, there’s a button at the end of the wiper stalk that turns on the front cameras instantly, and my hand is probably already RIGHT THERE while making a turn into a space. Super convenient. Two on-screen button taps is not ideal when I’m in the “OH DAMN AM I ABOUT TO HIT THAT CAR?!” mode.
Driving Experience
  • Electric torque is addicting. I absolutely see why people say they never want to go back to gas after driving an EV. I’m NOT/NOT a “speed guy” by any means, but when I want to move to pass a car or something, I want to move NOW. There’s almost zero latency between pedal push and go-juice. If I wanted to gun the RDX, I had to pre-plan knowing that it would take about a second for the turbo to spin-up before the passing power started, so I did the mental mathematics to decide when to accelerate and change lanes. With the Mach-E, you push it, it goes. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a stop light or if you’re already doing 60 and need to go to 70. You push it, it goes. Brilliant. Maybe on paper 0-60 in 4.8 doesn’t sound ”fast,” but I can assure you it feels fast.
  • Yeah, the ride’s bouncy. It’s bouncier than the RDX in Sports+ mode (with adjustable shocks). That said, I don’t at all find it uncomfortably bouncy. It’s just reactive to the road. You bounce, but you don’t bounce repeatedly.
  • The only time/place I’ve seen something to counter that statement, however, is when driving over a long concrete road or bridge span with expansion joints. Going over those at a solid speed can create this see-saw action where the front and back bounce up and down rhythmically, almost comically. If I lived where my main roads were concrete instead of asphalt, this might be an issue for me. But I don’t.
  • The MME is VERY quiet on the road. The RDX was known for its quietness and acoustic glass, etc. The MME also has acoustic glass. Using the decibel meter on my Apple Watch, the RDX would clock in at about 64 decibels on a smooth patch of road I drive regularly at 55 mph. The MME clocks in at 52 decibels on that same length of road. It’s not silent, but it’s amazingly quiet. Better tires might drop that number even more. (I turn off the propulsion sound effect.)
  • Handling is great within normal limits. For daily driving, it’s fantastic—smooth and planted firmly on the ground. You feel the thin tires when cornering hard though…they squeal like a Deliverance pig. But wow, does the MME feel like it’s on rails most of the time though. (Well, bouncy rails.)
  • It took me all of about ten minutes to get and feel very comfortable with one-pedal driving. I almost never tap the brakes. Unlike what some others have reported, my 1PD is completely smooth to a stop. It feels, dare I say, buttery. I just love it. Highway driving is in Intelligent Cruise Control, and around-town driving is in Unbridled + 1PD. Both are excellent.
  • That said, lane centering absolutely biases the right edge of the road as so many have said. It feels exactly as if it is centering the DRIVER in the lane instead of the CAR. I do the override by holding it where I want it for ten seconds, and that works every time, but I have to do it every time. Just center the car and not the driver here, Ford, and it would be great.
  • (Edited to Add) The automatic high/low headlight system is the best I've had in any car, hands down. It's quick to react, and I have yet to see it leave the brights on when someone is coming my way or someone is ahead of me. It's excellently responsive. The low beams are sharp but a little dimmer than my old, LASIK-contrast-loss eyes would like (this is a "me" problem, not a car problem), but the high beams are perfectly good.
  • In short, the MME is just damned fun to drive.
Trunk/Frunk
  • The Frunk is much more useable with the dividers removed. I have a nice trim tool and it took me all of about 10 minutes to pull them out. I replaced the pins with some smoother, lower profile trim clips and it looks fine. I’m an organizational freak, and I loved the IDEA of the dividers, but they cut the space up so much that nothing I wanted to put in the frunk (mostly a pretty stuffed day-pack sized go-bag) would fit well with the dividers in. Once removed, there’s a lot of space. The electronic unlock to come will be handy, as pulling the handle from the interior twice is kind of irksome. That said, I use the frunk for stuff like the go-bag that I’ll probably never need to get to but want to have available if I’m out and the crap hits the fan.
  • The under-floor trunk space is kind of useless. This was a big loss from the RDX that had a TON of under-floor space (enough for that go-bag and then some). The trunk space itself is also smaller than I’d hope, but it’s perfectly fine and then some for a grocery run for a family of seven. It’s just a matter of my expectation here. The Acura was a small SUV. The MME is really a large crossover more than a small SUV, so everything is just slightly smaller than a small SUV form factor.
  • I keep the trunk floor in the lower position. It’s not flat, but it makes more usable space, and I didn’t like the threads I’ve seen here with the floor panel or the side arms that hold it breaking under load in the upper position. There more support if it’s in the lower position, and it doesn’t open up THAT MUCH more space underneath if it’s in the higher position to make a difference to me. Plus, those aforementioned groceries can’t roll out if you open the trunk hatch on an incline.
  • Maybe I’m a rear panel unicorn, but I’ve had no problem with the privacy shade coming loose or falling out of position. Works well for me and interferes with the trunk less than the roll-out ones I’ve had in other cars.
Body
  • The body panels, paint, fit, and finish are all fantastic. The glass roof alignment issue I’ve read so much about is under control in the later builds. No wind noise at all that I can hear.
  • That damned charge port door. Look at the Cadillac Lyriq for a much better example. It pops out about an inch and then drops downward. If you accidentally leave it open and push the OK button to dismiss the dialog box screaming “CHARGE PORT DOOR AJAR” in your face because you’re running out the door with the kids to get them to school, you won’t almost rip it off with the side of the garage on the way out. If your side view mirrors can clear it, so can the port door. THIS IS NOT LIKE THE MME. Just sayin’.
  • I wasn’t originally in love with the shape of the car—the RDX is absolutely gorgeous to me—but it’s definitely growing on me. The MME is strong and muscular in a family truckster sense. I wouldn’t have minded if it were about six inches longer, but otherwise, I’ve got no complaints about the fitment of anything.
What I’d want to see improved for 2022/23 and beyond
  • Make the charge port door pop out and down so you don’t accidentally rip it off, and it will also make it easier to use with different parking angles and charging cable lengths if it doesn’t have to go “around” the door.
  • Improve the stereo system. See Acura RDX Advance. Or hear it, rather.
  • Lose a few miles of range for thicker wheels/tires. Squealing through curves is obnoxious and makes the otherwise very stable car feel like the tires are going to roll right under and off the wheels.
  • Add another few levels of adjustability to the driver’s seat at least.
  • Add heaters to the rear seats. Given that Ford wants us to use seat heaters instead of eHeat, the lack of seat heaters in the rear is a tremendous oversight.
  • Extend the accent lighting into the rear just like it shows on my screen in the MME where I can control the accent lighting. It’s great. It’s fun. The kids LOVE it, but they don’t get it in the back and that makes little children sad. Don’t make little children sad, Ford.
  • Add seat ventilation at least to the front, if not the rear as well. The ActiveX isn’t super breathable and gets hot and clammy.
  • Stop that damned screen whine on the instrument cluster. Buy a better part, provide better power to it—I don’t know. It’s an unnecessary annoyance that just doesn’t belong in a car with with rest of the quality it exhibits.
  • I’d like some trunk cargo tie-down hooks. Then give me a cargo net to stretch across the floor of the trunk to anchor to them.
  • Fix the issue with Qi charging and iPhones with MagSafe. It doesn’t need to be MagSafe (though, bonus), but it does need to actually charge.
  • Clean-up your charger database that you use for the Navigation system. It’s full of bad/old/nonexistent/broken chargers apparently, and that’s not good for routing. Also let me bias a particular brand of charger for or against.
  • Fix the last-mile navigation routing. This is a critical item. Three out of four trips routed me to something else; and now I can’t trust it at all. Additionally, activate what you need to to allow Apple Maps to calculate charging for me as well/instead, since that DOES route me to the right places but doesn’t know how much charge I’ll need and where to stop to get there.
I can’t believe you read this far. Go, you!
When I saw your post I thought OMG it’s a book, but then actually read your critique. Excellent on all points.
One thing I think would be nice is when the profile button is pushed the destination page allows you to add “favorites” to toggle off 1Pd drive for parking and backing up. Or quick access to desired functions, such as front camera.
 
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Glen

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Very well written. I liked the whole read. Thanks for taking the time. ?
 

AeroEng

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Fantastic summary of your MME, thanks. Can’t wait to get mine!
 

krafty81

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I have the same car and agree with all your points.
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