Is Ford Sandbagging the Mach-E's Performance Specs?

silverelan

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In the Autoline After Hours interview on YouTube, Dave Pericak, Ford's Director of Icons, pointedly said that unlike other manufacturers who claim 300 mile range but can't get there, the Mach-E will legitimately get 300 miles of range. Here's why I think they might be going conservative on range and other specs:

1) Range -WLTP range for the RWD Extended Range is 373 miles but EPA is 300 "targeted". Even with nearly a 20% fudge factor for WLTP, that's still over 300 miles and beats Tesla Model Y.

2) Charging - Ford's website says that the Standard Range will charge from 10% to 80% in 38 minutes at 115kW. Extended Range will charge up to 80% in 45 minutes at 150kW. It may be that Ford will adjust that downwards for the ER pack to match the SR charging profile or even beat it.

3) Acceleration - 5.5 secs is good for any CUV but they're matching up against Tesla. Surely they won't push it a bit more to close the gap to sub-5secs, especially with more power to draw from on the batteries?

What do you guys think, am I being overly optimistic or am I on to something?
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benboy12

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In the Autoline After Hours interview on YouTube, Dave Pericak, Ford's Director of Icons, pointedly said that unlike other manufacturers who claim 300 mile range but can't get there, the Mach-E will legitimately get 300 miles of range. Here's why I think they might be going conservative on range and other specs:

1) Range -WLTP range for the RWD Extended Range is 373 miles but EPA is 300 "targeted". Even with nearly a 20% fudge factor for WLTP, that's still over 300 miles and beats Tesla Model Y.

2) Charging - Ford's website says that the Standard Range will charge from 10% to 80% in 38 minutes at 115kW. Extended Range will charge up to 80% in 45 minutes at 150kW. It may be that Ford will adjust that downwards for the ER pack to match the SR charging profile or even beat it.

3) Acceleration - 5.5 secs is good for any CUV but they're matching up against Tesla. Surely they won't push it a bit more to close the gap to sub-5secs, especially with more power to draw from on the batteries?

What do you guys think, am I being overly optimistic or am I on to something?
I think it’s quite possible. If I was in their position, I wouldn’t want to risk over promising and not being able to deliver (even if it was small). I’d want to be on the conservative side, and hope that I could “surprise” consumers by achieving a higher range or faster 0-60.

I know that some have commented that the batteries used in the Ford Mach E are a good bit bigger than what’s used in Tesla’s vehicles. That makes me think Ford has more to work with.
 

theothertom

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Yeah, I've said all along that they are being conservative with their estimated range. Almost (maybe all) EV's have an EPA range of 4x battery kWh (or 4 miles per kWh). Using that figure, the larger 100kWh battery version should have around 400 miles of EPA range. That's huge and bets Tesla by, well, a hundred miles :). I'm looking forward to seeing the EPA numbers.
Charging is a gray area ("up to 80%," but starting from ???) but remember they're talking %, not kWh added. I think the SR has an 80kWh battery, and the ER has a 100kWh? If so, 80% will be 64kwh for the SR and 80kWh for the ER, so it stands to reason it will take longer to add more kWh. Picture filling up a small glass and a big glass with water. It takes longer for the big glass to fill.
And yeah, I think the 0-60 will be better than a comparable Tesla model. Elon has mentioned "plaid mode" which is in the 2 sec range, but that car is not comparable to the Mach-E.
 

MachSpeed

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Ford always sand bags there performance figures more so if the car is a year away from production. I wouldn't be surprised to see all these figures change when the Mach E goes on sale.
 


Ace

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They advertised the 2018 Mustang GT with a sub 4.0s 0-60 time and the stock GT 10AT is not really able to reach that - So I don't think why they should hold back with their promised Mach-E numbers. But with production being like a year away, things are still subject to change, so don't nail them on these first numbers.
 

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It will be interesting if this car can be tuned electronically like the Mustangs can be. Will Ford allow it? I know my tuner on my Ecoboost eliminated the speed limiter as an example. The future of "wrenching" will be in the software.
 

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Ford got burned with over promising mpg on the c-max so best to error under than over. Most of the legacy manufactures have so far been very conservative with the range of ev's and how much reserve they allocate from the battery pack, tesla appears to push the limits to make the specs look good.

I doubt the audi e-tron sport back had a huge difference in cd vs the normal e-tron but that has had a range bump using the same battery, and unlike tesla audi put put some proper sized rubber on the wheels which does the range no favors.

With OTA I would not be surprised to see the reserve values for the mach-e tweaked as ford has more real world data to go on so that after a year the final performance and range will be different from what we have at launch.
 

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I thought the EPA published mpg/mpge ranges, not the manufacturer.
 
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silverelan

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jeffdawgfan

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Yeah, I've said all along that they are being conservative with their estimated range. Almost (maybe all) EV's have an EPA range of 4x battery kWh (or 4 miles per kWh). Using that figure, the larger 100kWh battery version should have around 400 miles of EPA range. That's huge and bets Tesla by, well, a hundred miles :). I'm looking forward to seeing the EPA numbers.

I guarantee you the Mach E will not get 4 miles per kwh.
 

macchiaz-o

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Yeah, I've said all along that they are being conservative with their estimated range. Almost (maybe all) EV's have an EPA range of 4x battery kWh (or 4 miles per kWh).
I was curious about this so I took a deeper look at the battery electrics on fueleconomy.gov. They let you download their data so you can crunch your own numbers. To make it a bit more "fair," I eliminated the 2019 models that have been replaced by 2020 models of the same car (e.g. 2019 VW e-golf replaced by 2020 VW e-golf). That leaves us with just 35 battery electrics whose ratings are shown at the DoE fuel economy web site. Also, notice that this includes different trim levels of the same car in some cases, because the ratings are impacted by differences like tires.

I'm just looking at the EPA combined average, which assumes 55% city driving, 45% highway, with some other factors apparently mixed in (higher speed driving, A/C usage, and cold temps).

The overall average for the 35 vehicles was just 3.2 miles per kilowatt hour. Since we don't know certain details about the Mach-E yet, especially the weight of the car and the impacts on drag from their choice of wheels and Mustang themed body shapes, it's hard to guess where it might fall in line with its competitors. All we know right now is that Ford is assuming 3.0 miles per kilowatt hour (based on info on their own web site), but that's probably just an early guess on their part, too.

One other note: The Tesla numbers might be impacted by how Tesla allows drivers access to the full battery range, while the other manufacturers restrict access to some capacity at the battery pack's upper and lower limits for the sake of battery management. Apparently, Tesla advises owners not to fill to 100% unless they need it for a road trip? I can't find that in their owners manuals, but some journalists are claiming this.

Here're the detailed results, in case you're interested.

Vehicle
mi/kWh
2019 Audi e-tron
2.2​
2020 BYD e6
2.1​
2019 BMW I3 BEV (120 Amp-hour battery)
3.3​
2019 BMW I3s BEV (120 Amp-hour battery)
3.3​
2020 Chevy Bolt (BEV)
3.4​
2019 Fiat 500e
3.3​
2019 Honda Clarity (Battery Electric Vehicle)
3.3​
2020 Hyundai Ioniq Electric
4.0​
2020 Hundai Kona EV
3.7​
2020 Jaguar I-Pace (BEV)
2.3​
2019 Kia Niro Electric
3.3​
2020 Kia Soul Electric
3.3​
2019 Mercedes Smart EQ Fortwo Electric Drive Coupe
3.2​
2019 Mercedes Smart EQ Fortwo Electric Drive Convertible
3.0​
2019 Nissan Leaf (40 kW-hr battery pack)
3.3​
2019 Nissan Leaf (62 kW-hr battery pack)
3.2​
2019 Nissan Leaf SV/SL (62 kW-hr battery pack)
3.1​
2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo
2.0​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Long Range
3.8​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD
3.6​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Mid Range
3.7​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range
3.8​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus
4.2​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD P18
3.6​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD P19
3.4​
2020 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD P20
3.3​
2020 Tesla Model S Long Range
3.3​
2020 Tesla Model S P19
3.1​
2020 Tesla Model S P21
2.9​
2020 Tesla Model S Standard Range
3.2​
2020 Tesla Model X Long Range
2.9​
2020 Tesla Model X P20
2.6​
2020 Tesla Model X P22
2.3​
2020 Tesla Model X Standard Range
3.0​
2020 VW e-Golf
3.3​
 
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silverelan

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According to this Forbes article, Ford is going soft on the Mach-E's specs. At least with horsepower.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabu...ng-mach-ethe-pony-goes-electric/#79f95eae434e

From the article:
The base configuration has only a 210-kW (281-hp) rear motor and rear drive. The mid-level adds a smaller 50-kW (67-hp) front motor for a combined output of 332-hp and 471 lb-ft of torque. The top-end Mach-E GT gets the same larger motor at both ends.

However, because of the power output limits on the current battery and power electronics configuration, the total combined output is 459-hp and 612 lb-ft. However, since the motors are rated for over 100-hp more, it is conceivable that at some point we will see a version with upgraded components that can feed the motors up to their limits.
 
 




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