My 21 ME-Select -> Tesla 23 MYLR -> 22 ME-Premium Journey

[bryan_m]

tl;dr - Neither is perfect and both have their pros and cons, but Mach-E does so many things better than a Tesla.

My Mach-E Select had the tech package but a standard battery. It wasn't my first choice but I found it new on a dealer lot and didn't want to wait for what I wanted to be built so got it. Loved it really, but it was becoming a pain driving to visit my parents house and making the journey in the winter really gave me levels of anxiety I shouldn't have while driving. In January when Tesla announced major price cuts for the Model Y I decided to go that route because of the extended battery plus Tesla's charging network being very reliable. I had my Model Y in very early February. In Late May, I found a used 22 Mach-E Premium with extended battery at a great price and it had very low (2100) miles so I traded in my MY happily.

Though none of the features Tesla lacked came as a surprise to me, I thought I could deal without them better than I had. The lack of CarPlay was awful, and having to use Bluetooth on my phone to do things like I was doing a decade ago got to me. I actually really enjoy SiriusXM especially on long trips and integrated beats the app by far. Blind spot assist was missing in Tesla, I hated that. No 360 camera or front camera made parking harder. Did like integrated dash cam though. No, loved that. So many other tech features of Tesla are just gimmicks. The display that shows cars around can not be used practically at all, I'd never rely on it as say a blind spot monitor because cars literally disappear into thin air and appear out of nowhere. All the games and Netflix and Zoom I couldn't care less about. Why do I need a web browser? I have my phone. Built in music apps in Tesla are buggy, Spotify and Apple Music (I had a trial) both cut or wouldn't load at random times. On Ford their apps probably suck too but CarPlay means I can easily use my phone apps which always work great.

Build quality in the Ford was better than Tesla, IMO. I had to get service a couple things in Tesla that the factory missed and the drive and feel of Ford felt better to me. I hated the frameless door and a few times the window didn't "roll up" when the door closed so I always had to check that.

What I hated on Tesla and what got downright dangerous is their automation. Automatic wipers sucked, bad. Like really bad. We're talking a bug splatters on your windshield on a sunny day and they engage at 100% smearing bug guts everywhere but when you're driving down the highway on a rainy day they never turn on bad. The automatic brights never worked right but to be fair I just don't trust them in my Mach-E either.

The autopilot (non-FSD) on the highway was terrible compared to Ford's driver assist (non-bluecruise). The Tesla engaged in several phantom braking events in roadtrips where Ford never did one single time. In Tesla, two phantom braking events were very aggressive with traffic near by nearly causing an accident. It got to the point I could not relax with Tesla autopilot being engaged like I could with Ford because I was scared it would just engage braking with cars around me and cause an accident. I only relaxed on the wide open road with no traffic around and that's pretty rare.

Bluecruise offers something Tesla can not, at all, which is hands free. It doesn't matter how much you pay Tesla for access to their "beta" driving software, your hands must stay on the wheel. I could live without Bluecruise and I'm sure as hell not paying $800 for it but it's nice while I have it and that alone is a feature Tesla flat out does not have anything close to. It's practical driving assist whereas videos of Tesla driving around town are more showmanship.

The final straw though was my Tesla while I was driving and autopilot was not on decided on a major highway to engage emergency braking on a car up the road slowing down to change lanes nearly causing a major accident that could have seriously injured me or others. I was very aware of the car ahead and nowhere near any level of danger but Tesla thought better and seriously hit the brakes hard for no reason at all.

My safety comes first, and I can't drive a car that gives me anxiety that it's going to try to kill me by being smarter than I am. I got to the point I was nervous just to use basic autopilot on the open roads then I got nervous to the point emergency braking was going to go off for no reason and slam on the brakes.

Tesla's main pro is the supercharging network. EA and others really need to get it together.

Sponsored

 

[MacherAWD]

tl;dr - Neither is perfect and both have their pros and cons, but Mach-E does so many things better than a Tesla.

My Mach-E Select had the tech package but a standard battery. It wasn't my first choice but I found it new on a dealer lot and didn't want to wait for what I wanted to be built so got it. Loved it really, but it was becoming a pain driving to visit my parents house and making the journey in the winter really gave me levels of anxiety I shouldn't have while driving. In January when Tesla announced major price cuts for the Model Y I decided to go that route because of the extended battery plus Tesla's charging network being very reliable. I had my Model Y in very early February. In Late May, I found a used 22 Mach-E Premium with extended battery at a great price and it had very low (2100) miles so I traded in my MY happily.

Though none of the features Tesla lacked came as a surprise to me, I thought I could deal without them better than I had. The lack of CarPlay was awful, and having to use Bluetooth on my phone to do things like I was doing a decade ago got to me. I actually really enjoy SiriusXM especially on long trips and integrated beats the app by far. Blind spot assist was missing in Tesla, I hated that. No 360 camera or front camera made parking harder. Did like integrated dash cam though. No, loved that. So many other tech features of Tesla are just gimmicks. The display that shows cars around can not be used practically at all, I'd never rely on it as say a blind spot monitor because cars literally disappear into thin air and appear out of nowhere. All the games and Netflix and Zoom I couldn't care less about. Why do I need a web browser? I have my phone. Built in music apps in Tesla are buggy, Spotify and Apple Music (I had a trial) both cut or wouldn't load at random times. On Ford their apps probably suck too but CarPlay means I can easily use my phone apps which always work great.

Build quality in the Ford was better than Tesla, IMO. I had to get service a couple things in Tesla that the factory missed and the drive and feel of Ford felt better to me. I hated the frameless door and a few times the window didn't "roll up" when the door closed so I always had to check that.

What I hated on Tesla and what got downright dangerous is their automation. Automatic wipers sucked, bad. Like really bad. We're talking a bug splatters on your windshield on a sunny day and they engage at 100% smearing bug guts everywhere but when you're driving down the highway on a rainy day they never turn on bad. The automatic brights never worked right but to be fair I just don't trust them in my Mach-E either.

The autopilot (non-FSD) on the highway was terrible compared to Ford's driver assist (non-bluecruise). The Tesla engaged in several phantom braking events in roadtrips where Ford never did one single time. In Tesla, two phantom braking events were very aggressive with traffic near by nearly causing an accident. It got to the point I could not relax with Tesla autopilot being engaged like I could with Ford because I was scared it would just engage braking with cars around me and cause an accident. I only relaxed on the wide open road with no traffic around and that's pretty rare.

Bluecruise offers something Tesla can not, at all, which is hands free. It doesn't matter how much you pay Tesla for access to their "beta" driving software, your hands must stay on the wheel. I could live without Bluecruise and I'm sure as hell not paying $800 for it but it's nice while I have it and that alone is a feature Tesla flat out does not have anything close to. It's practical driving assist whereas videos of Tesla driving around town are more showmanship.

The final straw though was my Tesla while I was driving and autopilot was not on decided on a major highway to engage emergency braking on a car up the road slowing down to change lanes nearly causing a major accident that could have seriously injured me or others. I was very aware of the car ahead and nowhere near any level of danger but Tesla thought better and seriously hit the brakes hard for no reason at all.

My safety comes first, and I can't drive a car that gives me anxiety that it's going to try to kill me by being smarter than I am. I got to the point I was nervous just to use basic autopilot on the open roads then I got nervous to the point emergency braking was going to go off for no reason and slam on the brakes.

Tesla's main pro is the supercharging network. EA and others really need to get it together.

This is a great post and I feel like it was ALMOST me. I also have a 21 Select with C&T, I also was very close to selling it for a new MYLR in January, I had my dealer trade in and all, but I couldnt justify spending any additional money to get into a MY. Reading your review I think this would have been me and I would be back into a MME by now! Welcome back!

 

[flapjake314]

i didn't know the ACC on tesla also had phantom braking, that's really annoying...

 

[bryan_m]

i didn't know the ACC on tesla also had phantom braking, that's really annoying...

The ADAS system included for free on Tesla (vision only) is actually average at best, probably even below average. It was a first to market so was a leader at some point but IMO it really fell behind the competition and is nothing but hype now. Phantom braking is a real problem while autopilot is engaged and in my experience phantom braking is even a problem without autopilot being engaged as the safety features of the car are seeing ghosts.

I never considered buying FSD and once you dig past the cheerleading influencers who have financial implications either via view counts or TSLA stock and read up on real-world experiences of FSD it's just a hot mess with no signs of getting better. There's always some future hype. Neural nets. Rewrite. Training.

 

[voxel]

100% agree. Dislike Tesla Autopilot and the random problems that flare up. BlueCruise is amazing.

With that said, Hyundai/Kia’s ADAS works amazingly well. I love enabling auto steer without needing to turn on HDA also. It tracks between lanes better than Ford’s system.

The major complaint with the Mach-E is the ride quality and noise levels. It’s truly poor. Like I said in other threads, there’s no perfect EV

 

[Moxiemoney]

Ride quality and noise truly poor? At least in my experience, it has been pretty good. Yeah, wind noise coming from where the mirrors meet the body is poor design at best. Overall, quiet and smooth for me.

Auto headlights have worked flawlessly for me. Love it.

Agree that on the Tesla, the animation of cars around you is almost worthless to me. Like OP said, they suddenly appear and disappear. And why in the heck do I need to see icons for everyone's garbage cans on the road? I am kinda impressed how well the car icons match the actual vehicles around you.

Like others, PAAK isn't working well for me, but maybe it's my Pixel 6a. I don't carry my fob, but it gets pretty frustrating at times having to tinker with my phone for a while before it connects. Most of the time I just enter in my password and go. Often, when my phone does connect, android auto won't connect, and vice-versa.

Overall, really enjoy my '23 MME.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

About 60% of my job is stereo vision. I take stereo photographs of the Moon and planet surfaces and turn them into 3D models and from those I develop several products, including highly-detailed shape models. One part of this is to tie the stereo camera images to laser altimeter data because the laser altimeter data are the standard, most accurate data available. I've been doing this kind of work for two decades. Each product takes a few weeks to a couple of months to create, and much of time is CPU time. I have a literal supercomputer with several thousand CPU and GPU cores to help me do the processing. Nearly none of this has to do with human-life, so its V&V has a much lower standard to pass than something related to human life would have. The work we do is leading-edge; far beyond what the automobile manufacturers have.

I would never trust a real-time driver assistant package in a vehicle that only relies on cameras and doesn't include LIDAR or RADAR. The 3D capabilities of stereo vision are simply not good enough for dynamic responses required for driving safely in traffic, especially with the dinky processors available in vehicles.

It's stupid and dangerous, plain and simple.

Edited to add: Stereo vision is necessary in autonomous driving; it's just woefully insufficient.

 

[AlanJ]

About 60% of my job is stereo vision. I take stereo photographs of the Moon and planet surfaces and turn them into 3D models and from those I develop several products, including highly-detailed shape models. One part of this is to tie the stereo camera images to laser altimeter data because the laser altimeter data are the standard, most accurate data available. I've been doing this kind of work for two decades. Each product takes a few weeks to a couple of months to create, and much of time is CPU time. I have a literal supercomputer with several thousand CPU and GPU cores to help me do the processing. Nearly none of this has to do with human-life, so its V&V has a much lower standard to pass than something related to human life would have. The work we do is leading-edge; far beyond what the automobile manufacturers have.

I would never trust a real-time driver assistant package in a vehicle that only relies on cameras and doesn't include LIDAR or RADAR. The 3D capabilities of stereo vision are simply not good enough for dynamic responses required for driving safely in traffic, especially with the dinky processors available in vehicles.

It's stupid and dangerous, plain and simple.

Edited to add: Stereo vision is necessary in autonomous driving; it's just woefully insufficient.

100% Agree here. I am still shocked that Tesla decided to move to vision based parking assist and even disabled the sensors on vehicles that have it. At this point they are just playing with peoples lives, and that's not okay.

 

[jksu]

i have 2021 job 1 premium. back then, it was at a significant discount to the model y (with early rebates, incentives, etc) since there were no single motor model y's. for me, other than efficiency and the charging network, both mostly non-issues since i charge at home and have a minivan for road trips, the mach-e was a superior car in so many ways, including all the ones pointed out above. how can "hi tech" tesla not have pretty basic stuff like blind spot detection or 360 camera views? i'm super happy with my decision.

if i was choosing between the two now, even with the Y price cuts, i'd actually be willing to pay a bit more for a mach-e over a similarly spec'd model y because of those same reasons. some would call me crazy. i just think a lot of people equate EV to tesla, or have bought into the tesla hype (including their stock). some of that's deserved - they were innovators. and the model y is a very good evolved (from model 3) EV. but as others here and professional reviewers have said, the mach-e is just a better day-to-day car.

it'll be interesting to see the gen 2 mach-e, building off the lessons learned.... usually gen 2s are significantly better and i anticipate that in terms of efficiency and range. other times they can be de-contented or cost-cut where it's noticeable. i hope not, but we'll see...

planning to keep our 2021 mach-e at least 5-6 years at which point, i'd love a polestar 4 (just love those volvo seats!)

 

[Gardenhard]

The phantom braking i was experiencing with my 21 premium Mach E has been terrifying. Highway speeds in traffic, all of a sudden pre-collision assist error and immediately engages the brake. I’ve had a lot of near misses and learned not to trust adaptive cruise and always keep my foot resting on the pedal in case it disengaged.

my pre-collision assist error has become permanent now though, and despite a dozen or so trips to the dealership they say they “fixed” it before with a software update (that never seems to get the intermittent error to completely go away) and now it’s a coax cable issue (TSB-23-3155) so it’s a different repair and I’m out of warranty in the meantime.

So now I have no cruise control (not even normal cruise) and I don’t have to worry about the phantom braking with ACC anymore. Yippee. They’ll let me pay to fix it though if I want to shell out several hundred dollars.

If anyone wants to recommend a good alternative to the Mach E, I’m all ears. I got it for the long commute but I’ll go back to a gas car if I absolutely have to.

 

[Hammered]

Tesla's main pro is the supercharging network. EA and others really need to get it together.

*was*

 

[voxel]

Ride quality and noise truly poor? At least in my experience, it has been pretty good. Yeah, wind noise coming from where the mirrors meet the body is poor design at best. Overall, quiet and smooth for me.

Go drive an Ioniq 5 or BMW i4 or iX for a week. The wind noise over the mirrors is one just problem. Road noise is pretty high compared to near luxury or luxury EVs.

FYI I’m currently renting a RAV4 XLE while on vacation and this is a noisy shitbox - just to give you an idea of my standards. I think a properly quiet EV should be low 60s dB at 70mph on the highway.

 

[Msnwcpa]

i didn't know the ACC on tesla also had phantom braking, that's really annoying...

The phantom braking iny MME was in Northern VA on express lane coming from SC to PA. For some reason the car was not reading the electronic sign and suddenly brake to drop speed by 10-15 miles. Folks behind me could have easily hit me. I reverted off the cruise and had to drive manually after the 3 rd incident

 

[TheSleepyDad]

If you haven't already you should report your phantom braking to the NHTSA. They started investigating Tesla for it last year, so any extra reports I'm sure help. Heck, any kind of safety issue should get reported otherwise the agency can't do as much.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem

 

[ARK]

Go drive an Ioniq 5 or BMW i4 or iX for a week. The wind noise over the mirrors is one just problem. Road noise is pretty high compared to near luxury or luxury EVs.

FYI I’m currently renting a RAV4 XLE while on vacation and this is a noisy shitbox - just to give you an idea of my standards. I think a properly quiet EV should be low 60s dB at 70mph on the highway.

I haven't driven those cars, but the Mach-E has always seemed really quiet to me. And I'm someone that has never gotten over the buzzing noise from the driver display, I'd put myself in the bucket of being pretty sensitive to these things.

Sponsored