Tesla Model Y vs Mustang Mach-E (my thoughts)

[Phrozen]

Just got home from a trip in Colorado, where we rented a Tesla Y for a week. We've been driving our Mach-E for 18 months now, winter and summer, and I wanted to leave my thoughts on the contrasts between the two similar vehicles.

The Tesla sucks. Really.

Yes, it was a rental, and yes there are some quantitative things to prefer about it, but as an actual vehicle to drive around and go places and do things? It's awful.

The key. There is no way to unlock the doors without a) your phone or b) tapping the key (which is a hotel-room style keycard) on a specific spot on the driver's door. That only unlocks the driver's door. To unlock other doors, you have to use the touchscreen. Locking the car is the same way. Tap the key on that same specific spot. The car also doesn't always detect the key inside, so about 50% of the time, I had to tap the same key on a specific spot on the center console while holding the brake pedal to "start." That's a lot of wallet movement in and out of my pocket, something I usually try to minimize.

The wipers. Couldn't figure out how to use them. I could make the window washer go, which would trigger the wipers, but otherwise they were stuck on automatic. I'm sure there's a setting in the touchscreen somewhere. One day we had a healthy layer of frost on the windshield and the wipers went into insanity overdrive mode for about eight minutes.

The headlights (and fog lights). Automatic only. Couldn't turn them on or off.

Turn signals. About 50% of the time, they turned off too soon or stayed on too long. There's no clicking in the stalk, you just kind of wiggle it up or down.

The shifter. Just a stalk on the right side of the wheel. Doesn't really move. Push up for R, push down for D. Click the button on the end in for P. Functional, but seems needlessly different with no obvious upside.

The wheel. To adjust the steering wheel, you need to find the right menu in the touchscreen. It does have a good range of motion when you do find it, but there's nothing obvious or expected about how to do so. Same with the mirrors.

The radio turned on twice, unexpectedly, and very loud. I'm sure I did something to cause this, but no idea what. There are no buttons anywhere, the controls are all on the touchscreen, and neither of us touched it. After the first time, we set the volume to 0, and two days later it reset to quite loud.

The chimes. Oh my god, the chimes. Be driving along normally, slightly approach one edge of the lane, maybe to make sure there's space between you and the truck you're passing, DING and the screen shows "VEHICLE DEPARTING THE LANE TAKE CONTROL IMMEDIATELY" and the wheel shudders. Note, at no point did I use any of the autopilot features, or even attempt to use basic cruise control. But I got this lane departure warning probably 200 times. If you're at a stop light and aren't already creeping when the light turns green, you get another DING. Occasionally, there's this kind of klaxon sound that came without a written indicator.

The speedometer is in the middle of the car. There is nothing in front of the driver gauge-wise.

Charging. First recharge was from 77%-95%. It took an hour. Second was from 45%-100%, which took 40 minutes. Third was from 81%-92%, which took an hour. Fourth was 50%-97%, which took 65 minutes. All at Tesla Superchargers, all after the battery preconditioned, all above 25 degrees, all being the only vehicle in a "block." I have no idea why they vary so much. I did like that you just plug the car in and it takes care of everything else. Range and the "GOM" seem a lot worse than our experience in the Mach E.

Trunk. The trunk opens with the push of a button, like ours. But it doesn't close all the way. Push the button to close and it lowers down, but doesn't latch. You then need to latch it manually, which makes this horrid grinding sound. This might just be an issue with the specific rental car we had, but at only 14,000 miles, seems pretty early for a failure of such a high-use component.

The Y is a lot louder than the Mach E. More road noise, more wind noise, more component noise.

Opening the doors from the outside is a huge pain, as you have to first push a button than manipulate this weird lever that pops out. Opening them from the inside is just a push button, which kind of leads to the nightmare scenario: what happens if you're inside one that suffers a complete power failure?

Horrid visibility out the rearview mirror.

Things I liked:

• the car seems even zippier than our Mach-E Premium. I don't ever leadfoot drive, so it's hard to tell, but it certainly has plenty of oomph. Not a big selling point for me.
• The side mirrors tilt down slightly when you shift into reverse. There's a post somewhere here about using Forscan to make a hack for that and it's a good feature Ford should consider.
• The screen is clearer and seems to have a quicker refresh rate.
• When you signal, the screen shows the corresponding left or right side view camera as well as your mirrors. I know our cars don't have those cameras, unfortunately.
• You can plug an SD card or USB stick in to auto-record all the camera feeds.
• When moving slowly toward an object, once you get within ~3', the screen shows you the distance in inches, which is neat when maneuvering in parking lots. Unfortunately, it seems to do this using cameras rather than a laser or ultrasound, so I don't know how reliable it is.

These are just my wife and my thoughts on a week of driving the Y, but I figured those in the Mach E community might be interested. I'm sure other people have different experiences, better or worse. I know the Mach E isn't perfect by any stretch, but it remains the best car I've ever driven.

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[DevSecOps]

Ok, so 90% of what you just wrote is because you didn't know what to do...

This forum is proof that there's a ton of people who get a MachE who have no clue what to do at the beginning. Like the MachE to some, Tesla is also a new experience, but it doesn't mean it "sucks" IMO, it just means you need to learn how to do things a different way, embrace change and try things in a way that you might not be used to. Once you get the hang of it, a lot of things that Tesla does start to make sense.

The Key - Yes there's no FOB and PaaK works flawlessly. Most people prefer this. Obviously some people want a physical key FOB still. I agree that the key cards can be finicky.

Headlights and Wipers - All you had to to was push in the right steering wheel button and say "turn on headlights" or "turn on wipers". It's actually that easy.

Door handle on power failure - There's a manual release right under the button you can pull.

Wheel adjustment - Just like any other modern vehicle it saves it to your profile. Since it was a rental you didn't have a profile. Additionally, the steering column has easy access where it will move out of the way to get in and out. The idea here is to set it once and forget it. When you first get a Tesla it's part of the walk-through on the screen before you drive away.

Chimes - Don't tell that to some people around here who say it let's you drive while your asleep, feet out the window, sunglasses at night while playing a tambourine. Yes the driver monitoring system is annoying as all hell.

Trunk - That's not the way it's supposed to be. Someone likely jacked it up

Shifter - That's the way a lot of newer vehicles are. Rivian does the same thing and many older cars had shifters on the drive column so it's not really new.

Turn signals - You likely had a setting on that enables auto-disablement. You can change that. You could have also only done a partial push.

Charging - All of your charge sessions were past 80%. You might not know this but that's no bueno unless you want to wait a LONG time. The MachE is the same. The charge rate is decreased beyond 80% on all EVs. There was really no reason to charge when you did.

Rear view mirror - A common complaint with Tesla, I agree there.

 

[Phrozen]

Ok, so 90% of what you just wrote is because you didn't know what to do...

Most of them sure--I acknowledged as much and will do so again. For a one-week rental (we had reserved an Ioniq5, but it was unavailable), I didn't want to spend that much time picking it up. But most of these differences seem like they're different for the sake of being different, rather than any real improvement. I certainly don't see an advantage in navigating through several pages of touchscreen to adjust my side mirror over pushing a button and using the little joystick. Or to navigating through several pages of touchscreen to move the steering column a bit instead of pulling a single lever. Or using voice controls to turn on the wiper instead of using the control stalk.

As for the turn signal, it sometimes stayed on too long, and sometimes turned off too early. I was unable to figure out the pattern, in part because the little stalk doesn't actually change positions.

Sometimes there's an advantage in sticking with what's worked well for decades. Sometimes not, but if you're going to make a fundamental change to the ergonomics of something, you better have a good reason.

Again these were my thoughts, and I didn't like the car. I guess you did.

 

[DevSecOps]

Most of them sure--I acknowledged as much and will do so again. For a one-week rental (we had reserved an Ioniq5, but it was unavailable), I didn't want to spend that much time picking it up. But most of these differences seem like they're different for the sake of being different, rather than any real improvement. I certainly don't see an advantage in navigating through several pages of touchscreen to adjust my side mirror over pushing a button and using the little joystick. Or to navigating through several pages of touchscreen to move the steering column a bit instead of pulling a single lever. Or using voice controls to turn on the wiper instead of using the control stalk.

As for the turn signal, it sometimes stayed on too long, and sometimes turned off too early. I was unable to figure out the pattern, in part because the little stalk doesn't actually change positions.

Sometimes there's an advantage in sticking with what's worked well for decades. Sometimes not, but if you're going to make a fundamental change to the ergonomics of something, you better have a good reason.

Again these were my thoughts, and I didn't like the car. I guess you did.

I'm not trying to attack your opinion. I was attempting to educate by explaining how to do things.

The blinker has two settings, it's part way up or all the way up. You likely did a part way up at times while a full push others. Again these are all things that you just get used to when driving a Tesla. Rivian is the same way and my dad has also said that he disliks the blinker behavior when he drives my truck.

There's a lot of people who dislike the lack of buttons on the MME as well. It's a personal preference thing. Once you learn the voice commands with Tesla, it's really far easier and safer than looking even at a physical button because you just tell it what you want it to do while maintaining your vision forward.

As for the steering column. The reason they don't have the old school lever is because it's motorized so it can moved out of your way for easier entry and exit.

As for the stalks for headlights and wipers. I think the idea is that most people just leave them on auto all the time. But again they are easy to control via voice.

Change is something a lot of people have issue with. I for one, love it, it's well within your right to not like the changes they made. Other companies are adopting these changes too so don't be surprised if they show up in a future vehicle. For example Tesla removed the turn stalk completely on their newest vehicles and VW has said they are likely going to do the same. Rivian has copied a large portion of what Tesla does as well.

 

[mkhuffman]

I also drove a Tesla for the first time this year when I rented a Model Y. I experienced none of the problems the OP experienced. It took me seconds to figure out the turn signal and other unique Tesla features.

The one thing that took me a while to figure out is why the car dinged at me when at stoplights. And then I realized it detected the green light and was reminding me to stop looking at my phone. Pretty awesome, actually.

And why would anyone regularly charge past 80% and expect it to be fast? Nobody who understands how to DCFC does that. I did it once because I really had to have the high charge, but all the other times I stop at 80% or lower. Because it is so freaking slow after 80%.

The model Y is a tremendous value but you do need to be a little more open to new driving habits to appreciate it.

 

[voxel]

The key. There is no way to unlock the doors without a) your phone or b) tapping the key (which is a hotel-room style keycard) on a specific spot on the driver's door. That only unlocks the driver's door. To unlock other doors, you have to use the touchscreen. Locking the car is the same way. Tap the key on that same specific spot. The car also doesn't always detect the key inside, so about 50% of the time, I had to tap the same key on a specific spot on the center console while holding the brake pedal to "start." That's a lot of wallet movement in and out of my pocket, something I usually try to minimize.

...

Turn signals. About 50% of the time, they turned off too soon or stayed on too long. There's no clicking in the stalk, you just kind of wiggle it up or down.

I don't like how the turn signals work on Teslas nor Rivians either.

Tesla PAAK works almost 99.9999999% of the time. My Mach-E is about 90% - still better than 60% back in 2021 where I was often stuck outside pressing the button, closing and re-opening the app, trying again. The beauty of Teslas and Rivians are that you can just approach the car, open doors, step in and drive, park, exit, auto-lock. It's pretty flawless.

I was driving my Rivian and Mach-E back to back and forgot how much friction there is with the Mach-E. It takes 5-10 seconds to start driving the Rivian and about a full minute with the Mach-E... start button, waiting for CarPlay to connect (it failed too!), pick app to start music, shift, etc. With Teslas you start driving then use voice control to navigate. Voice control is the killer app and I wish my Rivian and Mach-E had it.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

I’m currently on vacation using a friend’s Tesla M3 and as I read the OP’s post I thought that time spent with the owners manual (or perusing theAnywa would have cleared up the majority of his complaints.

I remember the first time I rented a Prius. I already owned one so I knew how to drive it, but the rental agency offered orient me to the car if I needed it. I see the OP’s more as being about the rental agency than about Tesla. (And to be clear - I’m no Tesla apologist. I don’t like a lot about the car, though I would love to see some of what the car does copied in the Mach E.)

Regarding the chime when the light turns green, I was using this car when that feature was released and I thought i would like it. But I found that it chimed in far too many situations where I literally couldn’t move forward, so I turned it off.

Anyway, I’m glad the OP loves his Mach E. I love mine too (most of the time).

 

[AZMMESTAR]

I have owned a 2020 M3 and a 2022 MYLR and now a 2024 Ioniq 6. I drive my wife's car which is a 2023 MME Premium LR. Yes, there are a few trivial differences between all of them.
Nevertheless, sitting parked and reviewing some of these simple functions would have solved all of the issues.

 

[TheSteelRider]

I don't like how the turn signals work on Teslas nor Rivians either.

Tesla PAAK works almost 99.9999999% of the time. My Mach-E is about 90% - still better than 60% back in 2021 where I was often stuck outside pressing the button, closing and re-opening the app, trying again. The beauty of Teslas and Rivians are that you can just approach the car, open doors, step in and drive, park, exit, auto-lock. It's pretty flawless.

I was driving my Rivian and Mach-E back to back and forgot how much friction there is with the Mach-E. It takes 5-10 seconds to start driving the Rivian and about a full minute with the Mach-E... start button, waiting for CarPlay to connect (it failed too!), pick app to start music, shift, etc. With Teslas you start driving then use voice control to navigate. Voice control is the killer app and I wish my Rivian and Mach-E had it.

I really wish my Mach-E had voice control too. Wait, I wonder what that button on the steering wheel is?

 

[superdave80]

Headlights and Wipers - All you had to to was push in the right steering wheel button and say "turn on headlights" or "turn on wipers". It's actually that easy.

I would argue that just pressing a button/lever to turn these things on is even easier. I still don't like voice command, because no matter how much it improves, it seems to still only work about 60% of the time for me because apparently I don't know JUST the right thing to say, and I give up on it.

 

[Mach-E VLOG]

Just got home from a trip in Colorado, where we rented a Tesla Y for a week. We've been driving our Mach-E for 18 months now, winter and summer, and I wanted to leave my thoughts on the contrasts between the two similar vehicles.

The Tesla sucks. Really.

Yes, it was a rental, and yes there are some quantitative things to prefer about it, but as an actual vehicle to drive around and go places and do things? It's awful.

The key. There is no way to unlock the doors without a) your phone or b) tapping the key (which is a hotel-room style keycard) on a specific spot on the driver's door. That only unlocks the driver's door. To unlock other doors, you have to use the touchscreen. Locking the car is the same way. Tap the key on that same specific spot. The car also doesn't always detect the key inside, so about 50% of the time, I had to tap the same key on a specific spot on the center console while holding the brake pedal to "start." That's a lot of wallet movement in and out of my pocket, something I usually try to minimize.

The wipers. Couldn't figure out how to use them. I could make the window washer go, which would trigger the wipers, but otherwise they were stuck on automatic. I'm sure there's a setting in the touchscreen somewhere. One day we had a healthy layer of frost on the windshield and the wipers went into insanity overdrive mode for about eight minutes.

The headlights (and fog lights). Automatic only. Couldn't turn them on or off.

Turn signals. About 50% of the time, they turned off too soon or stayed on too long. There's no clicking in the stalk, you just kind of wiggle it up or down.

The shifter. Just a stalk on the right side of the wheel. Doesn't really move. Push up for R, push down for D. Click the button on the end in for P. Functional, but seems needlessly different with no obvious upside.

The wheel. To adjust the steering wheel, you need to find the right menu in the touchscreen. It does have a good range of motion when you do find it, but there's nothing obvious or expected about how to do so. Same with the mirrors.

The radio turned on twice, unexpectedly, and very loud. I'm sure I did something to cause this, but no idea what. There are no buttons anywhere, the controls are all on the touchscreen, and neither of us touched it. After the first time, we set the volume to 0, and two days later it reset to quite loud.

The chimes. Oh my god, the chimes. Be driving along normally, slightly approach one edge of the lane, maybe to make sure there's space between you and the truck you're passing, DING and the screen shows "VEHICLE DEPARTING THE LANE TAKE CONTROL IMMEDIATELY" and the wheel shudders. Note, at no point did I use any of the autopilot features, or even attempt to use basic cruise control. But I got this lane departure warning probably 200 times. If you're at a stop light and aren't already creeping when the light turns green, you get another DING. Occasionally, there's this kind of klaxon sound that came without a written indicator.

The speedometer is in the middle of the car. There is nothing in front of the driver gauge-wise.

Charging. First recharge was from 77%-95%. It took an hour. Second was from 45%-100%, which took 40 minutes. Third was from 81%-92%, which took an hour. Fourth was 50%-97%, which took 65 minutes. All at Tesla Superchargers, all after the battery preconditioned, all above 25 degrees, all being the only vehicle in a "block." I have no idea why they vary so much. I did like that you just plug the car in and it takes care of everything else. Range and the "GOM" seem a lot worse than our experience in the Mach E.

Trunk. The trunk opens with the push of a button, like ours. But it doesn't close all the way. Push the button to close and it lowers down, but doesn't latch. You then need to latch it manually, which makes this horrid grinding sound. This might just be an issue with the specific rental car we had, but at only 14,000 miles, seems pretty early for a failure of such a high-use component.

The Y is a lot louder than the Mach E. More road noise, more wind noise, more component noise.

Opening the doors from the outside is a huge pain, as you have to first push a button than manipulate this weird lever that pops out. Opening them from the inside is just a push button, which kind of leads to the nightmare scenario: what happens if you're inside one that suffers a complete power failure?

Horrid visibility out the rearview mirror.

Things I liked:

• the car seems even zippier than our Mach-E Premium. I don't ever leadfoot drive, so it's hard to tell, but it certainly has plenty of oomph. Not a big selling point for me.
• The side mirrors tilt down slightly when you shift into reverse. There's a post somewhere here about using Forscan to make a hack for that and it's a good feature Ford should consider.
• The screen is clearer and seems to have a quicker refresh rate.
• When you signal, the screen shows the corresponding left or right side view camera as well as your mirrors. I know our cars don't have those cameras, unfortunately.
• You can plug an SD card or USB stick in to auto-record all the camera feeds.
• When moving slowly toward an object, once you get within ~3', the screen shows you the distance in inches, which is neat when maneuvering in parking lots. Unfortunately, it seems to do this using cameras rather than a laser or ultrasound, so I don't know how reliable it is.

These are just my wife and my thoughts on a week of driving the Y, but I figured those in the Mach E community might be interested. I'm sure other people have different experiences, better or worse. I know the Mach E isn't perfect by any stretch, but it remains the best car I've ever driven.

As it was pointed out, a lot of this is just due to inexperience in the Tesla. It does take a little more time to get used to.

But at the same time, you do have some valid criticisms and they same criticisms that we've had with Tesla.

Teslas are noisy with their alerts. For me, I get really annoyed with the binging every time I turn on or off Autopilot -- which means every time I changed lanes.

There is also a lot more road noise. We noticed it while on our Model Y road trip but we really noticed it when editing the video. We had to do so much more noise cancellation compared to the Mach-E. And every Tesla we've been in (including a Model S Plaid) has had some rattle or creak somewhere. Drives me nuts and reminds me of my Subaru WRX.

The door handles were one of the biggest reasons we didn't buy a Model Y. Liv has dexterity and grip issues and those door handles just don't work well. (BTW, there is an emergency release if you don't have power but don't use them unless it is an emergency because it may crack the window.)

Teslas charge fast at a low state of charge but they slow down quite a bit by the time they get to 65% or higher. And if it is a LFP model, the curve is really bad.

As you mentioned, range and the GOM are not great. It was overly optimistic the whole time. And I found it interesting that the 300+ mile range Model Y we had didn't do significantly better on the road trip to Vegas than in our 260 mile range Mach-E.

We had some other gripes too. We kept the AC on 66 and the car still felt warm. Normally, we keep our Mach-E between 68-70 and it feels great. This happened to us in multiple Model Ys too.

Did you have premium connectivity with your rental? We didn't and that made a big difference in the experience. We didn't have access to traffic data or Spotify/other music apps.

 

[DevSecOps]

I would argue that just pressing a button/lever to turn these things on is even easier. I still don't like voice command, because no matter how much it improves, it seems to still only work about 60% of the time for me because apparently I don't know JUST the right thing to say, and I give up on it.

To each their own. I use my dad as an example a lot. He would be punching things if he had to talk to it. So I can understand that. You can actually use the stalk as well. For example if you pull back for high beams it pops up with the headlight options on the display so you don't have to navigate through menus. It's actually very intuitive, but people just go about it the long way who don't know what to do.

But as I said, most people put these things on Auto and never think about it again. I know that's what I do.

 

[Mach-E VLOG]

I really wish my Mach-E had voice control too. Wait, I wonder what that button on the steering wheel is?

And with the Mach-E, you can have Ford, Siri, Google, or Alexa respond depending on how you activate it!

I also found out that the Tesla voice commands don't work if you don't have cell coverage. Even the ones that are just for the car like "Turn off the AC."

 

[Mach-E VLOG]

I would argue that just pressing a button/lever to turn these things on is even easier. I still don't like voice command, because no matter how much it improves, it seems to still only work about 60% of the time for me because apparently I don't know JUST the right thing to say, and I give up on it.

I agree even though I've had pretty good success with voice commands. If I am by myself, I usually have the music going. I don't want to interrupt the music to turn the wipers on. And if I have people with me, I don't want to interrupt our conversation to bark out a voice command.

 

[voxel]

And with the Mach-E, you can have Ford, Siri, Google, or Alexa respond depending on how you activate it!

I also found out that the Tesla voice commands don't work if you don't have cell coverage. Even the ones that are just for the car like "Turn off the AC."

Which are awful.

Google voice is probably the best of the lot in that list - which is why I would love for my next car to have Android Automotive.

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