Ford unveil the Mustang Mach-E – The start of a new strategy for the car maker who promise to fully embrace electric vehicles.
Chairman of Ford Motors, Bill Ford says that, with the new Mustang “We are really pushing our chips in on the table with this vehicle” and it certainly seems to be the case with a 370 mile range on a full charge and 0-60 acceleration in under five seconds.
So even though it doesn’t have the famous V8 petrol engine it is promised to deliver the same famous performance, and this is key to Ford’s ongoing electric vehicles strategy which promises to create electric versions of some of it’s well known and iconic vehicles rather than creating totally new brands. The idea being that consumers will not be scared off by new and potentially untested technology, instead it is seen as a conversion of existing and well loved vehicles.
The Ford marketing team is also working hard on new campaigns which not only show the green credentials of the electric versions but also to introduce how fun and efficient electric vehicles are to drive than the petrol or diesel equivalents.
The electric transformation process started in the US back in 2011 with electric versions of the well established Focus and C-Max models, however the new Mustang demonstrates that an electric conversion is possible for their higher performance models.
The company plans to spend up to $11 billion on the development of forty electric and hybrid vehicles by 2022, this is a substantial increase from the $4.5 billion which had been previously announced with considerable development of new electric technologies.
The benefit is that Ford represents the mainstream motorist. An organisation such as this changes strategy with the rapidity of an oil tanker turning, so this change in funding and the launch of new vehicles will start to deliver a considerably wider range of vehicles available and a larger drive for electric motoring.