The Ford Mustang Mach-E is a fantastic EV, with good range, excellent usability and plenty of the rowdy, fun-to-drive characteristics of its gas-powered sibling. Still, the internet’s ceaseless keyboard warriors have continued to shout to the heavens that it’s “Not a real Mustang!” So to give its EV more sports car cred, Ford now offers the 2022 Mach-E GT and GT Performance Edition. And after driving both, there’s no doubt in my mind this electric crossover is completely deserving of the Mustang name.
The 2022 Mach-E GT offers up some fairly impressive performance figures. It uses the same 88-kilowatt-hour battery as other all-wheel-drive Mach-Es, but a new front motor setup allows for greater output, totaling 480 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. Ford estimates a range of 270 miles from the Mach-E’s dual-motor powertrain and a 0-to-60-mph time of 3.8 seconds. The Performance Edition keeps the same horsepower but adds 34 pound-feet of torque, bringing its total to 634 and its 0-to-60 time down to 3.5 seconds. That performance has a price, though; the hotter GT’s range drops slightly to a still very respectable 260 miles.
Prolonging the magic
A weak point of some sporty EVs is performance degradation due to heat. This means that if you romp on your EV in its most dynamic mode — called Unbridled in the Mach-E — the battery pack and motors will be forced to reduce output to prevent thermal damage. Ford has a solution for this and it’s a new setting called Unbridled Extend.
Unbridled Extend is interesting because it adjusts a ton of the electric powertrain’s parameters to make the Mach-E perform at its best for significantly longer than previously possible, but there are some catches. Unbridled Extend’s goal is to prevent heat buildup for more consistent performance, so if you’ve been blasting about in Unbridled mode and the battery pack is hot, you’ll be unable to enter Extend because cooling the pack back down to an appropriate temperature would be inefficient. Extend mode also gets rid of regenerative braking, so no one-pedal driving, again reducing the thermal load on the battery. This mode also alters many of the driver-assistance features, making them less intrusive. Extend changes the all-wheel-drive system’s front-to-rear torque split and adjusts the sensitivity of the throttle and brake pedals. It’s not really a mode for everyday driving, but it’s great for a race track or autocross…Read more>>
Source:-cnet