The age of new model years consistently kicking off in September of the previous calendar year are increasingly slipping into the past. The latest example of this is the Ford Mustang Mach-E. We’re now into April 2024, and Ford is just now releasing the 2024 model Mustang Mach-E with some improvements in range, charging speed, performance and a new battery pack for the standard range models. We also have the debut of the Mach-E Rally trim level.
The standard range Mach-E is now finally shipping with a new lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack supplied by Chinese battery maker CATL. The LFP battery was originally expected to debut in mid-2023. Most likely, the slower than expected sales of the Mach-E over the past year meant that Ford had an excess inventory of the original LG batteries to use up before making the switch.
The LFP batteries offer several advantages including significantly lower cost and reduced risk of fires. The LFP battery does come with a range improvement of 20 miles, bringing the standard range Mach-E up to 250 miles. While the LFP battery is lower cost than the nickel-manganese-cobalt battery it replaces, the base price has been increased by $100 to $39,995. Ford already slashed prices of the Mach-E several months ago and was likely losing thousands of dollars on each sale. The cheaper battery should get Ford closer to break even on the base Mach-E if not profitable.
The Mach-E with the extended range battery retains the same chemistry as before but now offers an additional 20 miles of range on the Premium RWD version for a total of 320 miles. The Mach-E GT gets an extra 10 miles for 280 miles.
All 2024 Mach-Es get a new in-house designed rear motor, replacing the original unit that was provided by a supplier. This drive unit is based on the similar motors used in the F-150 Lightning pickup but with a different final drive ratio and it delivers an additional 70 lb-ft of torque at the rear axle.
The Mach-E GT performance pack includes software upgrades to control and thermal modeling algorithms that enable this version to produce an extra 100 lb-ft of torque and drops the 0-60 mph time to 3.3 seconds, about 0.2 seconds faster than before.
Charging has also gotten faster for the 2024.model. Ford still lists the maximum DC fast charge rate for the extended range battery as 150 kW, the same as before. But the time to charge from 10-80% has been cut by 8.8 minutes to 36.2 minutes which implies that Ford has improved the charging curve, keeping it closer to the peak rate longer before starting to ramp down charging. The standard range battery can be charged from 10-80% in 32.3 minutes, almost 6 minutes faster than before.
In late February, Ford starting pushing out over-the-air updates to existing Mach-Es that enable Plug&Charge access to Tesla Superchargers and integrate the Tesla chargers into the BlueOval Charge network. The same capability carries over for 2024 and Ford has begun shipping J3400/NACS to CCS adapters to customers to allow use of the Tesla chargers. Ford is now sharing state of charge data into Google Maps and Apple Maps for Android Auto and Apple Carplay users to enable routing to charging stations with state of charge estimation.
In addition to the $100 bump on the standard range Mach-E Select, the Premium models go up by $1,100 and the GT goes up by $1,600 to $53,995. The new Rally model starts at $59,995.