Ford is trying to hype up its upcoming first electric vehicle built to be electric from the ground up: a Mustang-inspired all-electric crossover.
Executive Chairman Bill Ford says the vehicle will ‘go like hell’ – a reference to what his uncle, then-President Henry Ford II said when the automaker was trying to beat Ferrari at Le Mans.
Ford said that the vehicle, which is now sounding like a performance car, “is going to go like hell,” via Automotive News.
He said that the company now sees EVs as having evolved enough to not have any trade-off when it comes to performance:
“When we first started talking about electrification, there was this thought that there had to be a trade-off: It was either going to be green and boring and no fun, or really exciting but burn a lot of fossil fuels. Electrification has come to the point that you can do both.”
Last year, Ford said that it was going ‘all-in’ on EVs following the ousting of CEO Mark Fields and appointment of Jim Hackett.
Hackett formed a new internal team, called ‘Team Edison’, to oversee electric car programs. He also shifted one-third of internal combustion engine investments to electric cars, but the company is still investing more in the former than the latter.
Ford confirmed that its first next-gen electric vehicle will be inspired by the Mustang.
Not much is known about the vehicle at this point other than it will be a crossover inspired by the Mustang with a targeted range of 300 miles.
It doesn’t even have a name at this point.
The vehicle was first codenamed Mach 1, but Jim Farley, Ford’s president of global markets, confirmed that they dropped it after having a “strong reaction” from Mustang fans:
“We put that out there to evaluate it. There are pros and cons. I don’t want to handicap it at this point, but we got a very strong reaction from people.”
It has been rumored to be potentially called the ‘Model E’.
Tesla first wanted the call the Model 3 – Model E. It would have joined the models S and X in Tesla’s lineup to make “S-E-X” with the Model Y to follow later.
The name stuck for a while, but during the shareholders meeting in July 2014, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company had to drop its “Model E” trademark after Ford threatened to sue over having a similar naming scheme. At the time, Musk said that “Ford tried to kill sex.”
Now Ford could aim to use the name for its own electric vehicle.
Last month, the automaker released the first image of the vehicle – pictured above.
The Mustang-inspired all-electric crossover is expected to hit the market as soon as next year.
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