TRAVIS LANGNESS: Do you want to drive something that's powered by witchcraft? How do they get all these volts in here? Watson volts. Nuts, Watson. I don't know what I'm saying. This is the new Mustang Mach-E GT Performance. So that's two levels of performance. What does that mean? Well, it means it's an electric SUV from Ford with the Mustang name. OK, get over it. It's got a Mustang name. So what? And the GT version means it's more powerful than the standard car. And the performance version means it's even more powerful than the GT. How cool is that?
With all that added performance, there comes a couple of interesting questions. Number one, is the Mach-E GT worth the extra money you're going to pay over a standard Mach-E? It's almost a $20,000 price difference. And the second question is, can the Mach-E GT take Tesla's performance crown? Our long term Model Y performance has beaten pretty much everything we've put it up against in our drag race series. The Tesla and the Ford, they're now similarly priced at the top end. And they put out similar power numbers.
So who will win when we put them head to head in a drag race? We'll have to wait and see. This is awesome. And we're going to take it basically up and down the coast. We've got three different sets of driving we're going to do. We're going to drive this one first, the performance, then we're going to drive the regular GT, then tomorrow we're going to do autocross in an EV that seats five people. That sounds pretty fun.
For more information on the Mustang Mach-E GT Performance, boy, that's a mouthful, click the link in the description below. And if you want to see more car videos, more EV content, subscribe to our channel. And to get a cash offer on your car today, go to edmunds.com/sellmycar. So let's talk a little bit about what I like about this Mach-E GT and what I don't like. For starters, it's fast. This thing is legitimately quick to drive, and not just for an EV.
The GT performance now has over 600 pound feet of torque and 480 horsepower, which is the same as the Mustang GT with the V8 underneath the hood. This thing really goes. And Ford has added a really cool kind of rumbly soundtrack. It doesn't sound like a fake engine note. Here, I'll give you some. Not sure if you guys can pick that up on the mics. But it's different than the high pitched whirring you're used to hearing from EVs. And I really like that.
I also like that it changes direction really quickly, it's fun to drive on really curvy roads. Ford has got to have a lot of confidence in the performance of this vehicle to put us out on Highway 1 in Northern California. This is a fun and curvy road. I'm not sure yet, though, that I'm a big fan of the ride quality. In town, it's a little bit choppy. And you do get kind of a echoey feeling in the interior. And that might be due in part to the high performance tires that the GT Performance has. This one's on Pirelli P-Zeros. And they're a little bit stiffer than your standard all seasons. These are summer tires. Some are performance tires.
So if you just want to get the regular GT, you might have a little bit more comfortable ride. But so far as a driver's car, I'm loving this one. Oh, and one more thing. These seats are upgraded from the GT. These are the GT Performance seats. They've got some extra bolstering. And they're a little bit firmer. But they do really hold you in place. I'm not sliding around up here. And that is excellent. Because you don't want that when you want to drive something fast. Woo-hoo.
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Driving the Mach-E GT Performance is thrilling. It's a really fun experience that lives up to the GT name. What we're going to do now is switch out of the GT Performance and into the standard GT. So it'll be a similar experience. And I think it'll live up to the GT name just as well, even if it is a little bit more tame.
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So we spent the earlier part of our day in the GT Performance. Now I'm in the regular GT. What's the difference? It's a little bit less fast. Yes, there's less torque in this one. But it's not super noticeable in going between lights. It's only on the straight and hard acceleration that you'd feel the difference. This one is a little bit more comfortable thanks to the tires. And it's a little bit quieter thanks to the tires. So maybe if you're looking for a good balance of performance and comfort, go with the GT. But the difference between the GT and the standard Mach-E is pretty big in two significant ways.
The first is power, obviously. The base version has around 260 horsepower. You can work your way up to about 340 depending on whether you go with the dual motor model. But this one has 480. And that big difference in performance means a big difference in price too. This one's over $60,000 to start. And that's before we even get up to the performance version. So that's a big gap between it and the base Mach-E. Are you getting a lot more power? Yes. Are you getting a lot more on the interior? Maybe not as much. Yes, I do like the materials. I think these muted dashboard materials are really nice. There's not a lot of black plastic.
But out on the road, it feels very similar. So if you're looking for something that's way more luxurious, maybe pinch a few pennies and don't go for the GT. It's also worth noting that the GT or the GT Performance don't have more range than the standard Mach-E. They have 260 or 270 miles of estimated range on the same 88 kilowatt hour battery pack as the standard model. But they don't get the 300 miles of estimated range that it does. And why? Well, because they're high performance editions. Of course, they've got stickier tires and they have more power. They go faster. So you'd expect them to get a little bit less range. And honestly, 30 miles, 40 miles, not a huge difference in my book. But you're going to have to stay out of it.
Because if you drive it like I've been driving it, you're not going to get that full 260 or 270.
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Well that was a really fun afternoon. We got to drive the performance version and the standard Mach-E GT, both of which are really fun. For my preferences, I like going fast. So I'd probably go with the GT Performance. But it is a little bit bouncier, a little bit louder on the inside with those high performance tires. So you might want to go with the regular GT. I am looking forward very much to going to autocross tomorrow, which sounds kind of strange to say about an EV. But hey, we're looking at the future, right?
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So now we're going to go out on the autocross course. We're going to go out on a sighting lap and then do two hot laps and then a cool down lap. So just to explain real quick, what is autocross? Well essentially, it's cones in a parking lot that mimic a racetrack. It gets you to get to the limits of your vehicle without the high speed of a racetrack and maybe without a little bit of the danger of a racetrack. Because if you spin out, you're just hitting cones. And it's really impressive to me that Ford would do this on an electric vehicle launch. They did it on the original Mach-E launch. And they're doing it again on the GT to show that this is a vehicle that people who are interested in performance would be interested in buying.
This car has unbridled extend, which doesn't exist in the standard Mach-E. But what it does is it throttles down maximum power but does a better consistency of power over time. So you can have consistent lap times on a course like this. So it's interesting. They don't want you to do full throttle acceleration on the racetrack. But they want you to get the best lap time, which is a very specific use case. And these seats actually are pretty good at holding you in place on the open road. So I'm interested how they'll do on the hot lap. And give it the beans. Here we go.
Even in extend, it's still got plenty of power. Pirelli P-Zero tires can really whip it around. Its braking zone's in green. All right. And they also told us that traction control is not completely off in this mode because essentially, it's too much. They don't want us spinning out and hitting these old light poles in this dilapidated parking lot by the harbor in San Francisco.
Now if you did turn off traction control and stability control, there's a button for that that's now physical instead of being in the old sink screens, which is-- a little bit of slidey, which is apparently something that Mach-E owners wanted, or maybe just people in the press complained about. So they put in a physical button. They said yesterday they got a new shipment of tires in. So we can do an extra hot lap today. And then the cool down lap. And it does understeer a little bit. You can tell the front end's got a little bit of weight to it if you go in hot to a corner. But it's easily correctable.
It's a predictable kind of fast. This isn't something that is frightening to drive quick. Obviously, it's relatively low speeds because you're in a parking lot. But if you know when to apply the throttle, it can actually push you out of a turn with more rear bias. That's another thing about unbridled extend is it changes the bias of the all wheel drive system to 40% power in the front and 60% power in the rear. God, this is so much fun.
Little bit of drifting sideways there. Back around. There we go. That's the chicane. And now, we go for the cool down lap. The interior and the exterior, to some extent, are pretty similar on this and the standard Mach-E. The difference you're getting with the GT and the GT Performance is exactly that, performance. I mean, it's so much more alive. The regular Mach-E is good. But man, this car is relentlessly good to drive.
And I asked myself before this event when I got the email that said there was going to be an autocross. Who's going to autocross their EV? But you know what? I would, and especially this one.
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Driving the Mach-E GT on an autocross course is a blast. I could spend all day out there. Honestly, this car's really fun, it's light, feels flickable. And it's the same way in daily driving. If you're a weekend warrior going to the canyons, this is going to be a fun car to drive. Now compared to the standard version, it doesn't look too different. Sure, it's a little bit lower. The wheels are different. And there's some small interior and exterior touches that help it stand out. But I still think it's stylish, it looks great on the road, and it deserves the Mustang name that's on the hood.
Compared to class rivals like the Tesla Model Y, the one that we've got in our long term fleet, the Performance Edition, I think this is a better daily driver. And it's more fun to drive quickly. Sure, the Tesla is fast. And we don't know how much slower or faster this one is until we get it into test. But they're pretty close to each other. And the differences in performance aren't enough to make me want to choose the more uncomfortable Tesla. Plus, build quality alone, I'd rather go with this one.
What do you think about the Mustang Mach-E GT? Does it deserve the horse on the nose? Can it beat the best that Tesla has to offer? Let us know in the comments below. And click Like and Subscribe while you're at it. We appreciate it.
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