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Is there a more natural place for someone to really floor it for the first time in an electric car than the ballyhooed DirtFish Rally School outside Seattle, Washington? With the gravel wet from a day of cool, classic, spring Pacific Northwest rain? Surely there must be.
And yet, here I am, behind the wheel of the 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally, politely—and clearly all too slowly—following directions as a very patient rally instructor asks me to “really punch it this time.” Shortly after this instruction, and nearly on purpose, I drive sideways.
If this sounds fun, then, sure, absolutely. The Mustang Mach-E Rally, arguably Ford’s best foot forward in the controversially-named electric car series in 2024, shows the Detroit automaker is ready to entertain. (Controversial because not everyone is convinced that a crossover should ever be called a Mustang, plug or not.)
The future of Ford’s electric business may be murky, or at best complicated—more on that later—but the Mustang Mach-E Rally shows the automaker willing to throw in a few tricks to persuade a new audience to put down the gas pump and pick up the plug.
Dirty EV
This is Ford’s first rally-inspired electric. Note the phrase “rally-inspired”—those interested in such a car sadly won’t get something akin to Ari Vatanen’s record-setting 1988 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb ride, made legend in Climb Dance (skip to 3:08 to see Ari’s casual genius at work).
What you do get, compared to the Mach-E GT version, are a few trim tweaks to make the EV friendlier on rocky, slippy surfaces: suspension raised by an inch, protective shielding for front and rear motors, rally-style wheels covering Michelin CrossClimate2 tires (designed to slide), two front hood racing stripes, and of course, a rear spoiler. At the Ford event at DirtFish, nice men lovingly wiped the mud off the Rally’s windshield and driver door between laps, though this does not come standard.
The Mach-E Rally does come with RallySport Drive Mode, made off-road friendly with added yaw (more sideways sliding) and aggressive damping to better navigate gravely turns. Linked to that extra inch of ride height is the addition of Ford’s MagneRide suspension system, which is designed to adapt to changing road conditions. It’s powered by embedded sensors and pistons equipped with magnetic damper fluid, which produces firmer or softer shocks, depending on what the road demands.
In practice, RallySport Drive Mode creates a notably looser ride, with the SUV much more willing to slide. Still, the vehicle didn’t let a Rally noob convict, much less kill, herself—which meant the whole thing was really very fun. Even in the muck, I felt I picked up the trick quickly. (Granted, an instructor called out extremely specific braking directions.)
One of the advantages of driving electric is the immediate power you get without having to mess with gears, which—for a red-blooded American who can’t remember the last time she was in a manual transmission car, much less behind the wheel of one—is appreciated.
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The vehicle starts at a higher price point, $60,000, which puts it a punchy $20,000 above the cost of the Mustang Mach-E base model.
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As part of a broader Mach-E refresh, the entire lineup gets a new rear motor, lifted from the Ford Lightning pickup, which Ford says is lighter and improves torque. The interior is mostly the same as previous models, though Ford says it spent some time cleaning up and standardizing the design of the central screen.
For those hoping to use their rally-inspired electric to travel beyond the track, the Rally trim gets 265 miles per charge from its extended-range battery—slightly less than the 280 miles on the GT version and way below the 320 miles on the Premium, also with extended-range battery.
Still, with 0 to 60 in 3.4 seconds and 480 horsepower with 700 pound-feet of torque from the dual motors, that extended battery may drain faster than you might wish. Fortunately, the Rally version charges at up to 150 kW, so with the right charger it can go from 10 to 80 percent in 36 minutes.
I didn’t drive the Mach-E Rally on your standard road, but other reviewers thought the SUV handled just fine as a daily driver. Indeed, our friends at Ars Technica managed 2.5 miles/kWh on a short “spirited” on-road test loop, which would result in a theoretical max range of 228 miles from that 91-kWh battery.
Finding Focus
Ford has seen measured success in the Mach-E line, especially lately. Following price cuts, Ford sold just over 9,500 Mustang Mach-E SUVs last quarter, up 77 percent year over year. Now, with a few bells, stripes, and whistles, the company hopes the Rally will open up a new niche in off-road-ish electrics. The closest competitors might be the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which is designed for track performance, and maybe the Rivian R3X, which is still some three years from buyers’ neighborhood gravel courses.
It’ll take all types—and creative outreach to all sorts of customers—to get Ford to electric profitability. The automaker’s electric side of the business lost $4.7 billion last year, a figure the company has attributed to competitive price cuts and strategic investments. The squeezes continue: Last month, Reuters reported on an internal memo from the automaker that pushed suppliers to cut costs.
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Some of today’s EV issues aren’t even uniquely Ford’s. Automakers the world over are trying to figure out how to bridge the chasm between the tech-loving early adopters, who are most likely to have picked up the earliest electrics, and the general population, which wants a car that’s not too expensive and that gets them where they want to go. These customers aren’t always excited to adapt to the changes that come with electric powertrains.
It’s a question central not only to the Mustang Mach-E Rally, or even the Mustang Mach-E line, but to the entire Ford electric lineup: Who are these cars for? At an event in Seattle, Mustang Mach-E chief engineer Donna Dickson didn’t get too specific about the demographics of today’s Mach-E customers, other than to say that “lots of females are joining the Mustang brand.”
Meanwhile, the longer-term electric future of Ford is less than clear. CEO Jim Farley said in February that Ford has been secretly working on a low-cost electric vehicle program, a move no doubt designed to put the carmaker more firmly on a collision course with Tesla.
But in April, the company said it would delay the North American production of two planned electrics, a large SUV and an electric pickup truck. And it announced a major switch in focus, saying it would create hybrid versions of every model it sells by the end of the decade.
In fact, to see the most interesting thing happening in Ford electrics, one should maybe ignore DirtFish and its gravel track entirely, and turn their attention to the Ford Cologne EV Centre in Germany, where the five-seat Ford Explorer EV is assembled.
Ford has yet to announce when, or if, the smaller, practical SUV will make its way to American shores. But oddly, the goal of the Explorer might ultimately be the same as the peppy Mustang Mach-E Rally: to convince the driving public that the climate benefits of driving electric are almost incidental. They can be for a great time—or simply for getting from A to B.
