THE SOUL-SUCKING, JUICE-SAPPING, CANDY APPLE NIGHTMARE.

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. I am sitting here awash in the unending platitudes roiling the Internet about the new GT version of the Ford Mach-E crossover. As best as I can determine, judging by the gushing praise being slathered on Ford’s electric crossover, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and that doesn’t even begin to cover the over-the-top verbiage being assigned to the styling-challenged conveyance. 

It’s hard to sort the wheat from the chaff in this instance, meaning, it’s hard to determine if the commentators in question are just enamored with the first blush of wheeling an EV around, or if they are able to put the usability and performance in perspective with the cost.

One guy who has had plenty of exposure to EVs, certainly enough to put things in perspective, is Mark Phelan from our local Detroit Free Press. In reading his initial review of the $62,185 GT version and the $68,500 Performance version – the one that adds a cool $5,000 for all the tricks – Phelan had this to say: 

“The EPA rates the GT at 270 miles on a charge, the GT Performance at 260.

A lot of people pretend the Mach-E GT only competes with electric SUVs like the Tesla X and Audi E-tron. By those standards, its price, power and performance clearly come out on top. But the Mach-E doesn’t live in a fantasy land where everybody drives EVs. Not yet anyway. It also needs to win buyers from sporty gasoline-powered midsize SUVs.

It still pencils out well for performance and value, but like many SUVs, charging time remains a potential issue. Most EV owners do 65%-85% of their charging at home, according to Ford’s data. That’s a clear win for an electric vehicle — owners start every day with a full battery, based on EPA estimates of 10.1 hours charging time at 240 volts.”

Got it, that pretty much sums up the positives – and the negatives – for EVs. But then Phelan’s comments get really interesting:

“The Mach-E’s competitiveness on long highway drives remains an open question, though. Independent tests cite 47-52 minutes to charge to 80% at a 150 kW (400v) DC charger. That’s slower than the best competitors, leaving room for improvement.”

And therein lies the heart of the matter for the transition to EVs in this country. “Leaving room for improvement” is code for we’re not there yet. As in, it’s one thing to operate an EV in the city and in urban environments. I know, I had one – a Chevrolet Bolt EV – and it was certainly capable, competent and unexpectedly, really fun to drive. And I see no compelling reason why an EV wouldn’t work for most motorists for their typical driving needs.

But – and there is a very large “but” in this case – it’s one thing to boast of driving range because that seems to be settling in at over 300 miles on average for most EVs from here on out. And that’s fine, because for most people in urban areas, where they can charge overnight, that should be plenty of range. 

But what about 45 minutes to an hour (or more) for a charge on the road, where there’s an added complication looming if the charging stations are occupied, or for some reason not working at the time?

That is flat-out unacceptable. Spare me the argument that goes something like this: “It not all that inconvenient; you can eat, use the restroom, etc., it’s not that big of a deal.” Really? Have you taken a road trip of late? Or, do you want to pretend that all of the driving trips you’ve taken, where the need to get there supersedes the length of the fuel stops, didn’t really happen that way? You’re kidding yourself and it’s unmitigated bullshit too.

The EV thing is great, for a lot of aforementioned reasons and especially for the given realities of urban usage. They will work just fine. But to pretend that charging times aren’t a factor – unless you’re spending well into six figures – is pure folly. Yes, I’ve read countless stories by the EV fanboys about traveling cross-country and how that it is basically “no problem,” but who’s kidding whom here?

I will give you a prime, real-world example: It’s about 375 miles between here and Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, the home of Road America, aka “America’s National Park of Speed.” If you make decent time – and that’s a highly questionable concept due to the never-ending construction along the way – it should take between eight and eight-and-one-half hours to make the trip. And it’s not all that pleasant of a drive until you get through Chicago, which is always fraught with issues depending on the time of day you pass through. Given that, stopping for more than a quick gas stop and maybe a bathroom break is all you want to do. It’s not the kind of drive you want to turn into nine or ten hours in order to charge-up. 

This is where the realities of EV driving and ownership come into sharper focus. Everything is shiny-happy when it comes to considering the transition to EVs. The key players want you to believe in the concept, and we’re being promised that it will be a Brand-New Day. And judging by the way this industry is hell-bent on going All-EV-All-The-Time, this is where we’re headed. That’s fine with me – I guess. But until the charging times drop dramatically, this transition is going to be excruciatingly slow.

As for the fact that a lot of auto-journos and wannabe auto journos are canonizing the Mach-E GT and its variations (how ‘bout those prices, folks?) for its performance, let me be crystal clear on this: Just because an EV is blistering fast doesn’t make it a desirable high-performance or track car. I’ve said repeatedly that without the visceral appeal of the sound that goes with contemporary performance cars, the “performance” EVs are a soul-sucking exercise, and there is no amount of computer-enhanced interior audio programs that are a suitable substitute for the lack of those sounds.

For the record, just in case you think I’m piling on Ford’s EV crossover, I drove a Porsche Taycan, and I was so underwhelmed and disappointed that it was painful. Bloated at over 5,000 lbs., the Taycan is about as far removed from the Porsche ideal as you can possibly get. Even with the enhanced cockpit audio that you can dial up, there is no “there” there. And without that, it becomes crystal clear that it’s a soulless conveyance with a Porsche badge and a Porsche price tag to boot. But yeah, people are lining up for them, which is their prerogative, I guess, but “include me out,” as Samuel Goldwyn once famously said.

One more thing, Ford operatives had the Mach-E “Performance” painted in a candy apple-like red for the assembled media. I guess this is supposed to make it a certifiable performance/dream machine, or something like that. But there’s no amount of candy apple red paint that can make the Mach-E anything more than a glorified crossover with a horsey badge.

Instead, it’s a soul-sucking, juice sapping, candy apple nightmare. 

And that’s the High-Octane/Electron Truth for this week.