Ford teases Mustang-inspired Mach 1 electric vehicle

ABU DHABI: Ford has teased its first all-new battery-electric vehicle, Mach 1. Calling it a 'performance utility vehicle', the company has said that it has been designed taking inspiration from the Mustang muscle car.

In the first half of the year, the Focus, Fiesta, Taurus, and Fusion had been discontinued from the manufacturer's North American line-up. After doing business for 110 years in the US passenger saloon market, the company has decided to end its presence in that segment. In fact, IHS market analyst, Colin Couchman, told that in the recent times, buyers have preferred SUVs and crossovers in the American market and as a result, the popularity of the sedan fleet sale has suffered.

The newly revealed vehicle, dubbed as Mach 1, will be revealed as a globally engineered model next year. The all-electric crossover obtains some styling features from the Mustang. Also, another electric crossover is in the making and is codenamed as CX430. It will be built on the C2 platform and would be an addition to the Kuga range. Though this CX430 would be designed like a hatchback, it would be having a higher driving position.

Ford is aware of the fact that the ‘white paper’ models, similar to the CX430, are the right cars to replace sedans and hatchbacks in the US lineup. Moreover, the crossovers, with Mustang-like design and front-drive chassis, are highly likely as they would be the perfect combination of all the attributes and utilities to be versatile.

Apart from the SUVs and trucks (Explorer and F-Series), the company will only keep the Mustang and Focus Active passenger cars on sale after 2020. So, according to the company’s strategy for the near future, it would focus on the emerging market small car platform (Ka), an electric car platform (Mach 1), a mid-size SUV platform (Explorer), the C2 (Focus) and full-size truck platform (F-Series).

Getting back to the teased Mach 1, the company would start off with the deliveries in the UK in 2020.