Alisdair Suttie heads back behind the wheel of Ford’s electric Mustang to see if the Premium AWD model shapes up better. 

Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD Extended Range

List price (BiK): £65,350 (2%) CO2: 0g/km Economy: 341 miles Test efficiency: 254 miles

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Monday

A previous and short time with the Ford Mustang Mach-E had left me ambivalent about this Premium AWD version arriving this morning. The good news is that this isn’t the GT version I tried before, which had a ride so brittle it felt like there was no suspension travel whatsoever. Sitting on 19-inch alloy wheels with standard suspension with this car, I have faith my spine will survive intact.

Tuesday

The whole crazy acceleration fad with electric cars is, thankfully, fading into the background as manufacturers have realised range is far more important than supercar-like 0-62mph times. This Mach-E registers this sprint in 5.8 seconds, which is plenty fast enough, but much better is its claimed 341-mile driving range. Will that prove accurate or as far off the mark as the previous Mustang I tried? Time will tell.

Wednesday

The large portrait-orientated infotainment screen is one of the easiest to use that I’ve come across. Its size means you can have a split screen, with nav showing on the top and still have the temperature controls along the bottom, so you don’t need to flip between screens to operate different functions. Of course, normal buttons would work even better…

Thursday

Time to charge up the Mustang and I stop in at Stirling’s park and ride on the outskirts of the city. There are plenty of chargers but only a handful of 50kW ones and there’s only one free. I bag it, hook up and head off to do some shopping in the 40 minutes allowable for free charging with ChargePlace Scotland. When I return, the charger reads ‘Charge Fault’, so no power added to the battery and no choice of hooking up to another charger.

Friday

With the battery beginning to head below 20%, it’s another trip to charge the Mach-E today. Fortunately, a second trip to Stirling’s park and ride yields better results, but it also means I’m charging the car from a lower base having covered around 30 miles since yesterday evening. Poor charging infrastructure is an all-too-common complaint from other EV drivers I chat to while waiting for the car to top up.

Saturday

With a supple ride, the Mach-E in Premium trim is also a much better car to drive on country lanes than the GT version. While that seems counterintuitive, it’s all down to the suspension allowing the wheels to gain purchase through corners while also isolating the body from shocks through the wheels. Simply put, the GT’s suspension is set much harder than it needs to be while the Premium strikes a Goldilocks balance.

Sunday

The week is up and the scores are on the doors, or on the Mustang’s onboard computer at least. Claimed driving range is 341 miles on a full charge, but reality in autumnal Scotland shows this to be 254 miles from full to empty, so a real-world driving range of about 200 miles. That’s fine for most needs, but it did take a serious dip on a 60-mile motorway drive by using two miles of range for every mile actually covered.