Al Suttie steps inside the longer-range Ford Mustang Mach-E for a week’s test.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD Extended Range

List price (BiK): £65,350 (2%) CO2: 0g/km Economy: 341 miles Test efficiency: 281 miles

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Monday

Ford certainly has embraced recycling, what with digging up some of its best-loved names for new models. From the Puma to the soon-to-arrive Capri, there’s not much from the back catalogue untouched and that includes the Mustang name applied to the Mach-E. I suspect if Ford had simply called this car the Mach-E, I might have warmed to it originally, but it’s a car that’s left me cold. Will this Premium AWD Extended Range change that?

Tuesday

The important part of this particular Mustang Mach-E is the ‘Extended Range’ bit. Previous time spent with the EV Mustang has shown it to have an annoyingly curtailed driving range. This one claims up to 341 miles on a full charge and it should also be a bit quicker to charge up. Time will tell, but in the meantime there’s nowt wrong with how it goes – 0-62mph in 5.8 seconds is brisk for a family hatch.

Wednesday

I called the Mustang a family hatch to one of the other parents at my son’s football training last night and he was surprisingly upset. Turns out he has a Mach-E as his company car. Yet I don’t see what this EV has to do with the Mustang sports car beyond some retro cues. It handles well enough for its sector, but it’s devoid of the fun you get with a 5.0-litre V8 petrol-powered sports car. Marketing? Perception? Hype? Who knows…

Thursday

The roomy interior of the Mach-E is a big plus for this car. It has loads of room for carrying three friends this evening to a meeting. It also has a decent boot, though the slope of the tailgate does hamper cramming in larger boxes. Just as well this evening’s gathering needs nothing more than a notebook and laptop.

Friday

Showing just how quickly fickle fashion changes, the large infotainment screen of the Mach-E looks a bit dated to my eyes now. Maybe because it feels like it’s just been bolted on rather than blended in the way the similar screen is in a Ranger. More fundamentally is the faff of switching off various distracting driver ‘aids’ before setting off in the Ford, although this is not a unique bugbear to the Mustang by any means.

Saturday

Right, I’ve put off mentioning it for long enough, but the maddeningly annoying warning about a ‘Door Malfunction’ has been going on all week. I’ve checked the doors – they’re closed. I’ve checked the hatch – it’s closed. The car drives perfectly well, yet this warning continually pops up yet won’t explain what the issue is.

Sunday

A week on and the Mach-E has a driving range of 281 miles on a full charge by my reckoning and driving, which is a pretty standard mix of town, open road and motorway. It’s better than previous Mach-Es by a decent margin, but doesn’t set any benchmark in my experience. Given the price of this model, it would put me off even if it is well equipped and decent to drive.