We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Vroom Vroom, Fizz Fizz;

The Ford Mustang Mach-E has had some weird recalls in its short time on sale, including one for the glass roof, which could separate and fly off while driving. Its most recent recall is also weird, but it’s also a little embarrassing: The electric SUV could experience a component failure in its battery pack that occurs while DC fast charging or romping on the accelerator.

Ford recalled almost 35,000 2021 and 2022 Mustang Mach-Es equipped with the extended-range battery for the issue. Recall documentation states that DC fast charging and “repeated wide open pedal events” could overheat the high-voltage battery main contactors, causing them to deform and arc. That could cause a loss of power and increase the risk of a crash.

28 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars”

  1. “[…] some weird recalls in its short time on sale, including one for the glass roof, which could separate and fly off while driving.”

    Say what?!? Ford has made a bazillion cars with sunroofs and moonroofs. Just who te heck is on this engineering team?

    1. Ah yes … but these inefficient electric cars must be made of ultralight construction because of the battery weight. So I expect significant modifications were made to their standard glass roof details.

  2. Coming soon….

    Cutting out the floor boards and battery packs for your feet…
    Flintstones.
    Meet our Flintstones.

    1. Hey kids, do you want a car ride?
      You need to check out my cool mustang!
      A little bit of exercising will be required though.

  3. I guess Ford forgot about it’s wonderful, ugly Edsel (Sept. 1957-60), the car bust joke for decades. It ruined the brand for a time.

    Apparently, the history memo never arrived in text to cell phones of the the new engineers, new overpaid CEO green dreamers and marketing staff, who skipped history in high school.

    As Karl Marx, the German philosopher and political theorist, known as the ‘Father of Communism’ said: ‘History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, secondly as a farce’.

  4. “some Mach-E forum members note that replacing the component requires dropping the battery, which could extend labor times to 25 hours or more”
    Un oh. That’s a lot of time on the hoist.
    On my Milwaukee drill I just squeeze the buttons on the sides and pull the battery out…
    Seems to me they might have made them with no plan on how to fix them.

    1. Ever think the engineers design cars like this on purpose – to keep the dealerships busy?

    2. The engineers looked at it, and said it was a structural component, it’s not supposed to be removed…

      At least it’s a recall, so ford is paying for the labour

    3. That’s how it should be, if they expect electric cars to continue into the future. A universal style battery pack, that one can trade out, like the trade-a-tank propane tanks at the gas stations. it would be much easier to swap out the battery, like on an electric drill, with several smaller, easily manageable cells. The old timers can shake their heads and reminisce about how easy it was to just go to a gas station and “recharge” their vehicles to full capacity in 5-10 minutes, or take a jerry can to a “ranged out” one and also recharge it in minutes…

    1. 111,486 have been sold worldwide as of 2022… which is only a problem for ford when you find out that as of November 30th, 2022 they have produced 150k of them

  5. I bet some moron rated a component for steady state operation, not allowing for current spikes.

  6. Loss of power on acceleration is a common Ford problem, even in the eco-blast engines. There is nothing like being in the middle if passing and having the power diverted to the electric (no longer belt driven) fan because…Ford computer reasons. So your speed suddenly drops. This is absolutely dangerous and the problem has existed for years, but they choose to ignore it.

  7. I seriously cannot fathom the concept of buying an electric pony car. It’s antithetical to the concept.

    Also, they’re fugly AF.

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