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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

I'm mystified with the Mustang branding. There's 55 years of inertia behind that meaning a 2 door sports car.

I can't help but feel like they are selling out here.

It seems like they wanted to combine the excellent brand recognition of "Mustang" with the staggering sales figures of SUVs.

Although they might get a semi-pass here, because the nature of electric cars really lends itself to SUV's, allowing bigger battery packs while also keeping weight way down low along with the motor(s). An electric SUV will handle much much better than it's gas counterpart because of this.

So I would give this a fair shot of actually being a good car, with many more mustang like qualities than would be expected. However part of me really does still feel like Ford should have just called this something else, and released an electric pure sports car mustang later on. I would imagine that Ford went back and forth with the "Mustang" branding a lot before settling on it.

It's a sports car brand that's got 1-2 generations (really, barely 1) from being completely obsolete. There's very little margin, and gas isn't getting any cheaper. They're in some sense rescuing the brand by separating it from the vehicle.

Remember that Ford killed off all other sedans for North America.

> There's very little margin, and gas isn't getting any cheaper.

* Barrel of Oil in 2009: $53.48 (Not yet adjusted for inflation)

* Barrel of Oil in 2019: $46.25

I think you're underestimating how much oil we discovered through the fracking process. There's a reason why SUVs went out-of-favor in the 2007 era (~$90+ per barrels of oil), but SUVs + Trucks became popular again come 2015+. Gasoline got way, way cheaper.

> Remember that Ford killed off all other sedans for North America.

Because gasoline has gotten so cheap, people have stopped caring about MPG-efficiency. SUVs are selling out while cheap econo-boxes are losing money.

The current trend is big, boxy SUVs with lots of room. Very few people seem to care about efficiency these days.

> I think you're underestimating how much oil we discovered through the fracking process.

I thought the primary output of fracking in the US is natural gas, not oil.

They are probably getting mixed up with shale oil, which isn't price competitive at the moment. Geopolitics has more of an influence on the current oil price.

Fracking Oil Wells are estimated to become profitable again at $60 / barrel (depending on the well of course, but roughly around there).

Which means that for the foreseeable future... ie: as long as Fracking Oil wells remain in a state of "DUC and cover" (drilled but uncompleted)... oil will likely remain under $60 a barrel.

Only if global oil consumption grows enough such that all the DUC-and-covered wells become operational will the market be in a position where the price of oil can grow significantly above $60/barrel. Either way, the $90+/barrel prices of the 2007-era probably won't return anytime soon.

BTW - Fracking has NEVER been profitable. It is just the losers are the debt holding in companies. And for the same reasons, VCs keep subsidising lost making companies (WeWork / Lyft etc). "We lose money on every sale but we make it up on volume" Bondholders have lost about a hundred Billion. It is crazy but frackers keep get capital effectively for free.

> gas isn't getting any cheaper.

On the contrary, cheap gas is here to stay.

At $60/bbl or so, fracking and tar sands/shale oil become profitable and those huge reserves come into play keeping a cap on the price. Technological change and/or pipelines can and likely will reduce that $60 cap.

Also, wind energy is becoming insanely cheap. That can't replace much oil usage, but it does replace it at the margins, and it's the margins that affect the price.

The only thing that will raise the price of gas is a carbon tax or equivalent, and we're not going to get that without a change of administration.

In respect to the car, I would argue about a clean car with low maintenance, and not about gas prices.

That said, gas will probably be 3x the price as electric for this car.

----

I got curious and did the math:

electric 270 miles range from 93 kw @ 12c/kwh = $11.16

ford edge 21mpg @ 3.00/gal = $38.57 for 270 miles

ford edge 25mpg @ 3.00/gal = $32.40 for 270 miles

The Mustang branding is a signal that Ford is going "all-in" on electric. They're putting one of their most valuable assets on the table. It's a really strong sign that this isn't a compliance car.

The electric isn't the issue here; an electric motor in a tight little RWD coupe would be amazing. It's the gargantuan SUV thing going on here that is the issue

A tight little RWD coupe with 1500 pounds of battery weight is not going to perform significantly differently.

The model 3 ranges from about 3650 lb to 4100 lb. A Mustang GT weights about 3700 lb. Noone would call these cars lightweight, but I do expect them to perform significantly better than the Y which will probably weight hundreds more.

Also, the Mach E has a massive battery and might actually weight close to 1k lb more.

I'm not really convinced that this (or the Tesla X or Y) are SUVs, despite the manufacture claiming otherwise. To me these are really just hatchbacks, with a bit higher roof line.

Yeah, but the SUV letters increase sales.

SUV != rock crawler. Even off-road rally cars run 5-7" ground clearance which is right around where the Y is estimated to be. The X has a clearance of 8.5" / 22cm. I would classify both of them as a sport utility vehicle. These cars just look a little different because they need to be more aerodynamic.

What the SUV has going for it are: high sales volume and the weight and performance don't have to be tops.

Meanwhile porsche is in the unenviable position of competing head to head with the model S which tesla started off in 2008.

Obviously a coupe would be more exciting, but it would be a smaller riskier market and ford could use the time to add lightness and remove slowness while keeping the price in the mustang range.

It makes perfect sense to me. Electric cars from traditional manufacturers have a reputation as substandard vehicles for green activists, largely owing to the compliance car.

Ford want to emphasise that this car has a focus on performance and is for enthusiasts. It needs to gain that perception to sell well in the market segment it's aimed at. Ford's generic branding doesn't come with that perception, but Mustang does.

It's no worse than a Porsche SUV.

Or a 4 door Porsche for that matter.

At least they didn't call that a 911. Porsche does have a niche make, but this is reusing a model name.

Other manufacturers have done it, look at MINI.

That started off as a Morris Mini-Minor, turned into a Morris Mini/Austin Mini, then just a Mini, then Rover Mini, then BMW turned it into it's own brand, MINI.

Ford are presumably just taking the brand awareness of the Mustang to create a sub-brand of performance cars. Which makes sense as people all over the world are aware of the Mustang.

And yet we're having an eerily identical discussion to the one that happened 10 - 12 years ago. Among the Porsche faithful, it was patently absurd, if not offensive. The press treated it as a marketing stunt. One is a make and one is a model, but in a world where tech companies routinely treat product lines as mini-brands, that just looks like savvy modern marketing.

Jim Hackett badly needs a win more than he needs to preserve the reputation of a loved brand. Since they've run just about every other brand name into the ground, Mustang is the last one left that will attract eyeballs. If they called it the E-Taurus no one would care after the initial announcement.

I personally think they should have started with electrifying Lincoln. They already don't sell a lot them, so it gives them room to create something new and revitalize a brand rather than dilute the meaning of Mustang.

My take was that this allowed people with conventional Mustangs to be able to go to a single family car without giving up too many of their sporting pretensions.

As a Mustang enthusiast, this branding is terrible. It muddies the waters of all that they've built with the Mustang brand.

I guess Maverick was too sullied for them :). LTD might have fit though.

I agree but this was the sort of thing that I recall them doing in the 70s, which albeit were not the best years of the Mustang (Mustang II - I can't believe they mentioned that one in their livestream early on.) I have to say the car appealed to me a lot and I watched their whole livestream because I was excited by the car; haven't plopped down the deposit yet but the night is young :) .

Muddying the water is not a bad thing here. They’re streamlining the Mustang brand — something they should do to stay afloat. As most people think, Mustang is a sport car but the population is aging rapidly and Ford has to accommodate. Now, instead of a Mustang enthusiast walking in and having to bypass the new model because they have a growing family, they’ll be able to purchase the family-friendly Mustang Mach-E.

The 459 hp/612 lb-ft GT Performance Edition is now the dream combo for the older, family diehard Mustang enthusiasts.

We are in a golden era of muscle cars with Dodge, Ford and Chevrolet producing the most powerful and poised cars in the category ever, and Ford comes out with this Tesla lookalike branded as a 'Mustang'? Incredible. why not call it the Ford Electro or some new name - why on earth mess around with the Mustang brand?

Same thing could be said about Lambo, but the Urus is selling like hot cakes.

Not really, since Urus wasn't a pre-existing model of Lambos, like Mustang was of Ford. Yes, Lambo "sold out" by making an SUV, but they didn't repurpose the name of a vehicle that had decades of goodwill built up (and a completely different body style).

Wasn't that Porsche before the Cayenne too?

The Mustang sells in very low numbers relative to their other models.

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