Mustang Mach-E reigned in again
Deliveries of Ford’s flagship electric car Mustang Mach-E are on hold in the UK after the company discovered a nominal safety risk. The incident follows a similar scenario Ford had recently experienced in the US.
Different from the States where it took Ford a while to figure out a software fix, this time the company knows what is going, well, wrong. The latest batches of Mustang Mach-E cars exhibit confusion over where exactly they are.
Ford calls the issue “incorrect location information when using the eCall system,” according to documents sent to dealers. “While investigations continue, new vehicles … must not be released to customers,” the announcement about the hold to dealerships read.
At the same time, the company made clear that the issue posed no direct safety risk and was not affecting the car’s driveability. The eCall system, responsible for notifying emergency services if a vehicle’s airbags are deployed, is a European Union requirement in all vehicles manufactured after 2018. This is also why Ford told us that it is “largely considered a compliance issue.”
Ford hopes to fix it through an OTA update scheduled for later this month for electric cars that have already been delivered. However, until that fix is confirmed, drivers expecting deliveries face a potential delay.
The company also delivered the first Mustang Mach-E vehicles to Norway only this May. The car became Norway’s most successful model across all drive types instantly, with 1,384 new registrations as reported. When asked by electrive, Ford confirmed the eCall issue was affecting those EVs too.
That is in theory, as in Norway, customers sign “legally binding documents that they will stay away from the risk area,” Ford informed us, further pointing to the “geographic remoteness of the region” and explaining, the risk area was the area where there is a possible likelihood for the eCall system to fail.
In the UK, the issue will be fixed by installing a software update on cars that have not yet been delivered to customers. “For customers who have received their vehicles, we will be launching ‘Power Ups’ software updates to repair their vehicles without the requirement for a dealer visit,” the Ford spokesperson added when writing to us.
An earlier version of this article quoted Ford saying that Mustang Mach-E deliveries were also on hold in Norway. The company later corrected this statement.
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