- Ford’s first mass-market electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, is arriving at dealerships.
- In an interview with Autoblog, the executive in charge of the vehicle dealt a veiled blow to Tesla’s well-documented quality lapses.
- “The doors fit well, the plastics and other materials match the color, the bumpers don’t fall off, the roof doesn’t come off when you wash it, the handles don’t get stuck in the cold,” he said of the Mustang Mach-E.
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The Ford electric vehicle czar attacked Tesla in an interview published on Friday, referring to a series of issues reported by owners in recent years.
Darren Palmer, who has led the automaker’s electrical upgrade efforts since 2017, spoke with Autoblog about the new Mustang Mach-E. It is the automaker’s first battery-powered car and is entering an increasingly crowded field that is dominated by a single name: Tesla.
“We want to start the initial adoption of the majority,” Palmer told the website. Although there are a bunch of competitors flooding the market, EV adoption is still relatively low and gasoline-powered cars still dominate the roads, especially in the U.S. Electric cars accounted for less than 3% of all global sales in 2019, according to IEA estimates, even as the adoption rate increased.
Addressing the elephant vaguely in the room, Palmer praised Ford’s century of manufacturing experience.
“The doors fit well, the plastics and other materials match the color, the bumpers don’t fall off, the roof doesn’t come off when you wash it, the handles don’t get stuck in the cold,” he said, presumably referring to Tesla’s well-documented quality problems from previous years. In two cases, owners of Model Y vehicles said their car roofs exploded.
And in November, Tesla recalled nearly 10,000 Model X vehicles because of a roof finish problem. The company did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
“When people see the real benefits of electric vehicles, it drives desire and desire,” said Palmer.
Read More: REVIEW: The Mustang Mach-E is Ford’s most important vehicle in decades – and one of the most exciting electric cars I’ve ever driven
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