SpaceCadet's Brave Little Toaster: 2025 Ford Mach E

This is a premature thread.. I have not picked up the vehicle yet.. but I trust the selling dealer so I believe we're all good to go. 

So I am going to take my GX460 to an out of town dealer... and then walk away with a new Mach E this weekend. 

Between the Fiance (SWMBO) and I...This is not going to be our only Daily driver she also has a paid off late model modern ICE Camry... and it's not MY only car.. I'm still going to have my 2008 Fit-box rollbar and gutted toy with suspension made from Granite. 

We have no home charging.. which would be the absolute most ideal way to own an EV if we had it. But I live near a bunch of level 2 charging that fits my life.. and I live near not one.. but TWO.. NACS Partner accessible Tesla Superchargers.. both within about 10-15 minutes of me. 

which means.. I should... * in theory* be able to fit this EV into our lifestyle easily. 

On top of that.. this is going to be a lease.. with a BUNCH of miles per year.. so we are going to road trip this car.. and I'm going to catalog how hard or easy that can be. I've done the math and the planning.. it should integrate well into our lives.. we're going to find out.  

Digging the name, looking forward to hearing updates/experiences.

Eager to hear about life with no charger at home.  Biggest downside to EVs right now for me personally.

I too am looking forward to the more "square peg" approach to EV ownership.  

E-Machs look like a current good value.  

Staying true to myself, I'm trying to figure out which of these currently new EVs will be the one to make a good used car value

Toaster Acquired! 

It's a 2025 Mach E standard range RWD

Select trim level with the comfort package lite...

Select is the current entry level Mach E.... but it's no base model.

Comfort package lite adds heated front seats and steering wheel as well as a memory position for front seats and heated power side mirrors. We only got it for the heated seats and steering wheel. The memory position seats and mirrors were just a bonus. 

2025 Mach E de contents some small features and heavily cuts down the frunk space..... But that is to make way for a HEAT pump... A new feature this model year....So it should do better in cold weather. 

Made it home a little while ago. Today was a day of my expectations being blown away on the efficiency and the charge speeds. 

Before buying my Mach E I did some digging around.. and there does not seem to be great data out there for the charge curves on the latest 24/25 Mach E. 

all the data seems to be for the older cars. 

This was a chart I found in a youtube video online.. dude seemed to have done the setup well and I figured it was a pretty good representation and it lined up with my expectations of a 35 minute 10-80% time... 

Vertical axis shows SOC of the battery, Charge rate in KW and Charge delivered to the vehicle and time in minutes along the horizontal axis.. 

just so you can understand what's being shown. 

flash forward to today.... according to this... I shouldn't be seeing north of 100KW beyond 30% SOC. 

On our drive home across Texas today.. I only planned to hit Tesla Superchargers cause they're the cheapest.. well.. Fiance needed a bathroom break a bit early.. and there happened to be a shell recharge station there.... I plugged in at 49% and started pulling down almost 150kw immediately and was pulling over 100kW until about 65% SOC when it started to dip down closer to 70-75KW and was at that when I killed the session at 70% SOC. 

This isn't 800V fast.. but i had gone up 22% SOC in a not low part of the battery charge... in 9 minutes.

I was floored! now... i paid for it too... 70 cents a Kwh.. vs under 45 for a Tesla SC.... but I was like.. wow... nice to know about that in a pinch. 

now..it was 95 degrees out.. and I hit that charger with no navigation to it. so the car was not pre conditioning in any way. so maybe it was in the sweet spot immediately because of the heat outside. 

but hit a Tesla SC to top up a little later and was done there so quickly that when i went to buy water in Bucees the car was getting close enough to 80% quickly enough that I was worried I wasn't going to get back with my bottle of water before I hit 80% and would have to pay idle fees. 

i made it just in time.. but... yeah.. I'm very curious how this whole experience is gonna go. today was a solid start

EV's are a different thing, that's for sure.

We have 7k on our Model Y in 3 months.  This weekend we did our first long trip with it, from Central KY to Nashville and back.  We charged twice at Buc-ee's, once there and once back, and once in town.  None of the charging was really very inconvenient.  Like you, the Buc-ee's stops didn't add any time at all.

If I had seen your GX thread earlier, I would have offered you a good deal on our Model Y.  
 

It's great, but I have a hankering to build something.

Looking forward to some road trip reports on the toaster, EV's seem like they're quickly getting to the point where they'd make sense for a family cross country hauler.

Nice! My brother has been doing the EV thing for a couple of years (Bolt EUV and Equinox EV) without a home charger. It's more hassle than I would want to put up with, but he doesn't mind.

so decided to go drive around town to confirm the locations of some level 2 spots and then finish up by topping the battery up to 80% on the way home. 

I confirmed 3 different free Level 2 stations with multiple plugs. 

A level 2 station near a bunch of food options that delivers power for 18 cents a kWh..... but charges by the minute.. so it's a very solid option while we grocery shop or do other things in the area near it 

and the one I already knew about that the charger is free but the garage is $5 for 2 hours or $10 for 5 hours. so a viable option if i need to top the car up when we're in the area near it for multiple hours. 

Then swung by the supercharger for a top up. 

46 to 80% in 16 minutes. a short enough period of time for me to realize.. I didn't setup the connected services on the car yet.. so I can't use YT on the screen in the car.... but not enough time to fix the problem. 



 

In reply to DougNuts :

yeah.. today confirmed for me this will be fine for us... sure.. it's a little slower to road trip than my GX460.. but only if I keep our bladders dry.. operating as normal human beings and getting out for a stretch every 2 hours is going to be just fine. 

 

klodkrawler05 said:

Looking forward to some road trip reports on the toaster, EV's seem like they're quickly getting to the point where they'd make sense for a family cross country hauler.

I really believe that it is.. 

it does get harder between say.. you and I where west texas has a lot less charge options.. so I have to hit the exact locations it tells me because my other options are... zilch. 

but the car figures it all out. 

Also.. my Mach E came with a 90 day demo of Ford BlueCruise.. and it has the newest version BlueCruise 1.5 

It not only can do lane changes when prompted to... It can choose to do them on its own! I realize GM Super cruise is more advanced than BlueCruise.. but this is what I have.. and it's honestly an amazing tool to have on a road trip. 

It's expensive.. $500 a year or $50 a month.. or pay for 7 years.. the "forever" option.. for $2495. 

I was seriously impressed by it today.. it allows me to relax my arms and sit comfortably in the seat without having to touch the steering wheel.. but forces me to keep my eyes on the road.. and frankly.. it was great. I will probably run out the 90 days and then buy it in monthly chunks to use on long road trips cross country. 

Select Mach-E use LFP battery vs NCM battery for extended range. Charging curves are different and likely not explored as much as the longer range version.

I highly enjoy my 2021 GT version, besides some wiring issues it's been a great driving car.

Following.  This sure seems like an odd choice for your use case, but this is GRM.

Couple questions that I didn't see covered above:

Is there a mileage limit on the lease?
Are you tracking energy costs?  I'm curious over the long run how charging using public chargers this compares to feeding a gas car.

What led you to the MachE?

In reply to stellman :

the person in question was a select standard range.. i thought LFP.. it may not have been.. I'm going to do more digging. 
 

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

I also am in an irregular situation. I have no daily commute, and I have 2 ICE vehicles to back up the EV if something is off in my math for daily use. so I decided to take the plunge

I have 15k miles a year on the lease. 

I am tracking energy costs, and I'm tracking energy input in charging. the ford pass app keeps track of every time i put charge in the vehicle. all I have to do is basically attach my receipts to those transactions. 

I have the data compiling in a spreadsheet. 

We went gx460 to etron- so similar. We do have a slow charger at home but we've only charged on a the road a couple of times. It's awesome to just wake up to a full car. I installed the 50amp outlet myself and it was pretty easy. I have an e-hybrid Cayenne so we just use it's fairly slow charger for both cars. I think the slower charging is potentially better for the batteries as well. 

In reply to grover :

slow charging is supposed ot be better for the battery.. that does seem to be a common theme.. but a 250k mile mach e with daily fast charges still has 90% of its original range? 

we'll see what happens over time. 

i'm on a lease.. so not a huge concern for me. 

I did some more digging.. 

i found someone who charted a session last year. 

*EDIT 8/28/25* THIS CHART IS NOT RELEVANT TO MY LFP MACH E*



this is closer to what I saw and it seems that the packs now take a lot of juice when you first plug in even if you're at nearly 50% SOC. 

so I'll get the car warm and definitely take it to a local charger to do a 5 or 10% to 80% test and gather some data for myself in the next few weeks. 

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

I just realized you also asked what led me to the mach e

I don't want a GM product because I don't want to be locked into android automotive. so blazer and equinox were off the list instantly. 

I was open to a Volvo or Polestar.. but the chepest one from Volvo was the EX30 and it's all done through the center stack.. no info in front of the driver. I could probably have made it work.. but I would want to be able to try it for an extended period of time. The XC40/C40 were both just too expensive.. same for the Polestar 4 starting mid 50's, and polestar 2 no longer on sale here in the USA. 

The Toyota BZ4X/Lexus RZ/Subaru Soltera have limited fast charge cabilities... and while I was initially interested in the Lexus RZ.. once I learned road tripping would be hard.. i knocked the trio off the list as well. 

I briefly considered the Ionic 5 and 6. I like the 6 for how power efficient it is.. but realized.. a hatch is just way more useful for me. 

The Ionic 5 lease deal for 24 months is not really all that much cheaper than the mach E lease once you factor in the money out of pocket to hit their $199 a month number.. and I don't know anyone at a Hyundai Dealer..and you're getting a lowest range model to hit that number with cloth seats and that was also a big detractor for me. 

So I just didn't want to go through the hassle of negotiating with a bunch of dealers for a car I liked less than the Mach E. 

The Mach E was also a known quantity, I've driven one for multiple days as a rental, my friend has one.. it works like a "normal" car from a turn signals, "transmission" inputs and wiper activations standpoint. It also works well with 400 and 800V chargers.. so...until 800V Tesla superchargers are everywhere.. I was more interested in a car that might charge a bit slower than the Ionic.. but was truly compatible with every NACS partner supercharger. 

If I was going to home charge all the time.. and only use fast chargers on rare occasion for road trips.. might have considered an Ionic a bit more.

My only real complaint with the Mach E.. is that I wish the heated seats and steering wheel were able to be controlled with real buttons. The climate control I can change with voice commands... but I don't know of a way to change heated seats and steering wheel with a voice command.

Otherwise.. I like the infotainment stack layout. I have google maps info up high just to the right of my primary view, and I can have audio from spotify also in view if i choose to. The big vertical screen works for me. 

Came to post a resource link here today for future reference. 


a Link to a webpage that allows you to search and filter Tesla Chargers by TYPE! 

SO i can search for stations with V4 chargers... 

why is this important? I can use most V3 chargers and all V4 chargers.. but... the V4 ones are moved to the middle of the parking spot with slightly longer cables.. which will make plugging the Mach E into the charger a LOT easier. 

V3 chargers require me to park in spots at odd angles, take up 2 spots to get the charger in the best spot.. and also require me to get CLOSE to the charger.. like way closer than I'd like. This is a minor annoyance in the whole experience which I will learn to deal with. I'm just happy to have tesla supercharger access more than anything! 

https://supercharge.info/map

I have a friend with an EV who doesn't charge at home. Not that he can't - he's got a garage and power - he just doesn't bother because it's easy enough to stop by his favorite charger-adjacent coffee shop once a week for a latte and a bunch of electrons. It's arguably no less convenient than an ICE if you take the latte into account :)

We've been road tripping our EV for over 5 years. Not constantly, but enough to prove that it's a viable thing. 

Looking forward to the continuing toaster adventures!

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Thanks Keith! 

that's basically the situation we're in.. if I know we're going to need to go on a road trip and want to get started at 80%.. I'll run down to the local supercharger on my lunch break from work or we'll hit it on the way out of town.

 

In what should hopefully be the only other adapter I need for the Mach E.. 

We got a NACS J3400 to J1772 adapter delivered today from Lectron. 

so we can use tesla destination level 2 chargers now too.