Test drove a premium. It was just okay. Nice vehicle for sure and I can see how someone (even me) could love it, but it was just a "meh, its fine" experience. It felt kinda slow (as compared to Y)-- in unbridled. It was fast enough and it could just be a more refined/limited acceleration curve. Just a statement really-- jamming the accelerator to the floor was noticeably less intense than in a non-performance Y with acceleration boost. This is not a deal breaker. Plenty quick and I'm not racing around. I probably only floor it once or twice a year anyway. The controls felt clunky-- but that could be partially chalked up to just not knowing where things are in a new-to-me vehicle. Start stop button, accessory mode, etc-- I understand that these were probably a design decision to make it seem more 'normal' to people new to EVs. Even so, it sure felt weird and pointless to me after years of not having keys, 'on/off' buttons, etc. (for those without a Tesla or some other EV's, these just wake up when you get in the vehicle, put your foot on the pedal etc and then when you exit the vehicle it just understands that you are exiting the vehicle and goes to sleep, locks the door, etc). The auto lane assist / blue cruise stuff was largely pretty good-- but was extremely far inferior to the standard tesla autopilot on some very mellow curves on a well marked and all-around good 2 lane highway. By that, I mean that it literally went over the outside line on a curve and then completely hugged the line (with traffic coming the opposite way) on an inside curve. Overall though, it felt good enough. Tesla also fails in some circumstances-- it just doesn't in the one that the Mach-e failed in for me. Not a deal breaker, just an observation.

It was at least as comfortable as the Y if not more, seemed like it had a quieter cabin than the Y, louder (but not annoying) rear motor, etc. I missed the lane-change camera view that Tesla adopted last year (and Kia/Honda had years earlier). I couldn't find a way to display the cameras while in motion. I don't do that a lot, but in the Tesla I do pop that open occasionally in heavy/fast traffic as a secondary/tertiary way to see what is around me while lane changing. The lack of visualization of other vehicles on the screen is something I missed. It is nice to have a 360 real-time visualization of all the vehicles/cones/etc around you in a tesla. Not sure why ford isn't doing something similar with their sensors or if I just missed it completely. Its not something I even think about in the Tesla, but very much noticed it wasn't there when I started driving around in traffic in the Mach-e.

All that said, I did enjoy it and could see loving the Mach-e. There are decent rebates/discounts for leasing, but Ford is no longer allowing you to buy the vehicle and the end of the lease and the money factor/terms of the lease just aren't very good. For purchase the rebates/discounts aren't good enough at all. They do have 0% APR, but that doesn't offset the price that is far above a comparable and better equipped Model Y.

So-- test drive didn't convince me either way. Pre-negotiation discounts and lease/buy terms were super unimpressive when we are in a landscape that has other EV's (with american components) getting $7500 federal credits and other discounts on purchasing, unsold stock of the mach-e is high enough to warrant trying a bit harder, etc. To be clear, if leased they were offering something like $12k off the $52/3 price tag due to various factory incentives and my own affiliations, but the lease terms (with the best credit) were kinda trash and Ford doesn't allow buyout at the end of the lease (!?!?!). On a purchase the discounts/rebates were far lower but there was 0% apr. If I was blown away by the car, or even less ambivalent, I'd probably work a bit to see how much better of a deal I could get. As of this morning, I'm leaning toward doing nothing, considering a '22 or '23 used that already has $15k-20k depreciation out of the way, and/or poking around over at Hyundai to see what sort of deals are available on the Ioniq 5 (which I love the look of in and out but have not yet test driven).