Ford takes on electric anxiety with 'Intelligent Range'

Ford is promising the upcoming Mach-E electric SUV will offer a more accurate range readout than its rivals, thanks to something called Intelligent Range.

Unfortunately, there’s still no word on whether the Blue Oval’s first pure-electric vehicle will be offered in Australia.

Ford has previously said the all-electric SUV is off the table for Australia, despite reports claiming it has been engineered to work in right-hand drive.

Ford hasn’t confirmed how many examples of the Mach-E it can build each year, but production capacity will likely to be focused on high-volume markets such as Europe, China, and the USA.

Designed to tackle what’s commonly known as range anxiety, a fear of running out of charge in the wild, the Intelligent Range system takes into account previous driver behaviour, the weather, and satellite navigation data.

It also uses a bank of information from other Mach-E owners who’ve driven over the same piece of road. Ford says range data from the Mach-E fleet is uploaded to a cloud network for other vehicles to access.

If the range prediction drops significantly during a journey, the digital readout on the Mach-E will alert the driver and explain why.

Most current electric rivals don’t actively alert the driver to significant changes in range, instead simply adjusting the prediction in the instrument binnacle.

“Changes in driver behaviour and the environment can impact range, which is the reason other electric vehicles often experience significant range adjustments,” said Mark Poll, Ford’s EV charging user experience manager.

“Ford is tapping the power of the cloud to make estimates even more accurate – reducing the need for surprise charging stops and helping reduce customers’ range anxiety.”

The Mustang Mach-E is targeted at the mid-sized Tesla Model Y SUV in the USA. It will offer a range between 340km and 480km, and 150kW DC fast charging on all but the base model.

The Ford Mustang Mach-E is currently available to reserve in the USA.