Sooner or later it had to happen. The Ford Mustang is a worldwide icon and could not escape electrification. Throughout its seven generations now, it has earned well-deserved international recognition, but its next stage will be very different.
The electric age is not a possibility but a reality. In the coming years, the industry will continue to expand its 100% electric ranges with the launch of new units and the conversion of traditional models. Manufacturers are faced with many questions about how to deal with these momentous changes. At Ford, they are very clear about how to face the future and they have already shown it to us in the present. The Ford Mustang is an icon worldwide, a brand in itself, but the time for change will come. The American sports car will become 100% electric for its next generation and will hit the streets in 2029.
We have just uncorked 2023 and we are already thinking about the last bars of the 1920s. In the coming years, factories will be a hive of electrified activity. The Mustang has been on the market since 1964. The quintessential American sports car celebrates its six decades of life in 2024. A senior model who can proudly say that he is at the height of his business life. Having crossed the American borders has done him very well, so much so that today it is one of the best-selling sports cars worldwide.
The Mustang name is recognized throughout the world and that is why Ford relied on it to bring its first commercial electric vehicle to market, the Ford Mustang Mach-E. What many considered heresy, today we see as something completely common. Those from Detroit want to turn the model into an entire electric family, including the SUV, which will soon receive a coupe variant, and the classic sports car that will maintain the sporty essence with a low and attractive body. That will not change.
What will change is the mechanical focus. Little by little, electrification will be added to the family. First a hybrid, then a plug-in hybrid, and finally a pure electric. A gradual transition that will make the seventh generation, the current one, the longest-lived of all. Its commercial stage will last until 2028, at which time it will be succeeded by the first 100% electric version that will start production in 2029, as reported by Autoforecast experts.
Unsurprisingly, details surrounding the electric Mustang are, at the moment, scant. All the information indicates that the sports car will use the GE2.2 platform or, at least, a conditioned version of it. That same structure is scheduled for various models within the company such as the second generation of the Mustang Mach-E and the next 100% electrified editions of the Ford Explorer and Expedition. An architecture designed for pure electric means that the eighth generation of the Mustang will not be able to equip heat engines.
Rumors of an electric Mustang are nothing new. Ford itself has been in charge of feeding them as an awareness maneuver. At the end of 2019, we had the first preview of this future. Dubbed the Mustang Lithium, the conventional bodywork hid a 100% electric powertrain with 900 horsepower, a six-speed manual gearbox, and 1,355 Nm of torque directed to the rear wheels. The next few years will be important in this arduous task that will try to change the mentality of many drivers, mainly Americans.
