Just weeks after the Ford Mustang Mach-E’s vehicle engineering manager, Rob Iorio, told The Detroit News that “You can’t just hit the pause button” on the program, there are rumblings that the pandemic has, in fact, hit the pause button on the Mach-E’s launch. The virus will impact deliveries, with the Detroit Free Press reporting that some customers in Europe, which was to get the Mach-E slightly before U.S. customers, will have their deliveries pushed back to November 2020.
While Ford has been able to continue work on the project despite remote work situations for many of its engineers, production appears to be impacted as factories and suppliers remain disrupted by the coronavirus situation. Norway, according to the Detroit Free Press’s source, will be the first impacted.
A Ford spokesperson sent us a prepared statement in response to the Detroit Free Press report: “We’ll have more details to share on the timing of our upcoming all-new vehicles once we have safely brought our factories and facilities back online. Final timing is not yet determined.”
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The Detroit Free Press report is further fuel for some rumors that circulated on some various Mach-E forums, like the MacEForum and Mach-E Club forum, which purported to show emails to Norwegian Mach-E reservation holders that their summer deliveries would be delayed until November. Norway has a large and enthusiastic EV market and was expected to be one of the first countries to get the Mach-E.
The Mach-E is one of Ford’s most important upcoming products by any interpretation, being both the first major expansion of the Mustang nameplate and also the company’s first performance EV crossover. While in the current production climate a delay isn’t a surprise, whether it represents a black mark for the Mustang Mach-E remains to be seen. We’ve reached out to Ford for comment and will update this post once it’s received.
