Five years of owner data on Ford’s first electric Mustang SUVs came out on Nov. 9, and the average battery in the 2021 model-year group still holds 92% of its usable capacity. The sample covers about 36,000 vehicles that have logged two billion miles in the United States and Canada. Ford calls the results a five-year report card.
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Averages hide a lot, and Ford published the spread along with the average. Nearly every first-year car in the group sits within a ten-point band, and the highest-mileage examples lose only a few points more than the typical one. The Mach-E was Ford’s first mainstream electric model of the modern era, so the 2021 cars are the longest-running real-world test of Ford’s modern EV packs.
Ford’s connected-fleet data on the 2021 Mach-E
The numbers come from a Ford article by Kevin Vander Laan, the company’s technical leader for high-voltage battery cells and systems. It says more than 36,000 vehicles were analyzed, with a footnote describing roughly 36,000 owners who have averaged 5.2 years of ownership. Battery state of health is dated to August 2026, covers every 2021 Mach-E sold to retail and fleet customers in the two countries, and reflects usable battery capacity, according to the release’s footnotes.
Ford says the readings come from its connected-vehicle fleet and are processed in aggregated, anonymized form, then reported at fleet level. The model launched on Ford’s Global Electrified 1 architecture with standard-range and long-range packs, as Carscoops noted, and both pack sizes are inside the average. Neither the company nor the outlets covering it explain the measurement algorithm in detail, so the 92% reading is best treated as Ford’s own estimate of usable capacity, not an independent lab test.
Vander Laan wrote that he looks closely at the spread, since averages can hide variation, and the range matters. Ford puts 95% of the vehicles between 87% and 97% health.
Owners past 100,000 and 200,000 miles
High mileage barely changes the picture. Ford reports more than 2,000 owners past 100,000 miles on the original pack, averaging better than 91% health, and more than 30 drivers beyond 200,000 miles who average 88%. Carscoops added that two owners have exceeded 300,000 miles, and Ford separately named David Blenkle, whose 2022 Mach-E has gone past 400,000 miles on its original battery.
Motor1 noted that Ford designs its batteries to last at least 10 years, with 90% health at 100,000 miles, and that the new data sits above that target. Motor1 also pointed to other studies finding that mileage matters less to longevity than charging habits, including one in which EVs past 150,000 miles retained 81% to 91% of capacity. About 95% of cars falling inside the 87% to 97% band means few outliers, though the floor of 87% means some cars are noticeably older in battery terms than the 92% average implies.
The figures also apply only to one chemistry. The 2021 Mach-E uses nickel-cobalt-manganese cells, and Ford’s article says some newer models use lithium iron phosphate packs that benefit from an occasional charge to 100% to keep the battery management system calibrated. None of those newer cars is in the dataset, so the finding says nothing yet about how that second chemistry ages in real traffic.
Ford’s 92% against outside battery testing
InsideEVs, which covered the release, translated the average into range terms, estimating that a top-trim 2021 Mach-E rated at 305 miles by the EPA would be rated around 280 miles today. The outlet labeled that arithmetic an estimate based on the 92% average and not a measured result, and it reported an average of about 55,000 miles over 5.2 years for the group.
Independent data points in a similar direction. Battery-diagnostics firm Aviloo compiled about 500,000 tests on 20 popular models, and InsideEVs reported a median of 93.45% for the Mach-E at 100,000 kilometers, with 99% of Mach-Es at 150,000 kilometers landing between 85.3% and 96.1%. Aviloo attributes spread among vehicles to climate, frequent fast charging and long stretches parked at a full charge.
Ford’s own advice follows the same logic. The company recommends Level 2 charging for daily driving, DC fast charging only when needed, preconditioning while plugged in, shade parking in summer and the charge-level guidance in the Ford app. InsideEVs added that hot climates such as the American Southwest age packs faster, and that keeping charge between 20% and 80% helps.
Carscoops quoted Vander Laan as calling the dataset one of the most valuable feedback loops Ford has had at this scale, and the company says the findings will shape battery systems, software guidance and future EV programs. What remains unpublished is the underlying method. Ford has not released a per-vehicle dataset or an outside audit, so the 92% figure and the 87% to 97% band stand on the company’s report, with Vander Laan’s article as the primary record.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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