Ford unveils the Mustang Mach-E, an all-electric crossover with muscle car roots

Ford unveiled Sunday ahead of the LA Auto Show the Mustang Mach-E, the highly anticipated all-electric crossover and the first vehicle to come out of Team Edison, the automaker’s dedicated electric vehicle organization.

In short: the Mustang Mach-E is different from any other Ford vehicle without ignoring its roots. It’s undeniably a Mustang with its short nose and front overhang, headlights and muscular stance. But it also has a design suited for an electric vehicle as well as an all-new infotainment system and connected vehicle technology, plus a few other interesting and new details.

The moment is an important one for Ford, which has historically backed hybrid technology. It not only represents the biggest change for the Mustang in its 55 year history, it’s the first product to come out of Ford’s $11 billion commitment to add 16 all-electric vehicles within its global portfolio of 40 electrified vehicles through 2022.

“We knew we had to do something different and something exciting and something only Ford could do,” Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford North America said at a press event prior to the Sunday unveiling.

This is not meant to be a compliance car — the types of vehicles produced only to meet stricter emissions rules in some states such as California, a key market for automakers. It’s meant to be a vehicle that people get excited about; it must be fun to drive and have the performance that Mustang diehards expect. It’s no small task and one some within the company viewed as a risk.

“I’ve driven it and it’s a rocket ship,” Ford Chairman Bill Ford said during the event Sunday. “This is a Mustang for a new generation, but I also think long-time Mustang fans like me will love it as well.”

And while there have been months of teasers and even one big leak, the unveiling Sunday provided fresh details of the vehicle.

Ford will offer five variants of the Mustang Mach-E, including a standard version called Select, a Premium trim, First Edition, California Route 1 and a GT Performance edition that is targeting a 0 to 60 miles per hour acceleration in the mid 3-second range and an estimated 342 kW (459 horsepower) and 830 Nm (612 pound-feet) of torque.

Starting at $43,895

The most affordable version of the Mach-E will be the “Select” trim with rear-wheel drive that starts at $43,895. However, “select” won’t be available until early 2021. The select rear-wheel view trim has 75.7 kwh battery with a target range of 230 miles. For another $2,700, the select trim is also available in all-wheel drive.

The limited First Edition will start at $59,900 and be available in extended-range all-wheel drive, with red painted brake calipers, metallic pedal covers, contrasting seat stitching and a scuff plate marked “First Edition.” The First Edition, , which is targeting 0-60 in the mid five-second range, has a 98.8 kwh battery that can travel 270 miles on a single charge.

The first edition and the premium trims will be the initial Mustang Mach-E vehicles available in fall 2020. The Premium version will start at $50,600.

The GT performance, which starts at $60,500, will be available in Spring 2021. The GT performance comes with a 98.8 kwh battery pack with targeted EPA estimate of 250 miles.

Ford has opened up a reservations page, where customers can put a $500 deposit down for any of the versions. A configurator that allows customers to design the version is also live.

Watch out, Tesla—Ford gets serious with Mustang Mach-E electric crossover

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  Ford wanted its first long-range EV to be unambiguously a Ford, so it decided to make it a Mustang. [credit: Ford ]

LOS ANGELES—The electric car market is about to get extremely interesting. After what feels like an interminable wait, the battery EV may soon finally cross over from curio to the big time as a slew of new models arrive in 2020. Each targets the all-important crossover buyer, and all in roughly the same $40,000 to $60,000 price range. After slurping up most everyone's sporty sedan sales, Tesla will start shipping the Model Y. Volkswagen will reveal its ID.4 on Tuesday at the LA Auto Show, and the MEB-based BEV is destined for US production in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Volvo's excellent XC40 crossover is getting a big-old battery pack and shares its tech with the exciting Polestar 2. And then there's the Ford Mustang Mach-E, which made its formal debut at a live-streamed event on Sunday evening.

Compliance car to Mustang

It was a contentious move, using the Mustang brand. It wasn't the plan, either—not at first. Originally Ford was working on what it openly described as "a compliance car," one built simply to meet incoming emissions rules in the US and Europe. But in 2017 it threw out those plans, putting together an internal skunk works called Team Edison with a brief to reimagine the project. Its goal was to design a BEV that could only be a Ford, and there's little that's more iconically Ford than the galloping pony.

In just over a year, and with heavy reliance on VR instead of clay models, Team Edison pulled at the shape to get away from a more generic take on the crossover. The main electric motor moved from the front of the car to the rear. The wheelbase grew by 8.5 inches (216mm), and the dash-to-axle ratio was lengthened. The A-pillar was pulled back toward the rear of the car, lengthening the hood line, and there's a clever visual trick with the roof rails that really works to place the Mach-E within the Mustang family when you see the car in profile or from the rear three-quarter angle.

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Every angle of Ford’s all-electric Mustang Mach-E

Ford unveiled Sunday the newest Mustang in its lineup that marks a number of firsts for the automaker. Not only is this the first all-electric Mustang, it’s also an SUV and the first vehicle to come out of Team Edison, Ford’s dedicated electric vehicle organization.

Here’s a closer look at the vehicle inside and out.

 

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Original Content podcast: Disney’s ‘Mandalorian’ is never boring

Disney’s shift to streaming is officially underway with this week’s launch of Disney+  along with its flagship show, the Star Wars series “The Mandalorian.”

On the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we discuss our initial reactions to the new streaming service.

It turns out that we had fairly different responses: Anthony was impressed by the breadth of the content library (nearly every Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars film, along with 30 seasons of “The Simpsons”), while Darrell was more interested in the original content. Jordan, meanwhile, found herself initially excited about the library, only to wonder how much time she really needs to spend watching her childhood favorites.

As for that original content, we also have a spoiler-free review of “The Mandalorian.” Disney is releasing episodes on a weekly basis, with two episodes live as of publication — but only one available when we recorded. And even though we’re in the age of extra-long streaming episodes, “The Mandalorian”‘s chapters only run 30 or 40 minutes each so far.

Still, we found plenty to talk about. After all, one reason for that brevity may be the visual richness of what’s on-screen, with enough beautiful new worlds and spectacular battles to stand alongside any of the Star Wars feature films.

And the fast pace means we were never bored: The show introduces Pedro Pascal as a silent-but-deadly bounty hunter, along with Werner Herzog as a client who sends him after a mysterious target.

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

And if you want to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:38 “The Morning Show” listener response
9:24 Disney+ discussion
37:34 “The Mandalorian” review (spoiler free)

Northzone raises new $500M fund to back startups in Europe (and the East Coast, US)

Northzone, the European VC firm that’s probably best-known for being an early backer of Spotify, has raised a new $500 million fund, which it claims was oversubscribed and will reach its final close imminently.

Dubbed “Northzone IX,” the new fund pretty much represents business as usual for Northzone and will be used to invest primarily at Series A and B, with “selective” Seed investments (as many Series A firms increasingly do).

Geographically, Northzone is targeting Europe and the East Coast of the U.S., and is eyeing up early-stage consumer and enterprise companies that are addressing “large and established industries saddled with legacy technology”. This includes financial services, healthcare, education, mobility and construction.

The VC firm is also announcing two promotions. Hello Fresh co-founder Jessica Schultz and Dots co-founder Paul Murphy have been promoted to General Partners, in addition to existing GPs Pär-Jörgen Pärson, Jeppe Zink, and Michiel Kotting.

“Tech businesses are becoming giants in new industries like construction, food, and finance,” says Murphy, during a telephone interview alongside Schultz and Kotting. “And these industries are 4 trillion to 10 trillion in size, so quite a bit bigger than media, which is where most of the focus has been in the past few decades. I think it’s exciting, we look at huge addressable markets, both in terms of existing incumbents, and consumers and users and businesses. But it’s also challenging because it means we do sort of become, you know, pretty deep on multiple industries, instead of just one”.

To manage this, Murphy explains that Northzone takes a “thematic approach” to investing, whereby themes cut across sectors. “So it could be a certain theme that leads us to a finTech investment or to a mobility investment,” he says. “We try to let the themes take us where they take us, instead of having to focus in on one particular sector”.

“I think our strategy is still looking for founders with huge ambition and conviction to build transformative businesses,” adds Schultz.

With an avalanche of new European VC funds being announced — I chalk this up as the fourth I’ve covered in the last week, I posit that we could be in a bubble or at least somewhat frothy times.

“I think that there’s always cycles,” says Murphy. “And I think where we are in this cycle, there’s a lot of people that are speculating. I think the broad macro climate indicates that we’re maybe at the high end of that cycle, and tech is core to many, many countries’ economy now. So I don’t want to claim that we’re immune to any sort of downturn that may come.

“That said, as I mentioned before, tech is now going after industries that are exponentially larger than what they’ve gone after in the past. There is a whole lot of opportunity out there. Yes, there’s more funds than ever, but if we want to fully capture all of the opportunities that exist around the world in tech, I think we need many more funds than exists today”.

“I think that’s where we have the benefit of history a little bit, as we’ve been in the business for 23 years now,” says Schultz. “We’ve seen a lot of the downturns from dot com boom to the financial crisis in 2008. And I think that also gives us a little bit of a perspective on the opportunities you get in the downturns and also the important areas to focus on during challenging market conditions. As Paul said, we think there will still be a lot of opportunities regardless of the economic cycles”.

The key to VC investing, regardless of cycle, is to stay disciplined “and look for the fundamentals of the businesses” that fit a long term view of how the world is changing.

Somewhat related to this, although Northzone isn’t able to disclose a list of its LPs — who are said to be a mixture of existing investors and new ones — General Partner Michiel Kotting says the majority are in Europe.

“We have always maintained that as a European product, we want predominantly European investors behind us. So it’s an awful lot of European but we’re not one of these EIF [European Investment Fund] dominated funds at all. And we also have systematically stepped up Asian and U.S. LPs in recent years. But the key thing for us is, we learned that lesson a decade ago, you can’t be a European product and be dominated by U.S. or Asian LPs. Because when a financial crisis comes around, they tend to drop those sort of products first. So we’ve always made sure that we have a natural alignment with our LP base”.

Self-driving startup Wayve, which considers sophisticated sensor tech like lidar unnecessary for safe autonomous driving systems, raises $20M Series A (Paul Sawers/VentureBeat)

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Self-driving startup Wayve, which considers sophisticated sensor tech like lidar unnecessary for safe autonomous driving systems, raises $20M Series A  —  Wayve, a U.K.-based startup that's developing artificial intelligence (AI) that teaches cars to drive autonomously using reinforcement learning …

Line and SoftBank's Yahoo Japan announce merger plan, aim to sign a deal by December 2019, and integrate the businesses by October 2020 (Nikkei Asian Review)

Nikkei Asian Review:
Line and SoftBank's Yahoo Japan announce merger plan, aim to sign a deal by December 2019, and integrate the businesses by October 2020  —  SoftBank and Naver's venture to be Japan's largest online player  —  TOKYO — The operators of Yahoo sites in Japan and the Line chat app jointly announced …

Sources: ByteDance is in talks with record companies to launch a music streaming service as soon as next month, would debut it initially in Brazil, India, more (Anna Nicolaou/Financial Times)

Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Sources: ByteDance is in talks with record companies to launch a music streaming service as soon as next month, would debut it initially in Brazil, India, more  —  The Chinese company behind the popular video app TikTok is set to go head-to-head with the likes of Spotify and Apple …

Intel unveils plans for a 7nm Xe GPU, codenamed Ponte Vecchio, meant to rival Nvidia in handling datacenter AI workloads, but fails to give a release window (Dylan Martin/CRN)

Dylan Martin / CRN:
Intel unveils plans for a 7nm Xe GPU, codenamed Ponte Vecchio, meant to rival Nvidia in handling datacenter AI workloads, but fails to give a release window  —  The upcoming data center GPU, in combination with its new oneAPI programming interface, will give Intel more ammunition to compete …

California’s methane super-emitters

Enlarge (credit: Oregon Metro)

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, trapping much more heat. Point-source methane emitters are typically small—usually less than 10 meters in diameter—but they emit plumes of highly concentrated methane. So if we want to reduce the amount of methane we’re spouting into the air (which we obviously should, although we’re not), they’d be great potential targets. If only we could identify them.

To map such point emissions, scientists in California flew over the state with an airborne imaging spectrometer, using it to measure methane emissions. They focused on a long list of potential sources: oil and gas production, processing, transmission, storage, and distribution equipment; refineries; dairy-manure management sites; landfills and composting facilities; wastewater-treatment plants; gas-fired power plants; and liquified and compressed natural gas facilities.

Most facilities, especially the dairies and the oil fields, were in the San Joaquin Valley. The researchers ended up measuring emissions from 564 distinct sources at 250 different facilities. These point emitters had not really been examined before, because they often only belch out their methane intermittently or in a somewhat sporadic manner. To catch them in the act, the researchers repeated the flyovers five times between August 2016 and October 2018.

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Google Pixel 4 review—Overpriced, uncompetitive, and out of touch

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  The Pixel 4 XL. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

The Pixel 4 arrived on the market as one of the most leaked, most talked about smartphones of 2019. This year, Google seems like it is really trying to find something unique to offer, with new features like the Google-developed "Motion Sense" radar gesture system, face unlock, a 90Hz display, the next-gen Google Assistant, and a new astrophotography mode.

At the prices Google is asking, though, the Pixel 4 is hard to recommend. The company saddled the phone with an ultra-premium price tag, but the Pixel 4 can't compete with ultra-premium phones. The phone falls down on a lot of the basics, like battery life, storage speed, design, and more. The new additions like face unlock and Motion Sense just don't work well. It seems like Google just cut too many corners this year.

The strongest feature of the Pixel line—the camera—hasn't really gotten better, either. The camera sensor is the same as last year, and the big new software feature, astrophotography mode, is also available on older Pixel devices and the much cheaper Pixel 3a.

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