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- Some owners of Ford's brand new electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, have reported battery issues.
- Its smaller battery can reportedly stop charging when the car is plugged in, leaving it unusable.
- Ford recently filed a service bulletin with a US safety agency disclosing the issue
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Some owners of Ford's new Mach-E electric vehicle are reporting issues with charging their SUVs that leave them unable to drive.
As the Verge first reported, there appears to be a problem with some early Mustang Mach-E vehicles that cause the car to "brick" – that is, it's unable to start.
Owners report that the issue occured when they tried to start their cars after leaving their cars plugged in to charge. According to the Verge, the car's rechargeable lithium battery will sometimes stop feeding power to its smaller 12-volt battery when the car is plugged in. The result, the Verge reports, is the 12-volt battery has no power and dies, leaving the car unable to start.
This issue is reflected in a service bulletin Ford filed with the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on March 25. In the bulletin, Ford disclosed that some early Mach-E vehicles "may exhibit the 12-volt battery becoming discharged while the vehicle is plugged in during the high voltage charging process."
Ford did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The "low voltage" issue affects some cars built on or before February 3, 2021, according to Ford. The car maker did not provide a number of affected cars, but told the Verge that a "small number" of Mach-E cars have the issue.
Currently, owners can only get the issue fixed by bringing their Mach-E into a local Ford dealer equipped to deal with electric vehicles, according to the report. Ford told the Verge that Mach-E owners will be able to fix the battery issue with a wireless software update "later this year."
Ford only put the Mustang Mach-E on the market in late 2020. Ford reported it sold more than 6,500 Mach-Es in its first three months of production.