The Mustang brand name

Bill Ford at The Factory with the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E

Ford Motor Co announced recently that the new electrical vehicle it is offering, its EV SUV, will be known as a Mustang.

This invests the new EV with the symbolism of a classic brand name, a model that proved a great success for Ford in the pre-oil-crises 1960s, and that inspired such classic songs as "Mustang Sally."

Since those days, nostalgists (and collectors/investors) have regarded the old Mustang as symbolizing an era in which fuel efficiency didn't much enter into calculations as to what car to build, on the one side of the industry, or into what cars to buy, on the other hand. They didn't enter into such calculations because petroleum was cheap, and was expected to remain cheap. Because, after all ... what could go wrong?

Calling an EV a Mustang is on the one hand a display of confidence in its design, on the other hand a friendly nod to the regulatory regime in the state of California, and on the third hand a sign of the normalization of EVs. (Sometimes you can't just choose TWO hands for one of those sentences.)

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