This is the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E. Finally, a sport-utility with an emphasis on sport. Shoot from 0 to 60 mph in under 5 seconds with all four 19-inch tires pulling you to speed with deceptive ease, despite a curb weight approaching 5,000 pounds. And that’s the mid-line version! Passing in traffic is instantaneous. It’s noticeably lower than a new Explorer, but not sports car low; the flowing body lines and tapered roof—more hatchback than tailgate—make it instantly identifiable in a parking lot full of SUV rooflines. It’s sporty in a way that most SUVs just aren’t.

Much has been made of an SUV wearing the Mustang name, and most of the people we talked to (car fans and the hoi polloi alike) seemed to think that our vehicle was replacing the sporting coupe they’d known for decades, rather than adding to the line. To a person, they were confused. We grok that the Mustang name has more currency than the Ford oval lately, but (acceleration aside) count us among those who need more time to process Mustang’s mission creep.

There are multiple levels of charging available; the one that comes with the Mach-E, the Level 1 power cord, is nigh-on useless. It fed in about 1% of driving range (less than three miles) per hour of charge; an overnight charge from a wall outlet couldn’t get me above 20%. The nearest commercial Level 3 quick-charger was about a dozen miles away, in a direction I don’t normally travel. As a buyer, I’d want to have a Level 2 charger installed in the garage (an additional expense for the hardware and installation) to make charging more expeditious.

We know that it’s early days for electric-car infrastructure in this country; one can only hope that everything is sorted out by 2030, which appears to be the date when new internal-combustion engines will be verboten in many locations. Today, we find the Mustang Mach-E at cross-purposes. Never has Ford made such a vehicle that you want to drive long distances. Never has it been more complicated to do so.