Ford’s head of electric vehicles throws shade at Tesla, saying the new Mustang Mach E’s ‘roof doesn’t come off’

• Ford’s first mass-market electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, is hitting dealerships.
• In an interview with Autoblog, the executive in charge of the vehicle took a thinly veiled swipe at Tesla’s well-documented quality lapses. 
• “The doors fit properly, the plastics and other materials color-match, the bumpers don’t fall off, the roof doesn’t come off when you wash it, the door handles don’t get stuck in cold weather,” he said of the Mustang Mach-E. 
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Ford’s electric-vehicles czar took at thinly veiled swipe at Tesla in an interview published Friday, alluding to a string of issues reported by owners in recent years.

Darren Palmer, who’s helmed the automaker’s electric catch-up efforts since 2017, spoke to Autoblog about the new Mustang Mach-E. It’s the automaker’s first battery-powered car, and is entering an increasingly crowded field that’s overwhelmingly dominated by one name: Tesla.

“We want to pick up on early majority adoption,” Palmer told the website. While there are a bevy of competitors flooding the market, EV adoption is still relatively low and gas-powered cars still dominate roads, especially in the US. Electric cars accounted for less than 3% of all sales globally in 2019, according to IEA estimates, even as their adoption rate surges.

Vaguely addressing the elephant in the room, Palmer touted Ford’s century of manufacturing experience.

“The doors fit properly, the plastics and other materials color-match, the bumpers don’t fall off, the roof doesn’t come off when you wash it, the door handles don’t get stuck in cold weather,” he said, assumably referring to Tesla’s well–documented quality issues of years past. In two instances, owners of Model Y vehicles said their cars roofs’ blew clear off the cars.

And in November, Tesla recalled nearly 10,000 Model X vehicles over a roof trim issue. The company did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

“When people see the true benefits of electric vehicles, it drives that want and desire,” Palmer said.

Read more: REVIEW: The Mustang Mach-E is Ford’s most important vehicle in decades – and one of the most exciting electric cars I’ve ever driven