Ford made a fragrance for EV drivers who miss the smell of burning petrol



No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke – we had to check our calendars too. Apparently, Ford’s new fragrance, called “Mach-Eau”, is a very real thing, and is supposedly designed to make the transition to EVs easier for petrolheads.

According to a Ford-commissioned survey, one in five drivers said the smell of petrol is what they’d miss most when swapping from ICE to electric vehicles, with almost 70% of respondents saying that they’ll miss it to some degree.

Even more worryingly is the fact that petrol – as a scent – ranked higher in popularity than both wine and cheese, and almost identically to the smell of new books. First of all, y’all are monsters. Secondly, weren’t we taught that petrol sniffing is a form of drug or inhalant abuse or something?

The Ford Mustang Mach-E recently set the Guinness World Record for the lowest energy consumption on an EV – read more about it here!

Anyway, this new “fragrance” was unveiled alongside the European debut of the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT at the Goodwood Festival of Speed “to usher these drivers into the future of driving through their sense of smell”, and will be part of Ford’s “ongoing mission to help dispel myths around electric cars and convince traditional car enthusiasts of the potential of electric vehicles”.

Fortunately (unfortunately?), even though it’s very real, the Mach-Eau won’t actually be available for sale – and neither does it smell exactly like petrol either.

Ford says that the Mach-Eau is a “high-end fragrance” that fuses smoky notes, hints of burnt rubber, and even an “animal” element to give a nod to the Mustang heritage. We’re not quite sure how the “animal element” is supposed to smell like, but our experiences with animals haven’t been the most pleasant, to say the least.

In related news, Auto Trader once made (and sold) a perfume that smells like a new car

Developed by renowned fragrance consultancy, Olfiction, the one-off bottle of Mach-Eau is a blend of benzaldehyde, which is an almond-like scent given off by car interiors, and para-cresol, which is key in creating the rubbery scent of tyres, along with other more “natural” ingredients like blue ginger, lavender, geranium, and sandalwood that added metallic, smoky, and further rubbery accents.

“Judging by our survey findings, the sensory appeal of petrol cars is still something drivers are reluctant to give up. The Mach-Eau fragrance is designed to give them a hint of that fuel-fragrance they still crave. It should linger long enough for the GT’s performance to make any other doubts vaporise too.” Ford Europe Product Communications director Jay Ward said.

I’ll just take the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT without any accompanying smell, please and thank you.