Why The Ford Escape Hybrid is Bullcrap

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 03:58 AM) [snapback]453820[/snapback]</div>

Wow - Nice Article

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 03:58 AM) [snapback]453820[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, but Toyota seems to be selling hybrid SUVs, too, though, so I guess as people keep wanting SUVs, the companies will still make them. I'd be more impressed if a company like GM would take the plunge and make that mild hybrid setup standard on one of their car or truck lines.

 

Well its common knowledge that SUV sales were up 6 percent last month. This was despite the huge climb in gas prices...so despite the audicity of it can you blame them for promoting the vehicle that's selling for them and hey guess what its a hybrid too! It's a crock we all know it, but marketing sells vehicles and thats what ford needs to do. The 'environmental' rep said it herself, 'we have to make what the consumer wants'. Why not add a Hybrid badge to a gas guzzler to play it up to as many people as they can?
It all about business, they have little regard in protecting the environment or investing in the future, they need to make money now and they will do it in any way they can. Disgusting if you ask me, but then again people have a choice so lets hope they start making the right one.

Great article by the way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 12:58 AM) [snapback]453820[/snapback]</div>

Kinda funny; to me it implies that it's the journey that's the exciting part of a car trip, rather than the destination.

Well, at least they're selling a hybrid.

 

The Toyota drivetrain used in Ford hybrids, even though it's the Gen-1 technology, is superior in many respects to a conventional drivetrain. Therefore a hybrid SUV using this technology is superior to the same vehicle with a conventional drivetrain.

Of course, Ford quality is crap, and when Ford builds a car that explodes and burns the occupants to death, Ford has put us on notice that it will NOT recall the car until forced to by the government, so any time you buy or ride in a Ford it's a game of Russian roulette, and most people who drive SUVs have absolutely no need for that much car. But if you are going to buy an SUV, a hybrid is the better choice because it's the better technology, regardless of whether the difference in FE is significant.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]453911[/snapback]</div>

I am not defending or promoting Ford, but you have to have a sense of reality here. Ford has been losing market share and has been losing money. They have to do what ever will get them back in the red or they won't exist anymore. If they thought the demand was for sedans that is what they would market. And of course they are trying to manipulate the consumer, that's why they call it marketing.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 2 2007, 11:25 AM) [snapback]453902[/snapback]</div>

That's the downside to domestic manufacturers embracing hybrid technology. As complex as a modern hybrid is, given the domestics' quality and reliability track record, poorly-built domestic hybrids hold the potential to severely dent the public's perception of a hybrid (even a Toyota) as being every bit as reliable as a normal, ICE vehicle. Hybrid Escapes puking their guts out on the side of the road don't exactly bode well for hybrid sales of any make.

This is likely another reason Toyota Prius sales are so strong in relation to other hybrid manufacturers. With Toyota's enviable reputation for quality, people are willing to take the chance on a drivetrain as complex and expensive as a hybrid if it's a Toyota product. Buying a complex Ford hybrid (even one based on Gen-1 Toyota technology), OTOH, is a rather dicey proposition.

It's quite unfortunate, too, since a similiarly priced, more roomy, small hybrid SUV that gets very good gas mileage would be a viable competitor for the Prius. As nice as the Highlander Hybrid might be, the sticker-shock was just too hard to take. If Toyota could have kept the price of the HH down to the level of an Escape Hybrid, I might have taken a closer look at one.

But then, a Highlander Hybrid priced closer to the Prius probably would have cannibalized Prius sales...

 

If you HAVE to buy a Ford or GM product, you're best bet is to buy a vehicle with old-school technology. Some of their older engines are known for being reliable. When it comes to new technology, it's a gamble. One of the cars we were considering for my wife was the Ford Freestyle, which is more like a station wagon with a 3rd row that an SUV. I ruled it out because it has a CVT (well, also because my wife didn't like it anyway) and I wasn't sure if Ford could put that in a car without problems, It turns out that they did have problems with it; I believe it was because of "software".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 08:45 AM) [snapback]453911[/snapback]</div>

All marketing is about manipulating what the consumer wants. Advertising is all about turning luxuries into necessities. In this respect Ford is doing what all companies do. It's just capitalism at work. The problem with Ford is they build cars that are far more likely to kill you than does any other manufacturer.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Jun 2 2007, 09:55 AM) [snapback]453937[/snapback]</div>

I disagree. Toyota's hybrid technology is much simpler than conventional drivetrain technology. Ford certainly can, and probably will, continue to make cars that break down every five minutes, but both THS (?) and HSD are easier to build reliably than the older technology.

 

What I want to know is why anyone would consider a Ford Escape in the first place. I know two people that own the previous generation escape and had nothing but one problem after another with them. (One had repeated transmission problems, the other had numerous electrical issues) Both got horrendous gas milleage even for an SUV. Also didn't the previous generation have a ridiculus amount of recalls for various 'issues'? I'm sorry you would never get me in one of them, and I shake my head with the sheer amount of them on the road.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 02:58 AM) [snapback]453820[/snapback]</div>

They have to market by tapping into feelings of inadequecy because they realize now after years of screwing and endangering our lives they can longer market quality and efficiency and be taken seriously. Ford will eventually go the way of the dodo and GM. Many who stood by Ford are now either broke from high maintenance and repairs, too old to drive, or dead from Ford/Firestone rollovers. "Ford quality" is an oxymoron.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darken @ Jun 2 2007, 10:34 AM) [snapback]453872[/snapback]</div>

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I would not hold your breath waithing for the American general public to make any 'right' or 'smart' choices anytime soon....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darken @ Jun 2 2007, 01:47 PM) [snapback]454026[/snapback]</div>

FORD = "Fix Or Repair Daily."

 

I've always wondered about that silly name. "Escape" from what?
Is it a new name for the Bronco after OJ's video?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 2 2007, 04:31 PM) [snapback]454099[/snapback]</div>

What they are paying is a microscopic percentage of the profits they made and are still making off of people's addiction and death.

Otherwise, I agree with you about Ford and other companies marketing of SUVs.

On the other hand, according to Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, the meat industry uses more petroleum and creates more greenhouse gasses, than does the automobile-driving public. That's largely due to the petroleum used to produce the fertilizer and herbicides and power the tractors used to grow corn. The invention of methods for "fixing" nitrogen from the air into a form plants can utilize, led to a green revolution, at the cost of a great acceleration in the depletion of oil and related increase in the production of greenhouse gasses.

Prius drivers feel very smug about driving an efficient car. But a vegan who drives an SUV (if there are such people, which I doubt) produces less greenhouse gasses, and consumes less oil, than a meat-eater who drives a Prius.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 2 2007, 07:11 PM) [snapback]454080[/snapback]</div>

or
FORD = "Found On Road Dead"

 

"The excitment of an SUV"...I have never once felt excited by the prospect of an SUV and, in fact, have on many occasions had to drive SUVs (mainly Toyo Highlander) and have felt pretty much out of control and distanced from the drivinng "experience," so to speak. I bought my sedan for practical reasons, for safety, and for the excitment of feeling in control of the vehicle.