What makes you feel the Escape has “inferior hybrid technology.” It gets better gas mileage than any Toyota or Lexus hybrid SUV. It’s also getting great reviews— Check out last weekend’s USA Today auto section review. The Prius is an unreliable car and was blamed for Toyota’s drop in the 2007 model year new car reliability surveys. (Reliability Article)
Personally, I would not buy any hybrid— Too much technology going on there. All I can see are maintenance bills five or six years down the road. A nice hatchback or station wagon with the base engine and a manual transmission (if available) will get comparable gas mileage, be simpler and less expensive to maintain, and be much cheaper to buy.
-Marc
My wife has a Prius and it’s an amazing car. Not only do we average 45 - 48 mpg week in and week out, but it’s fun to drive, roomier than it looks, very low emissions, a technological marvel, and generally just a great car. I have a Lexus GX and drive the Prius every chance I get. I don’t understand the rationale behind buying an Escape hybrid with inferior hybrid technology that only gets 28 - 30 real world mpg when you can get almost 20 mpg more with a Prius and not really lose much in terms of space, functionality, etc. Strap on a roof rack and you can carry just about whatever you want and still get great fuel economy. It’s a great all purpose car that I would recommend to anyone…I’m even considering trading in the Lexus for the next generation Prius due out in late '08 or '09 (http://www.soultek.com/...ta_prius_in_2008.htm)
In short, if you are looking to save money, it will be cheaper in the long run to just buy a normal 4 cyl
Very true, the least expensive option is a 4cyl or a small diesel like the VW TDI Jettas (36/42, I have a friend with a wagon and a source for Biodiesel. she loves it). The advantage of Hybrids are their reduced emissions. An Avalanche costs 35k-45k to buy new, so I would imagine the shift to Hybrid tech is a move to take greater responsibility for the environment, and not an economic decision.
What makes you feel the Escape has “inferior hybrid technology.” It gets better gas mileage than any Toyota or Lexus hybrid. It’s also getting great reviews— Check out last weekend’s USA Today auto section review. The Prius is an unreliable car and was blamed for Toyota’s drop in the 2007 model year new car reliability surveys. (Reliability Article)
Personally, I would not buy any hybrid— Too much technology going on there. All I can see are maintenance bills five or six years down the road. A nice hatchback or station wagon with the base engine and a manual transmission (if available) will get comparable gas mileage, be simpler and less expensive to maintain, and be much cheaper to buy.
-Marc
“It gets better gas mileage than any Toyota or Lexus hybrid.” What?! Do you know what you are talking about? The Prius and Camry Hybrid (both Toyota made vehicles) both get better mpg than the Escape. Lexus’ hybrid strategy isn’t about mpg, but delivering more hp than similar vehicles with larger engines (e.g., a hybrid V6 delivers the same power as a V8, but still has non-hybrid V6 mpg)
“The Prius is unreliable…” You’re misinformed again. The Prius has won numerous automotive accolades including recently being named the top ranked model in the JD Power customer satisfaction study (a survey of actual owners). You think the Escape is a great car, but you would never buy one? I put my money where my mouth is…I own a '04 Prius with over 45,000 miles and haven’t had to do anything beyond regular maintenance and buy a set of new tires. My personal experience says the Prius is more reliable than my Lexus which cost about 2.5 times as much.
You’re right, the 08 Escape is getting good reviews and I think that’s awesome. It’s nice to see Ford get a win on it’s way down the tubes. That said, almost every industry analyst would tell you the hybrid technology in the Escape doesn’t hold a candle to the Prius. That doesn’t mean it’s poor technology just that Toyota’s technology is superior. Toyota invented the mass market hybrid and has sold over a million such units. The Prius has been around for over 10 years and as someone else mentioned, it was built from the ground up to be a hybrid. The ‘08 Escape is much improved when compared to the prior generation (which was Ford’s best interpretation of the original Prius’ hybrid technology and very very late to market).
You’ll be hard pressed to find a “nice hatchback or station wagon” that gets the 45 - 48 mpg I get in my Prius and I don’t find the Prius to be any more expensive to maintain than any other car and with an 8-year factory warranty on all the hybrid components, buyers should have a lot of confidence that this technology is every bit as reliable as non-hybrid vehicles. However, I agree with you that a hybrid isn’t necessarily the most economical decision. If your goal is to minimize total costs, go buy a used Honda Fit and call it a day. But increasingly consumers are putting more value on mpg AND reduced emissions which is why Toyota and other manufacturers are seeing significant growth in hybrid sales, particularly the Prius which is far and away the technology leader.
Jim, doesn’t anyone produce a hybrid wagon yet? I would have thought that would make far more sense than a SUV, the aer improvement alone should make massive improvement to fuel economy as well as better handling.
Julian - nope - wagons are just not on the plate over in the Americas. Unlike Europe, where the hot hatch is the big trend, the powers that be have pushed for the small SUV market. The wagons that do exist would be large by european standards (Ford Focus, Mazda 3 size and up). We are just beginnig to see some of the small vehicles like the Fit and Aveo make market inroads with the recent rise in gas prices. Further, most of these manufacturers do not have much of a hybrid strategy. The reality is that beyond the Prius and Civic, followed by the Escape in the SUV niche, the rest of the hybrid sales have been pretty dismal. The Accord is being dropped, the Camry has been very sluggish, most of the rest of the SUVs and trucks are pretty small players in market share. MB-Chrysler has been staunchly anti-hybrid, and has leaned toward diesel as its answer. Ford doesn’t have a strategy - it just leased Toyota’s for the Escape and doesn’t seem to be pushing beyond that, GM is doing more of a power add-on type, like the earlier Honda’s, and mostly focused on its bigger RWD trucks.
Even among conventional powered vehicles, the choices for a small wagon/hatch are pretty limited over here, much to many of our dismay. But then again, Renault and Fiat have absolutely no presence over here any more.
That’s interesting, Jim. The big trends in the “cool sports lifestyle/do-it-all” vehicle over here is the mid size van and large wagons. The really cool cyclists (road and mtb), board and watersports guys are rolling in diesel VW Transporters or MB equivalents with high gloss solid paintjobsand nice wheels or old Passat, Volvo 850 or Ford Mondeo/Scorpio wagons. It’s all about hauling equipment inside the vehicles with minmal running costs and have the ability to car camp too.
A hybrid Passat or Legacy sized wagon would be a great idea here, the Focus, Mazda 3 etc don’t have the interior length for the market here. Mind you a base model Pruis costs the equivalent of $35k compared to the $25k another poster quoted.
Me? Ideal world would see me in a Diesel hybrid Legacy or Passat wagon.
I had my operation on Friday and am due back at fracture clinic in a week of so, should have an idea if I have a season after that! I hope work is calming down for you.
I had a typo in my prior note— I meant to say it gets better gas mileage than any Toyota Lexus hybrid SUV. If Toyota’s hybrid technology was really superior, you would think its vehicles of similar size to the Escape would get better gas mileage, but they don’t. The Escape gets at least 7% better gas mileage than any Toyota hybrid SUV. To put that in perspective, a 7% difference in a cycling 40K time trial would be around 4 minutes. That’s like the difference between racing on a Cervelo P3 and a Schwinn Varsity.
BTW, I do put my money where my mouth is— I bike commmute. I drove my car under 4,000 miles last year.
-Marc
“It gets better gas mileage than any Toyota or Lexus hybrid.” What?! Do you know what you are talking about? The Prius and Camry Hybrid (both Toyota made vehicles) both get better mpg than the Escape. Lexus’ hybrid strategy isn’t about mpg, but delivering more hp than similar vehicles with larger engines (e.g., a hybrid V6 delivers the same power as a V8, but still has non-hybrid V6 mpg)