Episode 239 – 2024 Ford Escape Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV)
All right and welcome to this edition of the EV Revolution show my name is Kenneth mcor and I’m here in a rainy Calin this morning as I’m trying to get this video review out and the rain just started so you know we got to work with
What we have folks thanks very much for tuning in to this Edition where I have a car review it’s a 2024 Ford Escape plug-in hybrid it’s and you know as you folks know there is a there is room for plug-in hybrids for those that don’t want to take the full leap to all
Electric this is a good stop Gap measure in my opinion and in fact and I continue to say and you’ll probably hear me me say it a few times on this episode if you’re buying a new vehicle today and there is a plug-in option available for that specific vehicle you’re doing
Yourself a disservice by not buying that plugin option I’m going to tell you why oh and also I want to make sure I thank the uh oems as I always do for allowing me the use of the press cars for Ford Canada thank you very much sit back
Relax and enjoy this review of this Ford Escape now one thing Ford has done is they’ve been pretty good at slowly electrifying their Fleet and the hybrid sorry the Escape seemed to be a next logical step you know obviously they took their iconic F-150 they’ve taken
The iconic Mustang made it to Mai and of course have electrified other components of their fleets in an H capacity but they have offered a plug-in vehicle version of The Escape and Escape is a good siize vehicle it’s not one of these big big uh you know three row or really
Big SUV so it is a more comfortable midsize to compact to midsize I guess they say compact but it’s I think it’s a really good size of a crossover SUV now there’s a lot of history with the Escape right Ford has done a lot with this product they started brought it out
Actually in 2001 as a joint venture with Mazda and you know it was really the first vehicle in 2005 that they offered in their lineup that actually became a a hybrid uh HV vehicle so they’ve had some hybrid technology since 2005 then there was a second gen of this product in 2008
With various differences to in tweaks and then the third gen Escape came out in 2013 and then the fourth generation which is similar to what we’re looking at today came out in 2020 and uh since then there’s been a midlife or mid gen refresh whatever you want to call it in
This 20124 version actually last year it started in 2023 with updated styling and uh improved technology standard LED lighting and over-the-air capability that was added for this uh mid 2023 refresh and that’s all been carried over into 20124 so as you can see you know there’s
A lot of history with the Escape I remember them way back when and you know Ford’s pretty good even last year they sold over 140,000 of these units now that’s a mix of all power trains it’s not just plug-in hybrids but it goes to show you how important this vehicle is
For Ford so you know when they when they do apply a plug-in version of this at some sort in this case a plug-in hybrid version they do a pretty good job with it and if we just quickly go over the styling again it’s it’s a nicely styled
I really like some of the changes they’ve done uh in the 2023 2024 model year I love the LED strip out front and the whole LED lighting package as I mentioned it has a nice comfortable look but it’s not going to pop out it Blends in with everything else that’s out there
To be honest with you uh you just drive it around in the sea of SUVs that we have now here in North America and you’re just another fish in the pond but you know it does look nice it’s got nice styling easy to get in and out good
Visibility all kinds of stuff it’s comfortable so as all overall um exterior and design package and a vehicle Ford’s done a pretty good job on it now let’s talk about some of the specs so from a specs and powertrain I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this
This is a plugin hybrid so it has both a 4cylinder 2.5 L engine that drives uh can drive the wheels and and send some power to the battery and does multiple things that’s your main Workhorse once the battery range runs out this does have a 10.7 KW battery pack to offset
That gas gives you like something like um anywhere from 37 Mi is the EPA to 59 km if you look at ranges I’ve been seeing about 40 in these cooler temperatures 38 to 43 roughly so 40 is probably not a bad number to look at all
Electric range takes about 10 and 1 half hours if you’re using the Standard wall charger that just comes with it and that’s folks a charger that you can just plug into any Outlet any any three-prong Outlet here in North America plug that in or or countries that use that
Electrical standard and it will trickle charge in about 10 and a half hours and fill up that battery and that’s really kind of one of the strong points of some of these plug-in hybrids is that you don’t need to invest in in a level two charger cuz I’m really not going to buy
You much unless unless you’re doing a lot of uh trips every day that you think you could you should be charging and you have the opportunity to charge then by all means install a level two because it will juice this up in about three to
Three and a half hours so it does make a big difference um however you again you’ll get that 40 kilometers back and the the the kind of the workflow here is you know get up in the try when you come home or bring the vehicle home plug it
In just like you do your cell phone and stuff let it charge overnight when you leave it’s going to run in electric only mode first until it depletes the battery and then the engine will kick in the engine May kick in from time to time if it’s extremely cold to help heat the
Interior and this kind of stuff but for all intense purposes the engine will stay off and you’ll run electric until you’re done then the engine kicks in you have four 500 kmers of range on a full tank probably around 550 or so so a pretty hefty gas tank uh because it gets
Pretty good mileage uh for a vehicle of this class uh in in petrol only mode so you have the Assurance of gas if because if you’re you’re looking at not looking at all electric that means you’re worried about something you don’t have confidence and uh in the battery
Electric architecture so you get this and it’s kind of the almost The Best of Both Worlds you know I’d love to see more all electrics but I get it PHS are a stepping stone and a lot of people don’t want to make that leap so Vehicles
Like this are a great choice you know and the small good small footprint that’s big enough to put some stuff in but easy enough to drive around and comfortable so definitely do that so it has a 3 and2 kilowatt charger as I mentioned to those speeds you know in
Combination of that battery pack with the small motor and the gas motor pumps out about 200 horsepower depends on what kind of mode and what state it’s in but around that 200 horsepower about 155 pound feet of torque so this is not a rocket ship it’s not supposed to be a
Rocket ship it’s not going to blow any numbers away it will allow for up to, 1500 or Pounds or 680 kilos of Towing if you want choose to do that you can put a towing package and all that stuff on it uh because that’s what Ford likes to do
So that’s really the specs on this you know it’s a capable vehicle and you know I’m going to run some numbers at the end of the episode and give you some summaries on how that that all kind of meets into a financial savings perspective so let’s take more further
Look at this vehicle so of course SUVs have pretty good cargo capacity and this one’s not bad again for its class has a power lift in this option um when you look at the volume behind the second row so what you’re seeing here it’s about 34.4 cubic feet um with the second row
Down to make it all flat uh it’s about 60 l so about doubles that space so it’s a pretty good size you can get a good amount of stuff in you got hockey gear pets that kind of stuff that’s really what’s for Costco shopping doesn’t
Really have a a super huge don’t want to spill my coffee super huge underneath storage because it has a spare this has a economy size spare in this because this is based on on an ice vehicle platform that’s been electrified partially electrified I should say so
You get some of those elements of the internal combustion vehicle that we don’t usually see in all electrics like a spare tire so it has a spare tire underneath here so really nothing not much space to put much under there what you see is what you get close to hatch
And off you go so look at trying to get into the back seat of course something I always do it should be no problem in this we don’t get the 90° door opening but it is a pretty good size um nice lift up so pretty easy step up got to
Duck a little bit here but that’s normal for the compact SUV class otherwise you know I’m about 56 and I’ve got fist full of head room Fist and a half almost two fists of leg room I have the seats set where I am so if you’re going to be
Taller it’s going to be a little further back but uh yeah very comfortable environment this has the upgraded interior to make it an easy experience for consumers so not bad in here all right let’s just go for a quick drive here give you some of my thoughts now as
You’re seeing this b-roll on the interior here as you can see it’s a nicely equipped interior I’ve been quite comfortable in here got a couple of power front seats so it’s easy to find a supportive position uh the seats are nice and supportive as well so you know
Good job on Ford this is again a higher in trim with the nice leatherette or whatever package as you can see and uh you know the center console there’s lots of things going on lots of storage spaces it’s certainly good enough to put most stuff in and around so it does the
Job quite nicely um everything works quite well HVAC is very nice the menu systems okay you know it’s got a 12.3 driver screen and a 13.2 infotainment um the driver screen I like is it gives you lots of different details but keeps it simple info infotainment is okay there
Are some services that I haven’t turned on because I haven’t set a profile and some you might have to subscribe for but just give you the Necessities that you need you can set charging schedules if you want and stuff and it does come standard as well with those displays
With a 10- speaker BNL um premium audio system on the plugin hybrid version it comes standard so that’s pretty nice the rear seat as well as you can see by these b-roll adequate room you know certainly for four five hit a pinch as I always say it’s not super huge but it’ll
Certainly get the job done and get you to where you you need to go in Comfort um right now I’m in all electric mode so as you can hear it’s relatively quiet I do have the fan going a little bit because it is raining today as you know
And uh trying to you know get the rain and stuff off the windows and keep it clear but for um for what it does it does quite well I mean again um this people that have an internal combustion vehicle this isn’t really far from it because it is still a interal combustion
Vehicle just offset with a decent Siz battery to get you some all electric range so you know again I’ve been very fortunate that I could plug it in every night at my 110 didn’t need to use the level two charge it up and just get that
For you know 35 to 45 kilometer range depending on the on the um on the temperatures now again I’m going to flash a final slide up um and again coming up in the closing in the summary I’m going to run through some financials and that’s really where you see the
Savings folks that’s exactly where the see the savings even at the cost of electricity for home charging electricity again this doesn’t have a DC rapid charger so you’re not going to go to a road trip and stop and charge this for 20 minutes doesn’t have that capability you’re going to just use
These in places where you can overnight or where you can charge at a level two for three and a half hours or at a or using your the charger that comes with the vehicle in about 10 and 1 half to 11 hours so you need to give yourself that
Much time so if you’re going up to the cottage for the weekend you can charge it get a little G uh EV mileage on your way up charge it at the cottage get a little EV mileage on your way down or go you know staying in a hotel overnight if
It has a 110 usually most hotels will have some sort of external 110 120 like for Block heaters and stuff that you could plug into that’s very common so you can utilize even hotels for just standard trickle charging when you’re there overnight you don’t need to get a
Hotel that has a level two so there’s lots of options when it comes to saving some fuel and that’s the whole point of plug-in hybrids is to save fuel to save Burning uh gas right using the electric because here in Ontario it’s clean and most of Canada it’s relatively clean and
Offset um so that’s what you want to do right is use that use that that functionality but you know overall driving Impressions I mean this is really a really comfortable car Ford’s done a good job making it easy and that’s what I really like is that
Consumers can just get in here plug it in every night and not worry about pushing buttons to do this you know set set it once and forget it and it will deliver the amount of energy from the right source that it needs to right and it’ll do it as efficient is possible and
I think that’s the key so uh driving wise yeah suspension’s good you know if you do go over a lot of bumps you are going to get suede around like this you know it’s it’s going to absorb it but it is going to toss you a bit not harshly
Overall Driving Experience Comfort is nice lots of uh positions people that have been in it have found it comfortable uh panoramic roofs a nice touch if you like that kind of stuff so they they’ve equi they’ve equipped this pjv quite well and I think people are
Going to really like it all right so when you run out of uh your battery charge after utilizing the all EV mode then the car will will basically switch into a a conventional hybrid mode it’ll go back and forth quite a lot there are modes that you can uh you can see here
So I have it on EV now so that means use battery as much as possible you could put it in Auto or EV later which means that it will conserve the battery to a later time so I just leave it in Eevee now and Eco in this case and and um as
You can see oh I want to get to the power flow here so this is a good screen to see how the power flower and once I start moving here you’ll see how much that changes so you know right now it’s considering myself in electric driving because I’m stopped I’m not moving and
It’s got some juice in the battery that I’m just running the screens and the the HVAC system I’ve got the fan on a little bit of heat that kind of stuff so it’s all coming from the battery you’ll see that when I move um it will start to
Engage the engine and it will go back and forth between hybrid mode and electric driving and the engine coming on to help power the car the engine turning off uh regenerative braking all these systems that are part of and parcel of um uh plug-in hybrid vehicles
Um you know that’s the nature of what they do uh come into play here so um that’s what one of the reasons that I say that phvs are a good option they’re just a little bit more complex systems that you have to to deal with now oems
Are pretty good at making this as automatic and seamless to customers as possible so you know I’m glad that they put these the screens on so at least you can see what’s going on if you want to but most people don’t care they just get
In and drive right plug it in at night and then drive it and then PL rinse and repeat right so as you can see here it’s it’s it’s shifting depending on acceleration or if I let off the accelerator it’s uh it’s sending the power to movement of the vehicle uh and
To also uh putting some power to the battery if I let off the accelerator now I’m regenerative braking so that gets kicked in as you can see lots of things going on in Drive power in normal operation or just drive power it switches around as you can see many
Times um while you’re driving just on the current uh state of that the situation that the vehicle’s under so I am I am at zero battery so it’s got a very minimum battery so that’s why it’s going to jump around into this mode but the objective is to is to always always
Try to use the battery as much as possible in this mode that way it’ll sip as less fuel as possible and of course if the engine’s not running that it’s not emitting any greenhouse gas emission emissions either so that’s the whole point in some cases It’s a combination
Like in here where the front this is a front-wheel drive vehicle so the motor will actually Supply power to the front-wheel drives sometimes by itself sometimes in conjunction with the battery uh or sometimes just the battery alone will send uh power to the front wheel uh to the motor and the front
Wheels axles anyway hopefully uh this information is very helpful so in closing when we look at the Escape as a very capable plug-in hybrid again I’d love to see more battery range but let’s deal with what we have folks and what I always try to
Do is I try to run the numbers just to see is this something that’s really going to benefit people you know by choosing that because typically phvs will cost more than their their trim counterpart that’s that’s gasoline only so looked at some pricing on Ford Canada
Looked at some of the numbers and some of the trim packages to find something that’s closest related to the plug-in hybrid version because it really it really is kind of one option and you pick your colors and some other some other options that you can add on but
For all intense purposes it comes fairly well equipped at that price point that they base it at so the base price for the plug-in hybrid version of The Escape is they do cuz they seem to want to squawk at me today but that’s okay I’ll talk
Over them so that’s what that price is now remember in looking this up it does qualify for the $5,000 Federal incentive if I look at the base MSRP of an escape it’s about $334,000 that’s for the a trim that doesn’t have as many options as this has as this comes with at the
The base price that it comes with so if I were to just ignore that fact and say no I just want the cheapest model I don’t care about 34,000 if you were to buy that add your tax there’s no incentive or anything obviously then you’re looking at about a
$110,000 difference in price from that that base Bas entry level one that is not as well equipped as this one is even without options um so about 10K and I was able to calculate that about $118,000 a year 18 excuse me 18,000 kilometers a year of driving you can
Convert that to miles um you would save about $15 00 to $2,000 a year in fuel versus uh in just an ice vehicle versus the plug-in hybrid and I’ve got lots of math which I’m not going to whiteboard and explain out here because it just
Gets if you want to know what I did you can send me an email and we can have a conversation so if I were to buy that base one at 10K over I’m I’m I’m about five five to six years let’s say four to six years before I recoup that money
Back that I spent on that on the phev version versus the base base ice versions so hopefully you’re following me I haven’t lost you however if I compare Apple to Apples to Apples and this is a nice Red Apple color if I look at the Platinum version of the uh the
Escape the ice version in general combustion version which is a a very similar trim and outfitted as this one is at that base price it’s only about $3,000 less than uh the plug-in hybrid so right away then but don’t forget you get the $5,000 incentive off on the
Escapes so even with adding some taxes and stuff you’re getting about $3,000 net off of this so that’s kind of where it looks so it ends up to be about the same price as the internal combustion version and to me folks that’s a no-brainer if I’m going to save $1,500
To $22,000 a year or a th000 or $2,000 a year simply by just plugging it in every night like I do my iPhone or my Samsung phone or whatever Android phone my tablets just with a 110 and driving it every day and just doing that every day not not even worrying about workplace
Charging and finding a charger at the mall or any of that stuff because those are bonuses if you can have that in the same time I’m just looking at charging it once a day overnight that’s all I’m I’m talking about you can save $1,500 to
$2,000 a year just by doing that so my question to you is why wouldn’t you want to do that why wouldn’t you want to get something that will save you money right from the get-go and help lower emissions because when you’re running in electric only mode there are no emissions coming
Out of this it’s only when the engine kicks in and then when the engine kicks in you get pretty good fuel mileage because of that hybrid version so in conclusion after all that rambling is this a recommended vehicle well absolutely you know it’s got enough range to make an
Impact so as you can see here quickly the range that I did was just about 207 km in the few days that I had it about 186 were all electric so you can see about 90% of my driving range was done in all electric uh and that’s just going
Back and forth to work and doing errands as I mentioned earlier in the video so plugging it in every night in a 110 letting it charge overnight and utilizing that all electric range to the advantage that I had you can see I hardly used any gas um not even uh a
Quarter tank not even probably about an eighth of a tank if that um because it wasn’t very much showing 1.4 L per 100 km for fuel extremely low so this is really where your savings are folks if you’re doing this as a practice and very high percentage of it was in all
Electric driving just normal driving now if I’m going to do long Highway trips it’s going to skew the other way so you do need to look at your use case so about 80 90% of it all electric then why wouldn’t you because hey your your tank
Of gas is going to last you weeks versus days normally and uh and you’re going to save money so folks you know and then you get those inherit uh emission St lowering just as as an offshoot uh which is really really nice to have so I’m hopefully that I’ve explained that well
Because I’m very passionate about trying to make this as real for for people as possible and show you the reality so when people say pluging hybrids don’t save you money or they’re crap for the environment whatever it’s not true you just need to run the numbers for your
Use case it might not save you enough money to justify it and I get that so you need to run the numbers but I’m just showing you what what it looks like in a normal kind of an average use case in conclusion absolutely recommended vehicle I think Ford’s done a really
Good job to give you a much better experience uh lower fuel parses better range on the battery and better lower emissions if that all makes sense so well done Ford on this you know I think it’s a very capable vehicle I hope they come out with some uh all electric
Versions of this type of size uh I think something even a little smaller than this would be nice uh in an all electric capacity we’ll see you know Ford saying they’re all in over time the time keeps changing but uh let’s see how they work so well done and certainly uh a recommended
Vehicle all right and that’s it for this edition of the EV Revolution show make sure nothing here in the charge port up front I like that hope you enjoyed this episode on the 2024 Ford Escape plug-in hybrid version uh again thanks Ford Canada for allowing me the use of this
Vehicle for a few days even in the rain and the snow and crazy weather we’ve had this week has just been a roller coaster folks but hey we love it this is Canada I love it bring it on I say bring it on anyway if you have any questions all my
Contact information is coming up email me right throw comments in there but if you’ve got a deep question I’m not going to spend time on the comments and and write 10 paragraphs of response you got something you want to talk to me about email me let’s have a phone call let’s
Have a conversation because that’s what I’m here for I’m not afraid to answer questions and to uh to uh rebuttal any fud that’s out there I could be wrong and we could have a discussion and I could realize that I’m wrong in what I’m thinking and I’d love to understand that
Because I’m very open-minded so I encourage you to reach out to me let’s set up a call if you want if you have further questions on anything that I do on any of the vehicles that I reviewed and what’s going on in the marketplace cuz it is still an exciting marketplaces
Uh contrary to what the Press is telling you EV sales have not tanked in fact they’re doing quite the opposite they continue to grow at Double digigit growth rates which is faster than the internal combustion Market is growing in fact it’s declining a bit year-over-year
And it’s still a big Market but EVS are slowly there just going to take a little longer than everybody thinks and I’ve been saying that since day one this whole transition is decades folks it’s not 5 year 10 year 15E it’s not 2030 2035 2040 there’s no more ice fees
That’s doesn’t the way it works interal combustion vehicles are going to be around four decades but we just need to make that transition as soon as as quick as we possibly can with all the factors taken into account in order to try to make a difference in climate change
Because this is something that consumers have direct control over and it does make a big difference 20% greenhouse gas emissions are consumer related Transportation so you are are making a difference so thank you very much for watching stay safe and until the next episode I’ll get off my soap soap box
Here and say thank you very much and I’ll see you when I see You
My thanks to Ford Canada providing a press vehicle.
Meet the all-new KONA Electric.
Made for the everyday. Ready for your getaways. Escape has the space and tech to make the most of any moment.
The Ford Escape is available in a Plug in hybrid powertrain models. The Escape PHEV provides some all-electric driving range and greatly improved fuel consumption. It provides a spacious, versatile and driver-centric experience.
The EV Revolution Show – March 3, 2024
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