At 20 years old, Ford's Escape hybrid has arrived like a movie star

The Ford Escape hybrid SUV is sort of like a movie star labeled an overnight success after struggling for decades to find the spotlight.

Two decades have passed since the innovative Escape came to market in 2004. It was the same year that:

• Martha Stewart went to prison for lying about a stock trade.
• Justin Timberlake ripped Janet Jackson’s top, exposing her breast, during a Super Bowl halftime show.
• A U.S. report determined Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
• Google went public, making its founders instant billionaires.
• The Detroit Pistons defeated the L.A. Lakers to win the NBA championship.

Meanwhile, tech writers viewed the Escape SUV — a full hybrid that depended on a computer to balance power and acceleration and determine which motor to use — as a miracle that brought scientists and product engineers together to collaborate in a way never done before.

A Fast Company magazine headline in October 2004 labeled the endeavor “the most complex project in Ford’s history — and maybe its most important product since the Model T.” So this fall, Ford is celebrating 20 years of producing cars that operate with one gas motor and one electric motor to burn the least fuel and travel the most miles.

Ford took a few years to bring its hybrid vehicles to market, following the path of the Honda Insight two-passenger subcompact liftback and the Toyota Prius four-door sedan. Ford took the lead in the U.S. with bigger vehicles for which it was known.

Maverick, F-150 debut

The Escape SUV helped lay the groundwork for technology needed to build hybrid versions of the popular (and high-profit) F-150 pickup and the small Maverick hybrid pickup .

It is the hybrid lineup, in addition to gas and all-electric vehicles, that puts Ford in a unique market position now with so many consumer options.

“We have record hybrid sales this year,” Erich Merkle, U.S. sales analyst for Ford, told me.

“Back in the day, when we first introduced the Escape hybrid, we had an advertisement with Kermit the Frog. It was a green hybrid Escape. A lot of people won’t remember that, I don’t think.”

While electric cars generate a lot of buzz, hybrid vehicles are the fastest-growing segment in the U.S. today.

“As electric vehicles are becoming pretty mainstream, all of a sudden, hybrids are the norm. Going to a hybrid is almost more normal than gas. I think that’s going to be the trend we see over the next five years,” said Tim Hovik, owner of San Tan Ford in Gilbert, Arizona. “I’ve seen it. People thought they would make so few, sure that they’d never find one, that they would give up ahead of time. Now, the first thing they ask when they go to a dealership, whatever model vehicle they want, they want it in a hybrid.”

Changing attitudes

Unlike fully electric vehicles, hybrids eliminate range anxiety — the fear of running out of battery life without a charging station close by, said Thad Szott, co-owner of Szott Auto Group, which sells Ford, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Toyota vehicles in White Lake, Highland Township, Holly, Waterford and New Hudson.

“This massive EV push in the United States is still going against some pretty big headwinds,” Szott said. “As high profile as EV discussion is in the media and around the water cooler, consumers are doing more homework on the technology and they’re landing on the hybrid. These discussions weren’t going on 20 years ago. Not as many people were paying attention. And most people, today, have no idea Ford has been building hybrid cars for 20 years.”

No question, Honda and Toyota deserve credit for introducing consumers to the idea.

“Everybody was trying to find some way to get onto the hybrid bandwagon,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions. “The Escape hybrid is finally coming into its own.”

And this makes Ford nuts.

GM exited hybrids, crosstown rival Ford didn’t

Few people realize the Dearborn automaker has built (and sold) nearly 1.3 million hybrid vehicles in the U.S. over the past two decades.

“People say, ‘Oh, Ford is switching to hybrids. We never left hybrids,” said Ford spokesman Said Deep. “Our competitors don’t have the same option.”

By contrast, General Motors said in 2022 that it would not be selling hybrid vehicles after discontinuing the pioneering Chevrolet Volt in 2019. But by early this year, as EV sales fell below expectations, GM announced it would, in fact, develop hybrid vehicles to get back in the game.

It’s easy to see why.

Ford has seen its hybrid sales spike 49% from January through August compared with a year ago, Merkle said. “This year, Ford has sold 125,462 hybrid vehicles. For the industry, hybrid vehicles are up 35% through August.”

Escape hybrid sales totaled 13,645 — up 8.4% from the same period last year. Ford’s share of the hybrid vehicle segment is 12.6% through August — up more than one full percentage point compared with the same period a year ago, Merkle said.

Long trips, short trips? No problem

Mark Taylor, 70, of Clarkston drove his plug-in 2024 Escape hybrid to Cheboygan without stress or concern about getting to his destination. If there’s not enough battery power, the vehicle automatically switches to the gas engine.

He charges his vehicle with a solar charger for free and drives 20 miles a day to work and home at no cost, Taylor said. “The car runs on all electricity for the first approximately 40 miles. It has a hybrid engine.”

Taylor, a chemist who spent eight years as a robotics program director at Kettering University in Flint, retired from teaching chemistry and physics in Pontiac — while also coaching robotics and instructing tennis. Now Taylor teaches robotics part-time at Cranbrook and Birmingham schools.

“I’m suggesting a car like this for my friends,” Taylor said.

Electrification: ‘A cautionary tale’

Increasing electrification within propulsion systems takes time and is not a simple process, said Stephanie Brinley, associate director, S&P Global Mobility based in Southfield.

“The industry as a whole, and Ford, have been working toward better fuel economy and lower emissions forever,” she said. “Hybrids are now 9% of the market and you look at how that evolution has taken us this long to get there. It should be a cautionary tale, that full battery electric will take some time.”

Ford goal: 'How to make it more affordable'

Consumers may purchase six versions of the 2025 Escape with four different powertrains. An Escape starts at $27,995. The Escape hybrid begins at $32,490. An Escape plug-in hybrid starts at $38,400, Ford said. Taxes and fees are extra.

The Escape hybrid gets 42 mpg in the city and 39 mpg combined. The plug-in hybrid gets an EPA-estimated 37 miles of all-electric range and combined 101 MPGe, Ford said.

“We were focused on getting the product right and then … how to make it more affordable for everyone by driving the cost down,” said Anand Sankran of Farmington Hills, director of Ford’s Ion Park, which develops and prototypes batteries and cells. He has been with Ford for 33 years, working as a key team leader on the Escape hybrid — with responsibility for “high voltage subsystems and components.”

As an electrical engineer doing research, Sankran knew electrification would happen, the only question was when and at what scale, he said. “We fully developed our own hybrid technology.”

That vision has led to more than 2,800 patents and the ability to make everything in house, Sankran told me. "We design and build our own batteries, design and build our own electric transmissions, made in Ford Rawsonville (components plant) and Ford Van Dyke (electric powertrain center)” in Michigan.

Toyota leads as Ford fights for market share

Ford could have done things more simply, Fast Company wrote at the time. “It might, for example, have bought part of Toyota’s hybrid system, as Nissan has done. But … the only Toyota patents that it licensed … were to avoid patent infringement.”

“As a normal course of business, we take precautions when made aware of potentially relevant intellectual property,” Deep said.

The Toyota RAV4 hybrid SUV remains a top seller, with 111,526 sold through second quarter of this year. Its customer base continues to grow.

The Honda CR-V hybrid remains the top seller in the U.S., building on 2023 sales of 197,317. The Honda Accord was the hottest selling hybrid car with 96,323 the same year, according to Honda.

At Ford, the long-term strategy of the SUV built at the Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky turned out to be key to big hybrid profits all these years later. The 2025 Escape hybrid is scheduled to arrive at dealerships in October.

“Ford was smart to get involved 20 years ago,” said John McElroy, veteran industry analyst and host of “Autoline After Hours” webcast and podcast. “It’s really paying off for them now.”

Phoebe Wall Howard, a Free Press auto reporter for nearly seven years, now writes a column on car culture, consumer trends and life that will appear twice monthly on Freep.com and in print. Those columns and others will appear on her Substack at phoebewallhoward.substack.com Contact her at phoebe@phoebehoward.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: At 20 years old, Ford's Escape hybrid has arrived like a movie star