Here’s a wild fact this morning, Ford managed to not only sell a record number of Ford Maverick small trucks, it actually outsold the perennial small/medium truck leader Toyota Tacoma. Not only did it outsell Tacoma, if you just look at Maverick Hybrids, the Maverick Hybrid outsold all Toyota Tacomas. Is this a weird issue of timing or a sign that Maverick Hybrids are the future? The answer is: Yes.
While we’re looking at sales, Kia continues to slide ever-so-slightly from its peaks last year while Hyundai continues to thrive. You know what’s up for many automakers? Electric car sales.
And, finally, what is going on at Tesla’s German plant? Did climate activists try to set the Tesla plant on fire? This is a weird story.
Ford Sold 6,464 Ford Maverick Hybrid Pickups In February
Sales data is starting to tiptoe in this week from automakers that still report monthly sales data, and this is going to be a weird month. It’s early in the year, production was still hampered in Q1 of 2023 for some automakers but not for other automakers. New models are rolling out. It’s pure chaos.
If chaos is a ladder, then the person standing on top of that ladder is the good ol’ Ford Maverick, a vehicle we love and is the right answer to almost every question that “Miata” can’t answer.
In particular, 13,262 people (there are probably some fleets, too) agreed with us last month and plopped down their cash for a Ford Maverick. That absolutely walloped Toyota, which only managed to move 5,045 Tacomas last month, down from 8,203 last month and 17,058 trucks in February 2023.
Ford doesn’t always break out hybrid sales beyond a super high level, so normally I’d just be able to tell you that total hybrid sales for the brand were 12,045 vehicles, up 31.5% year-over-year (compared to a 10.5% rise year-over-year for Ford in total). For whatever reason, Ford let slip to the Detroit Free Press and others that the company sold 6,463 Maverick Hybrids, up from a record October when the company sold 6,230 of them. This means more than half of Ford’s hybrids are Mavericks.
Ford says the rate of stealing customers from other brands, a carefully tracked data point called a “conquest rate,” is 59%.
“There’s nothing in the market quite like it,” said Erich Merkle, Ford U.S. sales analyst.
[…]
“Hybrid vehicles continue to be a growth segment for Ford and sales have grown at a faster rate than the overall U.S. industry,” Merkle said. “That’s before the new 2024 F-150 PowerBoost Hybrid goes on sale early this year.”
Already, about one in five retail orders for the 2024 F-150 are for the hybrid version, he said.
That Ford will be rolling out a hybrid F-150 is good news for the brand, because F-Series sales were actually down 5.8% while F-150 Lightning sales were up 93%. But more on that later.
So did Toyota screw the pooch? Absolutely not. The Maverick and Tacoma are not technically direct competitors (although both are the cheapest trucks the respective brands sell) and, as you might have guessed, this likely has way more to do with Toyota’s dwindling stock of 2023 Tacomas as it’s starting to roll out the extremely good 2024 Toyota Tacoma. By the end of the year, I suspect that Toyota will be back to its old ways and selling in the high teens/low twenties.
What I’m super curious about is how many of the new Tacoma sales will end up being the Tacoma Hybrid when that engine line is fully up to production. The same is true for the F-150 PowerBoost. Will the scales start to tip towards hybrid trucks?
What’s Going On With Kia?
Kia has been dunkin’ on fools for the last few years as the brand has transitioned rapidly from: you bought that? to I want that over the last 15 years. The same has been true for Hyundai. However, last month Hyundai managed to set a February sales record and Kia saw a decline of 3% year-over-year.
What’s going on?
Here’s how Automotive News framed it:
Hyundai’s top-selling crossovers, supported by sales promotions and deals, all had a big month: Sales of the Palisade, Santa Fe and Kona each rose 16 percent; and Tucson volume jumped 14 percent. Last month Hyundai offered 0 percent financing for up to 36 months or up to $1,500 off the 2024 Tucson, for eligible buyers.
[…]
Combined sales of Kia’s crossovers rose 6 percent last month, but lower Soul volume, the discontinued Rio and a 55 percent decline in K5 sedan sales were an overall drag on the company’s February deliveries.
Ok, let’s listen to the Kia official press release, which somehow skips mentioning explicitly that sales were down:
Kia America closed February with sales of 59,059 units. Sales of Kia’s EV models continued to climb, up 65-percent year-over-year through February with the ongoing launch of the award winning EV9 3-row EV SUV.
Kia’s rugged and capable SUVs were up 6-percent year-over-year and accounted for 76-percent of the February sales total.
Three Kia models set all-time February sales records, including: Carnival (+48-percent); Sportage (+18-percent); and Forte (+8-percent).
A closer look at the numbers supports the AN analysis, with K5 sales falling off a cliff from 5,146 to 2,291. Couple that with the demise of the Kia Rio and Kia Stinger and it’s clear that people are continuing to transition away from sedans to crossovers, either by choice or, maybe, by lack of choices.
A Good Month For EVs And Electrified Cars So Far
The Ford F-150 Lightning was up 93% year-over-year in February, moving a total of 2,578 trucks. The Mach-E, which just saw a drop in price, managed to hit 2,930 sales, which is up 64.3% year-over-year.
There’s good news at Kia as well, with overall EV sales up 65% year-over-year with the help of the brand new and seemingly excellent Kia EV9 finally coming onto the market. The EV9 managed to grab 1,318 sales in its first month, followed closely by the electric Kia EV6 at 1,309 units.
While Toyota and Honda don’t have a lot of pure EVs to offer, sales of “electrified” vehicles (mostly hybrids) jumped 84% at Toyota and Honda says it set a record with “electrified” sales of 20,681 vehicles.
It’s just the start of the “Year of the Hybrid” and already Jim Farley is out here saying he thinks the F-150 Hybrid could be the best-selling hybrid in America in short order.
Exciting times.
WTF Is Going On At Tesla Berlin?
#GigaBerlinBrandenburg
Tesla Gigafactory in has been without power for hours, production is at a standstill. The reason is said to be an arson attack on an electricity pylon.
Presumably this is an attack by the " climate activists "
The police have not yet commented on these… pic.twitter.com/VedH6EewfK— Gigafactory Berlin News (@Gf4Tesla) March 5, 2024
If you pay close enough attention to the news you realize the world is just an ouroboros. Today’s tale of the snake eating its own tail is the suspected arson attack at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin. Why would an environmentalist want to stop Tesla production?
Tesla is attempting to expand its plant into an area that residents would like to keep from being developed, according to Focus.de:
Climate activists have been supporting the residents’ resistance for several days. In a recent survey, the majority of the population of the 9,000-inhabitant community of Grünheide spoke out against Tesla’s expansion plans. Politicians must follow this vote, demanded the environmental groups.
This increases the trouble for the company and its only European car factory. There is also a dispute about Tesla wastewater and exceeding limit values. There is no quick solution in sight for an outstanding development plan.
Tesla wants to expand its site, which is partly in the water protection area, and build a freight station as well as logistics and warehouses. It is an area of around 120 hectares that is to be cleared for this purpose. The expansion plans should also be seen against the background that the car manufacturer wants to increase production and double the planned 500,000 cars per year to one million. The last estimate was 300,000 cars per year. Tesla argues that the freight station would shift traffic from road to rail.
We’ll expound upon this later this morning as we learn more.
What I’m Listening To As I Write TMD
Kind of a weird one today. I was building a Lego set with my daughter last night and I made a reference to the ’60s musical Bye, Bye, Birdie which went right over her head. I started to try to explain it and then decided it wasn’t worth my time. Then this morning we were watching The Simpsons and they did a parody of the song “Kids” from the musical and I let out a big laugh, so I had to listen to it.
If you don’t know Bye, Bye, Birdie it’s basically Grease for virgins. It’s fine. A great performance of Grease is probably better than a great performance of Bye, Bye, Birdie, but there rarely are great performances of Grease because it should be played 75% camp/25% sincere and everyone plays it 25% camp/75% sincere. A sincere Grease is awful, but Bye, Bye, Birdie is less an experiment in nostalgia and more about the pressures and pleasure of growing up, which is something a random high school kid in Portland can grasp fairly easily.
The Big Question
What are some cars that aren’t currently hybrid-ized that you’d like to see hybrid-ized?
Still amazed that Elon decided to build his giant factory in a forest North of Berlin and no one told him of German NIMBYs. But he’s not a person known for doing his homework before making decisions either way.
Of course the German NIMBYs are probably right since whatever they’re doing at that factory is unlikely to pay any mind to any local rules or regulations.
US companies going to Germany without doing their homework is a whole thing. Look at Walmart. They didn’t want to learn German, didn’t look into the labor laws, and didn’t understand that German shoppers expect something different than Americans. Tesla/Elon somehow doing even less research than Walmart doesn’t surprise me one bit.
I’d just like more competition to the Maverick, Montana, Rampage, do the same thing with hybridizing so you can meet the mpg requirements for the size and let the streets run wild with small trucks again!
20 mpg to 30 mpg saves 1.67 gallons of gas for every 100 miles traveled. Getting to 40 mpg saves 2.5 gallons for every 100 miles traveled. Multiply that savings by a million vehicles sold. There’s a good drop in carbon emissions. And some more insulation from gas price spikes.
I’m a fan of the Maverick, but now that I’m seeing more in-person, they’re surprisingly small. Which is fine, but you could get a 4×4 Ranger in the ’90s that was proportioned well versus a 2WD that was Maverick-sized. Maybe it’s the 4 doors of the Maverick throwing me off. But I’m still rooting for the hybrid to make a dramatic impact on the commercial market. As for me, I’d love to see Jeep finally hybridize the Gladiator, even if it’s not a super towing rig, but they need to work a little harder than they did on the Wrangler. That electric-only range is abysmal in 2024, even for a hybrid.
It’s mostly truckflation. The Maverick is a bit bigger than my family’s ’17 Escape and almost the same size as the 2012 Ranger. It’s 204Lx71Wx68H for the Ranger vs. 200Lx73Wx69H for the Maverick. Going back even further, the 2004 F-150 is only slightly bigger at 208Lx79Wx71H.
1990s Ranger was smaller than the Maverick. 188-203″ L x 69″ W x 64-68″ H vs 200″ L x 73″ W x 69″ H. The Maverick is 4″ wider and 1-5″ taller, and the length is only 3″ shorter than the longest 1999 Ranger. The proportions do a lot to trick the mind, and the fact that you can’t get a single or extended cab throws everything off.
that’s why it’s never going to be a good idea to compare a single cab, short bed truck to a super cab nor crew cab. If you need passenger space it will not matter how much a compact truck from the 90s with a regular bed measures up. Same goes for anyone whose needs are geared towards cargo capacity.
I could also say a 30yr old F150 2WD with a reg cab and short bed was only 202″ L x 79 W x 70 H but it’s really pointless to say a Maverick is almost the same size because it won’t haul the same cargo and neither the old F150 in that configuration will hold the same people.
If Maverick comes as a single body configuration (crew cab short bed) then it needs to be compared size-wise with a crew cab short bed (or super cab, medium bed as they share the same WB).
I mean, if I were talking about passenger or bed space, that makes sense. But I’m talking to someone who said they were surprised how small it was, and that the 2WD Ranger was Maverick-sized. The Maverick is wider than the 90s Ranger and taller than even the 4WD.
There are a number of reasons for this, including safety, technology, and comfort, but it’s both wider and taller, which is something that surprises people because the proportions make it look smaller than it is.
Everything on Honda’s Light Truck platform. The Pilot, MDX, Passport, and Ridgeline are all nice, practical options in their segment but they all get pretty unimpressive fuel economy. Keep the J-Series V6 and augment it with a 1-2 kWh battery and electric motor to bump up those fuel economy numbers – especially in the city where they’ll spend most of the time.
I’d like to see Honda get serious about their full lineup as PHEVs, not just HEVs. A PHEV Accord would be exactly what I’m looking for.
If there was a hybrid Ridgeline I would be very interested. I am dumbfounded by Honda’s reluctance to hybridize their larger cars.
Especially the Odyssey!
Re: Ford dropping the sold number of hybrid Mavericks – the manufacturers seem to be doing this more and more lately. Toyota has for as long as I can recall, but think others have shied away from it to avoid revealing any swings in the numbers. Honda touted how they had the best selling hybrid lines in 2023 with the Accord and CR-V, but you won’t find it broken out that way on the actual sales chart.
The Tacoma comparison is an amusing one but surely won’t be that way for long, seems to stem from a sluggish rollout of the new one. That low of sales won’t fly with Toyota who has sold 6 figures worth of Tacomas every year for ages now.
I would have said the Kia K5’s drop might be more from the changeover to the facelift soon (the Sonata and Elantra also dropped though despite facelifts), but they also dropped the line entirely in Canada, so seems to be a scale back to the segment as a whole. Tough to say if Sonata sales will really climb back up, although they’re definitely pushing more hybrids as the top trims are now hybrid-only similar to the Accord. Odd that Kia never did a K5 hybrid, but guess they figure they’re covered with the Niro.
Palisade vs. Telluride, I think Hyundai is just making more Palisades period, I’ve definitely been seeing more around lately. The Telluride has always been the better seller (probably helped by US production) and even with the Palisade’s sales gain last month, Telluride sold more. That may change this year as YTD they’re about even. I could see a drop to Santa Fe sales as the new one starts several grand more but that may help Tucson sales, or Palisade for that matter.
My wife DDs a hybrid Maverick and she loves it. 44 MPG and it can park just about anywhere. Why doesn’t anyone make this size in an EV.
…range.
I own an EV. I charge it at night. If I am on a trip, I charge it at a fast charger. The only time I thought about range was when I read shit on the internet before I bought my car.
The vast majority of people in the US (4/5ths) live in urban areas, and a large percentage of those won’t have access to their own charger. Many don’t even have access to their own parking spot.
Perhaps this seems like a moot point because it’s assumed that people in urban areas don’t need cars, but a lot of smaller urban areas have almost no public transit, and even in those that do, sometimes a car is a necessity (job, etc.). PHEVs and especially EVs aren’t great answers for the majority of people, because the only places they can charge are expensive and in competition with other owners.
Well yeah, that’s like duh. What does it have to do with range?
It has to do with it because the majority of people can’t make use of *any* electric-only range, so the need is greater for traditional hybrids than PHEVs or EVs.
Right. You have an EV the size of a Maverick with the aero of a Maverick…and you get great range especially in winter with it being cold-soaked outside. Good for you! Can you say the same for everyone else?
What EV did you say you have again? I didn’t quite catch it.
PHEV it baby! PHEV all the things!
IMO I’d rather drive a 44mpg hybrid than have to deal with an EV. From someone used to getting 19mpg in a 4Runner, 44mpg might as well be an EV, haha.
I’d think a 4 door trucklet version could be made of the Model Y
I would expect from the factory it would either need a sloping rear like the Cyber truck or a truck topper to maintain better aero for decent 70 mph range
An EV Maverick would be expensive and yet would have low range due to both a smallish battery and aero concerns. It sounds like your wife doesn’t drive at high speeds so too much (44mpg is higher than I can get in the sibling Escape hybrid), so aero is less of a concern in that use case, but range still wouldn’t be great due to the limited battery space.
Hybridize everything, starting with the biggest and heaviest things. Wherever you can make the most gains. And I’d like to see things like the Tundra and Tacoma hybrids actually have an efficiency tune (preferably a setup where you can select the power tune when you need/want it and the efficiency tune the rest of the time).
Hybrid Telluride. Hybrid Expedition. Hybrid all the big SUVs because you’ll see good gains for a relatively low percentage price increase. It’ll be worth it for the buyer, even if they aren’t interested in anything but saving money.
I’d love to see a hybrid/PHEV/EV Outback, because it’s very popular among people who would probably buy a hybrid/PHEV/EV and it’s not as efficient as people would like. I think it’d be a good seller. (And because a roomy wagon is a form factor I’m interested in.)
+1 for the Outback.
Yeah, the lack of a hybrid Outback is baffling. My brother doesn’t want anything other than an Outback and one that gets 40+ MPG instead of 20+ would be nice.
Apparently Subaru remembers the utter mess the hybrid crosstrek was. And the………. Solterra (had to look it up) is doing poorly. I don’t necessarily see them abandoning the boxer soon.
They took the small crossover, put a PHEV in it that was good for 17 miles electric and 35 mpg, then did their best to never convince anyone the thing was good. Of course it did poorly. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t see about some proper Toyota hybrid tech and make something people want.
Yeah we need more hybrid and PHEV larger SUV’s. It’s very slim pickings. I’m shocked Jeep hasn’t given us a GC L in 4XE trim yet.
The maverick is a truck (trucklet?, car truck??) that I´d love to have here in Spain. I think it would sell really well, they already dominate the market (at least in my area) with the Ranger, and folks love their 90s Rangers. Besides, most of the parts of this truck are already homologated for road use through different Ford EU products (for example, the engine and phev system can be found in the Kuga, and it rides on the same platform as my focus mk4 –> the Ford C2), so the building blocks are already here.
How big is the truck culture in Spain? Here in the US trucks now sell more than cars by a huge margin. So it made sense to introduce a small truck here for those that didn’t want something huge.
It´s certainly not as popular as in the US and, while they are reasonably popular (especially in rural regions), they do not occupy a segment of the market as big as hatchbacks, SUV or Wagons, so I get that it may not make that much sense for Ford to bring it over. Still, it´d be nice, especially if it retained its affordability.
On the other side, we have Broncos over here with the 6 cyl, which is cool and all but they sticker for about 90k euros (Outer Banks and Badlands trims) and you´d have to be a big fan with deep pockets to buy it (and for the price you may look to other offerings)
You mean you get the full sized Broncos? Maybe I’m ignorant but I thought those were only sold in the US. There must be very stiff import tariffs in the EU and elsewhere on US cars. I saw that Ford is going to start selling Ford F-150’s in Australia as well as parts of Europe. They are common as hell here and lower trims are not that much in terms of price. But in the EU they are close to $100,000. The same is true for Mustangs. I can’t imagine driving any of those in Europe because the cost to fuel them would be insane.
Yup, we do get the full size Broncos (only in those trims and the 4 doors versions), funnily enough we don´t get the Bronco Sports; and yeah import tariffs aren´t great, I saw a couple of gt500s (s550 gen) with the track pack that were selling for about 200k. The last gen mustang gt (facelift) was priced at around 60k and the mach 1 (the highest trim available here) was around 70-75k, I expect the new gen to be a bit more expensive.
Despite the prices (both car and fuel), the vast majority of the mustangs were equipped with the coyote, I suspect that after waiting for 50 years people wanted the real deal not the ecoboost.
I guess its when you get what you couldn’t have for once that people will pay more. Mustangs have always been the poor man’s sports car here and almost seen as a kind of trashy redneck-mobile. They are VERY common so if you see one its like who cares. But I can see where if they had not been in another country they would be more unique. There are a lot of European cars I wish they sold here but they don’t because we have stupid laws.
Yeah, that´s what I was thinking. Here having a mustang is probably the opposite, usually the owners have other expensive cars (I know a guy that has a Huracan, a continental gt and a mach 1) and are well off (fuel and taxes for this kind of cars aren´t exactly affordable, though not as bad as in other european countries). I´d say our trashy cars are, usually, tuned diesel hatchbacks, more often than not the owners like to “show off” by rolling coal.
Any of the cargo haulers that can be converted into an RV should be hybridized. good mileage AND the ability to run camping gear when in the boondocks. Also for such small haulers, hybrid mileage.
“Unlike our gas powered cars, our EVs don’t randomly catch fire” – The new Kia/Hyundai sales slogan
We’ll see about that
Ford already has a hybrid F-150. It’s a massive POS.
am interested in a hybrid f150. If you own one, what are its POS qualities that we should know about? Thanks!
Don’t own one. Everything I’ve seen including CR studies has the F-150 Hybrid listed as one of the least reliable new vehicles.
Outside of that you get minimal MPG improvement because it’s an ecoboom based ICE drivetrain with an electric drivetrain shoehorned in.
The only two groups of modern hybrids worth buying are ones with planetary gear e-CVTs and range extended BEVs. They have great efficiency and much better durability than any traditional automatic transmission having current production automobile sold in the US.
I’d wait for the new Ramcharger or look to see if the Maverick Hybrid would work for you.
The Powerboost is rated for 25 mpg for both city and highway while the 6-cylinder is rated for 18 city/25 highway/21 combined MPG. A 20% increase in efficiency is nothing to sneeze at.
In exchange for having one of the least reliable new automobiles on the road whose drivetrain is in a race between whether the ICE part or the electric part will crap out first.
That is not a trade I’d ever make.
Also the efficiency boost is only at city speeds, so if you’re not doing much city driving you’re not really going to notice an MPG boost.
Even with massive increases in MPG the monetary savings are minimal. If the F-150 Hybrid got 50 MPG instead of 25 MPG then I’d say it’s definitely worth considering, a 7 MPG boost in exchange for a heavier, less durable, and less reliable drivetrain is not worth it.
Do you have one of those Calvin pissing on Ford stickers on your RAM?
Don’t own a Ram.
I like a lot of what Ford makes, in particular I’m a big fan of the aluminum bodies of the current F series pickups, I like that Ford made a smaller pickup with a very efficient drivetrain (Maverick Hybrid), I like the e-Transit, etc.
That doesn’t mean they don’t do a lot of stuff wrong, and from what I’ve seen noone can screw over Ford worse than Ford screws themselves over.
This. I love the idea of aluminum body (I’m in Ontario) and the execution of the Mav, but as I’ve previously owned Ford’s, there’s a difference between having some good ideas and having a good product. Ford reliability hasn’t improved in any of the vehicles I’ve owned compared to all the other brands I’ve owned. Lease? Sure. Own? Lol never
Very understandable. Personally if I had to get a new Full Size pickup I’d go with a F-150 XL Single Cab 6.75ft bed 3.3L V6 4WD with a 3.73 rear axle ratio (would install aftermarket locker)
That being said I’d much rather have that setup with a manual transmission, I wouldn’t even care if it was a 3 speed, I trust a Ford Manual transmission over a Ford automatic transmission any day.
*6.5ft bed
I test drove one a few times and almost bought one. I bought a Lightning instead. There’s nothing wrong with the Powerboost system, though it is complicated and 2021 is the first model year. I believe there are lots of TSBs to work out the kinks. The electric assist and Pro Power system boost tow capacity I think, and it can power an camper with a 30amp bed receptacle so it’s very popular with that crowd.
It does indeed get better mileage than a gas truck, the battery system gives a boost from a dead stop. The Pro Power upgrade is unique to Ford and is arguably a reason alone to buy one if you can put it to use.
Carbon buildup on the valves requiring removal around 80K miles not an issue?
Why would carbon build up any worse than any of the hundreds of Ecoboost engines out there. Carbon build up really isn’t that big of a concern anymore as since 2017 the 3.5l has direct and port injection
News to me, still managed to end up on CR’s least reliable cars so if that’s not an issue for Fords anymore then that still doesn’t bode well for the F-150 Hybrid.
Honestly, I’m not a fan of non-plug in hybrids, so there aren’t any I would like to see in regular hybrid form. If we could expand the question to plug-in hybrids, I would like to see a PHEV F250/350 diesel. Those are great trucks but they burn a lot of fuel while idling or creeping along at low speeds. A PHEV setup seems like it could be high yield in this application. Plus, regenerative breaking would be nice when towing or hauling down hill, and the extra torque provided by the electric motor would be nice going up hill. Also, an extra 200 lbs. of battery wouldn’t even be noticeable in a truck this large. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about this issue, but it seems like a PHEV 3/4 ton pickup could make a lot of sense.
The problem is 200lbs of battery might not really be enough to make a difference. The new Tundra TRD Pro is a hybrid but it’s also a 6000 lb porker and it’s real world MPGs are still pretty bad.
A bigger battery would be ideal, but I think a 200 lb. battery could be a good balance between cost, weight, and added utility. A 200 lb. battery could get you maybe 12 kwh of useful capacity. I would expect a vehicle of this size to get ~1 to 1.5 miles per kwh when unladen, giving this an EV range of 12-18 miles. For this vehicle, the value of the plug-in component would be to get you through the slog of slow driving on city streets where these vehicles are particularly inefficient.
I think the new RAM will be able to answer a lot of these questions. I’m hopeful but not hugely optimistic about real world numbers. I do think that the towing range concerns are overblown mostly because a lot of working trucks that tow still do it pretty locally and get stuck in the same traffic we all do and like you said that is where the battery will really make an impact.
I would like to see almost every car/truck with a hybrid option.
Re: Toyota. Our local dealers are still pricing at a minimum of 10% over MSRP here.
F-them. Not sure what the Ford dealers are adding to the Maverick MSRP, but it appears that a lot of folks are fed up with the stupid Toyota dealer tax. As such, if I was looking for a new truck, the Ford would certainly get a hard look this time.
From what I’ve seen in they are now selling for MSRP regardless of the powertrain they come with. Within a 100 mi radius the cheapest Hybrid Maverick XLT is $29K and the cheapest Lariat Hybrid comes at $35K. You can add $500 – $750 rebates on top of that https://www.perryfordonline.com/new-National+City-2024-Ford-Maverick-XLT-3FTTW8H31RRA49424
Oh and I’ll continue to beat this dead horse-hybridize the family haulers. There’s no hybrid Pilot, Palisade, Telluride, Odyssey, Traverse, Forester/Outback/Ascent, et cetera. This class is literally perfect for hybrids because no one drives them hard and literally every family would love to save money on gas.
You shouldn’t have to live with city fuel economy in the teens to drive one of these…and it’s one of the reasons why you can barely get your hands on a hybrid Highlander or Sienna these days. Literally everyone wants hybrids in this class and they’re volume sellers. Make it happen.
This! It blows my mind that Toyota is pretty much the only game in town** when it comes to hybrid family haulers. But boy are they hard to get your hands on and also wow do they get the markups. Took the family to look a Grand Highlander Hybrid (not the Max) and MSRP was $49k, but with markups it was sitting at $63k and every unit the dealership had was already sold. At that price point the Lexus TX made more sense, but both are still simply way too expensive. It looks like our aging minivan will be serving us for longer lest Toyota get reasonable with prices or other competition joins the hybrid family hauler game.
**I guess the Pacifica Hybrid exists too, but with three friends either lemon lawing theirs or trying to do so, I’m going to steer clear of those.
In the same market, but for hauling dogs not kids.
I really do not want to buy another 18/25 mpg vehicle for the next 7-8 years. But Grand Highlanders/Siennas can’t even be nailed down for a test drive and you are subject to the shitty Toyota allocation system. “You might get a car…someday…and it might not be equipped the way you want”. Woah, way to get me excited for my new $55k vehicle.
The TX500h is too expensive. RX350h too small. The XC90 PHEV too expensive. CX90 PHEV too small. Pacifica PHEV and Grand Cherokee 4xe…are Chrysler products.
Agreed, the only people I know with new, non-hybrid cars just didnt want to wait the leadtime on a hybrid or it wasnt an option on the telluride/carnival
Hybrid Forester is supposed to be coming and will be interesting if they have better luck with it than their last hybridization attempts on the Crosstrek. I could definitely see Subaru putting the same powertrain in the next Outback and maybe Ascent since redesigns have to be coming to those in the next year or two. Heck at this rate Subaru may beat the hybrid Mazda CX-50 to market.
I’ve got to think a hybrid Palluride is lurking in the wings, maybe with the next gen, now that the Carnival hybrid is announced.
The Forester is apparently using a Toyota powertrain too, which is a huge plus. I’d take it a Toyota hybrid/eCVT combo over a wheezy NA Subaru boxer/traditional CVT all day every day even if it offered 0 fuel economy benefits…
I hadn’t heard for sure what they’d use but Toyota setup just makes the most logical sense. But it also makes me wonder if the holdup on Mazda’s side is like an agreement where either company doesn’t get to use/license the Toyota hybrid bits until the next RAV4 is announced – and maybe they get an “older” version.
Yes!! This times a million. Honda should hybridize the Odyssey and make an AWD version. It’s totally insane that there is only one hybrid, AWD minivan (Sienna). Toyota has the market cornered, resulting in so many people paying above-MSRP for a pretty mediocre new version of the Sienna. C’mon Honda, take our money!!!
Im working on vanpilling my wife but early returns have been discouraging. That being said, we’d go out and buy a hybrid Pilot or Passport for her tomorrow if they made one. We love our Honda and my sister in law and mother in law love theirs. They’re trouble free.
But we want a hybrid. It’s really our only requirement for her next car other than it needs more space than what we currently have.
Yeah, it’s why we eventually had up on the new Sienna. Too long a wait and too much money for something we were not totally excited for. We had an old Sienna that was great, but the lack of AWD on that one screwed us a few times in ski season. We got an XLT Standard Range Lightning instead, which my wife loves, and was cheaper than the Siennas we were looking at. Winner winner chicken dinner.
The Pacifica exists and is better in every way, save one… but it’s a big one, from the Sienna:
Ways it’s better:
PHEV vs HEV
Moar Powah
It drives so much nicer
Stow and Go for both rear row and captain’s chairs (so. freakin. useful.)
The interior is a nicer place to be (subjective… but i stand by it)
The exterior doesnt make me shield my eyes when looking at the back half of the car (subjective… but i stand by it)
If you cant afford new, it’s massively cheaper than a similar vintage Sienna. (if you are buying new, the Sienna being hybrid only is kind of a big deal, since the PHEV option is only on the really high trims of the Pacifica)
Ways it’s worse:
It’s a Chrysler.
Stow-and-go for the second row “captain’s chairs” goes away with the hybrid option. (Gotta put those batteries somewhere!)
What cars would I like to see hybridized?
Everything except dedicated performance cars. Corvette, Miata, Supra, Toybaru Twins, etc. Its been done past time that shit should have happened.
An affordable priced and fuel efficient pickup truck is selling well? Who’d have thought?
/s
The Maverick also costs less and is smaller, and of course the hybrid gets better mpg too
Good for Ford and the Maverick; however, I’d like to know how many of those Maverick sales have actually been delivered to customers versus just ordered. Those things are still scarce as hen’s teeth on the road around here.
Ann Margret would kick Olivia Newton John’s ass, you know, if ONJ weren’t already dead.
Those should be delivered numbers. When we first got ours, it was try and find the Maverick game. Here in the DFW area, they’re starting to be seen a lot. Lots of work Mavericks too. Municipalities and pool service/light industrial companies that need the utility of a box, but not the massive over-capacity of a current full size.
As Rata says I think these must be delivered numbers. Orders for 2024 hybrid Mavericks were open for just 5 days last year, then the manufacturing capacity for 2024 was full. So calling these numbers ‘sales’ is a bit weird. The selling was done last year.
Just got my six-month email from Ford saying, sorry, we still haven’t got your Maverick build scheduled yet..
I hope the wait will be worth it and that you didn’t need a car in a hurry.
Bring back the Golf Alltrack in hybrid form.
…people are into a small, efficient, useful, comparatively affordable vehicle?! Wow! Who could have seen this coming? I’ve been told by American manufactures that I need a $70,000, 6000 pound body on frame vehicle and that their 144 month in house financing at only 7.99% APR can make my payment only $400 a month! What is going on?!
Anyway, something that’s surprised me is that the Maverick seems to be pretty universally appreciated. While you all correctly know me as someone who lives in the city I actually spend a lot of time in rural Virginia as well. Down there in farm and boat country I see as many Mavericks as I do here in DC, and many are used as work vehicles.
Don’t get me wrong-there are plenty of brodozers as well, but there are just as many Mavericks, and they’re usually hybrids. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see it, to be honest. Even deep into dark red, working class country people can appreciate a small hybrid truck.
Look at the number of Rangers you used to see in the late 90s into the early 2000s. We liked smaller pickups before we got rid of them, and we like them now.
To say I’ve been soured on Ford would be an understatement, but you aren’t wrong about the popularity of Rangers back then. I never understood them dropping it for a time.
They dropped it because the CAFE standards disincentivized it. Then they brought it back much larger than before. Even the Maverick is wider and taller than the old Ranger.
Old Ranger, but hybrid. That’d be nice.
Don’t forget the last Ranger got something like 19 hwy using the ancient 4.0 and 4×4, hell the MZR 2.3 I used to drive would never exceed 23.
Meanwhile the F150 at the same time was advertising as much as 25-26mpg hwy.
Starving the engineering budget to mostly satisfy fleets is what did the old Rangers in
That’s true. They absolutely could have improved fuel efficiency on the Ranger and met CAFE standards that way, but they chose to prioritize the larger vehicles because that’s where the best money was, both fleet and consumer.
As I sit at the shop waiting for the exhaust leak repair estimate on my pandemic car (an Infiniti G37x inherited from my mother, that I no longer have the youthful energy to squeeze under and break rusty bolts on), I have been doing my on-again off-again new car search (mostly driven by my significant other who wants a nice second car so we don’t drive hers over mileage on her lease), and I find myself electronically cross-shopping an X5, a Maverick, and a Lexus UX. If you told me that I would be doing this even two years ago, I would have thought you were nuts – we live in strange (automotive) times. If only I could get a brand new E46 wagon with the BMW I6!
The X5 is a fuckin peach. My dad has a 2024 50e. The X5 is one of the best packages in the entire industry. RWD, God’s engine/a V8 if you want one, space for days, hatchback, good fuel economy for what it is, pretty timeless styling by BMW standards, refined as hell, every interior surface feels fantastic…if you can spring for an X5 I really can’t recommend that car enough.
It drives like a big sedan too. Really my only gripe is the steering is a bit numb, but it’s an SUV. You can’t truly have it all. My dad’s PHEV has averaged 40 MPG total between the electric and gas engines total and if you have a decent charge and put it in sport mode it’ll hit 60 in under 4 seconds and have you at triple digits before you can blink.
Ugh. If I had an unlimited budget I’d literally get the same car. But I’ve driven the regular 40i too and it’s fantastic.
Hybrid Bronco (not the Sport) anyone? I have a 2021 Bronco that I really enjoy driving, but the fuel consumption, even with the 2.3 is, well, not good.
Something I’ve wondered about this: is it only measuring sales where a competitor product is directly traded in? There’s all kinds of in-between scenarios that defy easy classification. Are any of these conquests? Are all of them?
-I don’t own a Ford currently, but buy one and don’t trade anything.
-I sell a non-Ford vehicle privately a month (or six) before or after buying my Ford.
-I sell two vehicles privately to fund my Ford purchase, one of which is a Ford.
-I trade in a Lincoln.
-I trade in a vehicle built by a brand Ford owned when it was built, but no longer does.
Normally I’d say situations like mine are few and far between, but if this is being “carefully tracked”, I wonder to what depths they track it.
I think it’s based on voluntary post-sales surveys. Typically there’s a series of questions on what cars you’ve owned/own and why you decided to go with Ford over
You just can’t please environmentalists. No matter what you do they are going to protest. It’s ti.e to start ignoring the lunatic fringe.
You just can’t please [Extremists]. No matter what you do they are going to protest. It’s time to start ignoring the lunatic fringe.
Fixed that for you. The problem isn’t the average person who cares about the environment.
Yes you did. Thanks!
How has Ford not released an AWD hybrid Maverick yet? Doesn’t the very Escape it’s based on come in an AWD hybrid variant?
Because they can’t keep up with the demand for their current versions!
It’ll also be less efficient. One of the current hybrid Maverick’s selling points is how damn frugal it is. 42 MPG city is really freaking good, but the highway MPG of 33 isn’t much different from the ecoboost. If you add AWD to the equation it’ll likely drop those numbers even further.
I wonder if Toyota has a patent on their eAWD idea, using a small electric motor in the back when needed…
I doubt it. Corvette E-Ray is functionally similar, but flipped around (smaller electric motor powering the front wheels).
probably not? v60 hybid does this as well