Ford used to offer an Escape Hybrid, then they stopped until now. The 2020 Ford Escape hybrid is more efficient than ever and even offers a Plug-In Hybrid version. With the RAV4 Hybrid taking most of the sales in this category, this new 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid could seriously challenge that with it’s exceptional MPG, better city / but worse highway MPG than the RAV4 Hybrid.
The rav4 hybrid has finally met it matched with this 2024 to scape hybrid ford was playing this hybrid game a long time ago with the escape but they stopped doing it and they brought it back and it’s more efficient than ever and we’re gonna take a look at the exterior details the interior details and of course we’re gonna take this hybrid for a test drive and i’m
Gonna tell you what kind of miles per gallon i have been getting in the week i’ve been driving it can’t wait to show it to you let’s get started now as we take a look at the exterior details of the ford escape this is gonna be exclusively about this se hybrid model because i already showed you the seo and talked about some of the other features but starting right
Up front we have the same headlight design they’re really large headlights you’ve got some nice led daytime running lights running underneath of those these are halogen projector bulbs and there’s no fog lights on this trim only led on the titanium the grille is more of a plain black grille compared to the others that have a little chrome surround but this does
Have active grille shutters overall this front end design is much more unique than the old escape and some people have actually pointed out that it looks a little bit like a tesla or a little bit like a porsche as well and this is a velocity blue metallic it’s a pretty vibrant paint it really stands out for this escape so let me know what you think below and what
You think of the design we also get 17-inch wheels standard but ours comes with these optional 19 inch wheels with 225 55 series tires and then on the side profile you definitely have some swoopy action some different design cues here the mirrors are gonna be black and heated but no turn signals the door handles will be body colour though but the beltline and
Then some large cladding at the bottom is gonna be black i wish that cladding wasn’t quite as big dimensionally this is about the same as the rav4 about a hundred and eighty and a half inches long but quite a bit smaller than the ford edge and the ford explorer and suspension wise we have an upgraded suspension with an isolated rear subframe which means it’s gonna
Have improved smoothness and we’ll go for a test drive in a little bit coming to the back you get a body colour spoiler led tail lights with kind of a unique tail light design they do look good at nice at night as well then you’ll get a hybrid badge and dual chrome exhaust tips now for the cargo area of the explorer a power liftgate on trim is optional you can push
That little button back there and this doesn’t have quite as much space as the non-hybrid model you’ll get about thirty point seven cubic feet with those rear seats all the way back in 34.4 with them all the way forward so it’s a little funky how they measure it and then 60 cubic feet when you fold everything down on this side you’ve got a little hook and a 12-volt
Power outlet which is nice to see as you can see we’ve got a cargo light right over there even a little bit maybe of a storage cubby right over here there are a couple tie-downs back here and then if you lift this up it’s kind of interesting so they have a tire inflator kit they’ve got room for a spare tire but we actually have the 12-volt battery here instead of
Under the engine bay the good news is there is room to put a spare tire if you wanted to and you just can’t lower the load floor down because of this styrofoam tray back here and there are not any handles in the far back to fold this down you can move the headrest out of the way pull this lever and then the seat goes flat climbing into the front seat of the escape
Is super easy it’s just an easy slide right in that scl model i showed you had the entry exit system where this where the seat could move but this one doesn’t standard on this trim is going to be cloth seats but we have the optional active x which is a synthetic leather and that’ll give us ten way power adjustable seats with two-way lumbar they are comfortable i
Haven’t really had any complaints with them except the headrest isn’t four-way adjustable front to back like some other ford’s and it can be a little intrusive if we don’t recline the seat all the way at least for me but i think the bolstering is good i think that the cushioning is pretty good don’t really have any complaints with the overall comfort of the rest of
The seat these seats on this trim are also heated standard the steering wheel is leather the steering wheel is not heated like it was on the other trim but you’ve got pretty good play in this steering wheel which is always good to get comfortable now taking a look at the rest of the interior it doesn’t seem quite as nice to some competitors it doesn’t really see
Up seem up to par as well as some of those but it’s functional and it’s easy to live with the door has enough soft spots and you can fit your water bottle down in the bottle holders in front of you behind the steering wheel we get a 12 point inch screen which is like the titanium and actually larger than that small screen on the sel and it really shows you quite
A bit of information you can see your lanes on there your radar cruise control going trip computer all of that good stuff so lots of information you can see on there moving over to the middle we get a tablet style screen which is probably one of the most tablet style looking screens that i’ve seen it’s an 8 inch screen it’s the sink 3 it is touchscreen we get sirius
Xm apple carplay android auto also six speakers no advanced audio system on this one and then below that one thing that’s a little bit surprising is that we have single zone climate control instead of dual zone the dual zone is on the on the titanium and then one thing i appreciate is right down here below our ac controls we get a nice little storage cubby with a
Soft whining on the bottom one complaint though is ford’s a little stingy with their usb ports at least right now i believe they’re getting two more in the coming i think later this 2020 model maybe in the back maybe up here i’m not sure but we only get one usb see there and one usb regular here and then there’s a 12-volt power outlet up there the cupholders have
Worked fine as you can see with my bottle you still have the rotary dial shift knob and then you’ve got an electronic parking brake brake hold and then your drive mode button which the drive mode button is kind of frustrating because for a hybrid i wish we had an eevee mode like there is on the rav4 to where it’s evey priority but if you drive and feather it enough
It’ll keep you in electric mode but when you cycle through the rest of those drive modes it just takes forever to show up on the screen this armrest is in a nice spot it doesn’t move forward or anything but it is fairly long and when you lift it up you’ve got like i said a usb and some decent storage in here our model doesn’t have the automatic dimming mirror or the
Garage controls but you can move up and get those we still get a sunglass holder in here and this panoramic vista sunroof that goes way back one difference you’ll see with the hybrid and the gas models the hybrid has a couple inches less legroom but it’s still no slouch in the legroom department as you can see sitting behind myself i’ve got good nice pace i’ve got
Pretty good foot space as well and there’s a really small hump in the middle if you’re gonna have somebody sit there you still get the same active ex synthetic seeding materials here and these seats really do look pretty nice and they’re also still fairly comfortable even though i feel like the seats it’s a little low and my knees are a little higher than i was
Expecting but still i’ve got enough headroom back here even with this panoramic sunroof and when you’re sitting back here you can really get a cool view with this sunroof there’s still a fold-down center armrest with a couple cup holders these seats can still recline and scoot forward and backwards and for a couple little luxuries we have ac vents in front of us
And then one 12-volt power outlet for 2020 that escape hybrid gives you two different options you’ve got a regular hybrid like this and then you’ve got a plug-in hybrid option that we have not driven yet i told you about the turbocharged models before so this will be just about this hybrid and under the hood right here we have a 2.5 liter 4-cylinder it’s multi-port
Injected runs on the atkinson cycle and it’s paired with two electric motors for the hybrid system this can generate 200 horsepower it’s paired with an electronically controlled cvt an ec vt not quite the same operation as a traditional belt and pulley cvt and our model has all-wheel drive and it’s an actual all-wheel drive where the gas engine can send power to
The rear wheels unlike the rav4 hybrid which is just an electric motor for the rear wheels an efficiency is where this really takes the cake all-wheel drive right here we get 43 city 37 highway and 40 combined and front wheel drive we’ll bump that up 1 mile per gallon combined now the plug-in option gets about 20 more horsepower and we have not driven it yet to
Get actual figures but it’s front-wheel drive only let’s go ahead and take this for a drive and see just what kind of efficiency we can get all right everyone we are going on the test drive and i want to show you this key fob so it’s a typical ford key fob we have optional remote start on here and otherwise everything is pretty much the same push button start and
There’s a touchpad on the door so while we drive today i’m gonna kind of have this screen up i know you probably won’t be able to see it but i’m gonna tell you whether we’re in hybrid mode where the gas and electric is going whether we’re in electric mode which wheels are getting power how the regenerative braking is regenerative braking is going and at the end
Of this drive i’m going to tell you exactly what efficiency we got on this drive and what i’ve been getting the entire time i’ve had it and what this vehicle has gotten through its entire lifetime so be sure to stick around and i’ll read all those numbers to you all right everyone we are off and right off the bat and drive we are in electric mode both front and
Rear axles are getting power now i’ll tell you a little bit of the differences with this and that gas model and right there i don’t know if you could hear that but the gas engine kicked on and that’s one thing that i’ve noticed with this escape is that for the most part going from electric mode to gas engine on is pretty seamless however it’s definitely noticeable
I mean there’s a noticeable noise from that gas engine and there’s been a few times where it’s been a little bit of a jerk spend a little bit rough it’s nice that it reads to you how the regenerative braking is going we’re in electric mode now regenerative braking now so the regenerative braking the way that works is when you brake you capture some of the kinetic
Energy and it helps to go and charge the battery and in front of us it’s kind of cool there’s a little gauge on the right that shows how many kilowatts you’re going you’re using of the battery and of the engine and right now we’re in hybrid mode if i let off the gas it’s gonna automatically charge the battery even without braking it’s just going to because of that
Resistance it’d be nice if we had paddle shifters here to help use some of that regenerative braking like that mitsubishi plug-in that i saw recently and as i come to a stop as i’m braking it’ll give you a message bright coach 100% energy returned so that’s pretty cool it kind of coaches you and lets you know how you’re doing with your braking now with a little
Bit of a more spry acceleration here once i kind of got onto it a little more the gas engine kicked on and that one was pretty smooth and pretty seamless now one thing you’ll notice about the ford escape is that it’s not gonna wow you with anything it doesn’t have an amazing ride comfort it doesn’t have amazing handling and amazing i mean amazing for the class
It’s right on par its average it does just fine it’s not a harsh ride and it’s not a sloppy handling experience so for most of you i think when you hop in here and you get behind the wheel you’re just gonna feel right at home i mean it’s very easy to drive there’s nothing complicated about it there’s nothing that makes you feel uneasy really and now we’re slowing
Down gas engine is off regenerative braking and i slowed down a little harsher we got 88% return of energy now i’m gonna floor it and that got us up to speed now the biggest difference here with this and those turbos is that especially the 2-liter turbo this is nowhere near as quick and if we’re gonna throw the rav4 hybrid in there this is not as quick as the rav4
Hybrid either once you are up to speed and you kind of get on it though this does have enough bite so passing power is honestly not too bad accelerating from low speeds is not that good though now right here if you got a red light or a stop sign a ways off and you can afford to just kind of coast into it to break into it you can really soak up some energy with this
Hybrid system so driving a hybrid is a little bit of a learning curve if you’ve never driven one you can really milk these things and i had a trip in town and some highway actually not super long but i wasn’t really trying to milk it but i was trying to get good good mileage right i wasn’t getting on it very much wasn’t doing hard accelerations then we got like 50
Miles per gallon so that’s really awesome in fact i’m gonna go ahead and put this in eco mode just to get the most out of it it it kind of dolls down everything a little bit now cornering like i said it’s not great it’s not gonna while you but it’s good enough and the the gas engine has been on for a little while and we are down to thirty six point six miles per
Gallon 37 now and i understand a lot of this drive with you guys here is going to be technically probably highway because we don’t have as much braking as we normally would in the city and that’s that the reason that you get the best efficiency in the city forty three compared to 37 miles per gallon is because you get to benefit from all the regenerative braking
That you’re gonna do so city driving is definitely optimal with a hybrid if you’re just buzzing along like seventy five eighty miles per hour on the interstate it’s not gonna do that well efficiency wise and then i’m just gonna coast a little bit the gas engine shuts off it’s taking up some electricity here and we’re gonna go up to about forty miles per gallon now
In this short trip so far now this escape does have a ford co-pilot 360 we have adaptive cruise control on here as well as an option and i have a whole video explaining all of that and showing you how to use that on the brand new ford explorer so if you want to check that out and how well the adaptive cruise works how well the lane-keeping works be sure to check
That out because it’s it’s pretty fun now up that disc gradual incline back there the gas engine was on and now it just turned back off then the gassy engine the gas engine running is a fair amount of noise into the cabin more than i was hoping for in fact when this is an electric mode it’s pretty quiet and that gas sdl model that i tested with the 2-liter turbo
On the same road surface same speed same everything actually registered louder with my decibel ratings than this did and i wouldn’t be surprised if it has something to do with the gas engine now one thing about coming to a stop is the brake feel is a little bit different on a hybrid it’s just the way it is when you get through the regenerative brake portion you
Actually get into the usable brake for the most part it’s been good on here but there have been a few times where at lower speeds well it’s a little weird coming to a stop it’s a little bit tricky i guess you could say and now we are up to speed on a rougher road and i’m sure you can hear that noise the escape is not quiet i have seen a couple of articles where
People said it is a quiet ride it’s not a quiet ride it’s not as quiet as the mazda cx-5 the hyundai tucson oh gosh even i think the nissan rogue i can’t remember how it compared to the rav hybrid but the rav hybrid was not quiet either and on this road one thing i’ve noticed is a little bit coming from the panoramic roof is not rattle but it’s just like a little
Bit of a kind of like some fabric touching in a little bit of fabric noise which is a little bit annoying so i complained a little bit about the build quality in both the ford explorer and that gas sel ford escape and i hope that there’s no rattles that manifest out of this interior now we’ve really been able to coast we are on just electric driving now because
It’s been fairly flat back there not going too fast kind of letting off the gas and we are getting 45 miles per gallon right now now if i go ahead and kind of accelerate up this hill it drops that fairly quickly because the gas turns on it uses quite a bit of gas but i guess my biggest complaint i think is the fact that you can’t really control when you’re in
Eevee mode you kind of can you can kind of watch on the screen and on that how much threshold do you have before you get to gas mode but i wish it was an eevee button like there is on the rav4 hybrid but in terms of daily driving this escape has been great this hybrid has done well and let me go ahead and read you the numbers here in just a second alright so as i
Came to a stop 45 point one miles per gallon over a little over five miles on this trip on my time with it i’ve gotten 41 point 6 miles per gallon city and highway driving in the entire life of the vehicle going through all the press people any idling that it’s done thirty five point seven miles per gallon so when i drove it i got above epa ratings and it was not
Hard to do so definitely efficient and for those of you looking for an efficient crossover this is a great choice so to wrap things up on this ford escape hybrid the good news is that it was more efficient than the epa said in my week of testing i’ve also been lucky enough to drive the gas model the 2-liter turbo of this ford escape and that engine is fairly peppy
And pretty impressive but that is definitely for a different buyer and this hybrid was good enough although it’s not as peppy it’s not as fun it’s very efficient especially if you’re gonna be doing city driving there are only a couple of takeaways with the hybrid model versus the gas model you’ve got a little bit less space in the way back and a little bit less
Legroom but overall it’s still a really nice hybrid option what do you think of this which ford escape model would you go for and be sure to check out that sel gas model that i showed you before thank you so much for watching check out some of these other videos and we’ll catch you next time
Transcribed from video
Is the 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid FINALLY a Great RAV4 Hybrid Competitor? By Prime Autotainment
