[0:00] The 2022 Ford Escape plug-in hybrid EV
[0:03] is the official car of nice guys. You
[0:07] know exactly who I'm talking about.
[0:09] Those sniveling little larval stage red
[0:11] pillers whose niceness is entirely
[0:14] transactional and built around trying to
[0:17] dip their fork in the casserole. They
[0:19] seem caring and compassionate, but
[0:23] underneath it all is a gremlin trying to
[0:25] figure out how to be validated for as
[0:27] little effort as possible. And in that
[0:29] way this car will sell you on the notion
[0:33] that it's sensible, it's safe, it's
[0:35] worthy. But then you give him a chance
[0:38] and what you get is an experience so
[0:40] painfully mid it's like they motorized
[0:44] the sensation of eating chain restaurant
[0:47] chicken wings. I mean it's okay, I
[0:50] guess. But this isn't the mom and pop
[0:53] deli around the corner making lemon
[0:55] pepper wet. Yet in classic nice guy
[0:58] fashion, this doesn't just stop at being
[1:01] blandly undesirable. It's simultaneously
[1:05] needy while oozing entitlement that
[1:08] because it's perfectly acceptable it
[1:11] therefore deserves to be desired. And
[1:14] look, being the safe option has never
[1:17] made anybody's pants shift around, but a
[1:20] nice guy will be out here in these hot
[1:22] streets talking about I can treat you
[1:24] better and then your reward for giving
[1:26] him a chance is being late to every
[1:28] function involving your family. Ford
[1:31] Escape Hybrid. I used to work at Best
[1:33] Buy and also I still work at Best Buy.
[1:36] Now let's watch a bunch of grindset
[1:38] videos with Thomas Shelby in the
[1:40] thumbnail.
[1:44] >> [groaning]
[1:44] >> The mediocrity almost feels intentional.
[1:47] Like Ford executives sat up there in
[1:49] their Michigan mind palace conjuring up
[1:51] how best to create something that evokes
[1:55] nothing. It's like they started from the
[1:57] premise of a car for somebody
[1:59] experiencing their first day on Earth
[2:01] every single day and then started
[2:04] building from there. The Ford Escape
[2:06] Plug-in Hybrid EV is a futuristic car
[2:09] that promises a future of limited
[2:13] participation.
[2:14] The world is overstimulating. People are
[2:16] peopling too hard. The sixth family
[2:19] member this month has a birthday coming
[2:21] up and work is asking you to do stuff
[2:23] again. Well, here you go. Here's your
[2:26] sensory deprivation pod, colorless and
[2:29] mute.
[2:30] We're Ford.
[2:32] We'll break down so you don't have to.
[2:36] It would almost be kind of genius if
[2:39] Ford really did decide to market to the
[2:42] overstimulated by saying, "Here you go.
[2:45] It's your favorite.
[2:47] Less."
[2:48] Except, well, I think there's a lot more
[2:51] going on underneath the surface here.
[2:55] >> And they say nice
[2:56] >> Nice.
[2:57] >> guy
[2:57] >> Guy.
[2:58] >> Go and drive [singing] a plug-in hybrid,
[3:01] nice guy. Ford not lobbies that way.
[3:07] >> 2022 Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid EV, the
[3:11] official car of gas station chicken
[3:13] Caesar wraps. I mean, how good could it
[3:16] possibly be? But also, how wrong could
[3:19] somebody possibly get this?
[3:22] The Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid feels
[3:24] engineered to be offensive to absolutely
[3:27] no one. Like a corporate apology that's
[3:29] been fussed over and run past legal
[3:32] again and again to make sure they got
[3:34] the wording right. It's a triumph of
[3:37] artless efficiency. This is a car for
[3:40] the kind of person who generates AI
[3:42] artwork and then watermarks it. It's
[3:45] very much a product, a digestible,
[3:48] inoffensive product. A movie by a
[3:52] filmmaker who's lost his fastball,
[3:55] sitting there in his Patagonia sweater
[3:58] on a director's chair with a hemorrhoid
[4:00] donut. We'll fix it in post, always
[4:03] waiting in the wings at the back of his
[4:04] throat. Yeah, yeah, let's phone this in,
[4:08] why not? We're already good for a 55% on
[4:11] Rotten Tomatoes, brother. That's our
[4:13] floor. That's the Ford Escape Plug-In
[4:16] Hybrid EV. Because even at peak
[4:19] operation, it's so blandly inoffensive,
[4:22] you'd think it was trying to get
[4:23] monetized on TikTok.
[4:26] This is a car for people whose hot take
[4:28] is social media bad. Like, okay, yeah,
[4:32] but also you're still on it. And you
[4:34] know, this car is frustrating because I
[4:36] feel like there's the bones of something
[4:39] better underneath all this senioritis
[4:42] engineering. The road feel is whatever.
[4:45] The handling is whatever. None of it is
[4:48] bad, it's just there. This entire car is
[4:52] just there.
[4:56] Let's get down to brass tacks. The
[4:58] drivetrain consists of a 2.5 L Atkinson
[5:01] cycle four-cylinder, an electric motor,
[5:04] and a 14.4 kWh battery whose combined
[5:08] system output is around 221 horsepower
[5:11] and 155 pound-feet of torque. It's
[5:15] matched to a power-split eCVT,
[5:18] which basically is a planetary gear set
[5:20] that precludes the need for all the
[5:22] extra CVT hardware, like belts and
[5:25] hydraulics. Yet, the drive itself is
[5:29] dispassionately efficient, like having
[5:31] your lunch money taken by a bully on
[5:33] SSRIs.
[5:35] The handling is very light, which is
[5:37] fine for just tooling around the lot
[5:40] where we were filming. But once we were
[5:42] out on the highway, I kept waiting for
[5:43] this to commit. It's not exactly fast,
[5:47] although it's not sluggish either.
[5:49] Acceleration has the urgency of a
[5:52] swinger changing his mind after his wife
[5:55] already left.
[5:56] You're fast, but you're not going to get
[5:59] there in time, my friend. What I would
[6:02] say is that this feels kind of floaty,
[6:05] like it's tuned for comfort more than
[6:07] for handling or road feel, which is fine
[6:10] because in fairness, it's not positioned
[6:13] as a performance car. It's positioned as
[6:16] a practical hybrid SUV intended to
[6:20] represent a cross-section between rugged
[6:22] usability and daily driver appeal.
[6:26] Internal combustion married to the
[6:29] long-term fuel savings of an EV, a sort
[6:32] of best of both worlds. I'm not sure the
[6:35] point is to be interesting or even
[6:38] engaging. It's to be agreeable,
[6:40] unchallenging, and incapable of letting
[6:43] you down because it's not promising
[6:45] anything more than a low-frills option
[6:47] for husbands whose dream vacation is an
[6:51] unbothered trip to his own bathroom.
[6:54] For all the flak I gave to the 2004 Ford
[6:57] Escape I reviewed, that had an endearing
[7:00] kind of character to it. An SUV that
[7:02] thought it was a sedan, a Ford Cruiser
[7:05] with off-road ambitions and a Mazda
[7:08] soul. But this is a homogenized product,
[7:11] just uninspired engineering upholstered
[7:14] in hard Lego store plastics. Yeah, you
[7:17] buy it to save money, but people cut
[7:20] their own hair to save money, and that's
[7:22] not a great idea either.
[7:24] Now, this was priced at around $36,000
[7:27] new and could climb above $42,000
[7:30] depending on trim. But even on the
[7:32] expensive end, the idea is that you're
[7:34] still ultimately coming out ahead on
[7:37] fuel savings.
[7:38] I'm looking all of this up in in
[7:40] official brochure, but it claims that
[7:42] the plug-in hybrid models have an
[7:44] EPA-estimated combined range of 481
[7:49] miles for model year 2022. But, this
[7:52] changes when you break down the economy
[7:55] for both systems.
[7:57] EV efficiency is around 105 MPGe,
[8:02] so miles per gallon equivalent, while
[8:04] fuel economy tops out at 40 miles per
[8:07] gallon on gasoline. Electric-only range
[8:11] is 37 miles, which is better than the 32
[8:14] miles achieved by such options as the
[8:17] plug-in hybrid 2022 Hyundai Tucson and
[8:21] 2022 Kia Sorento. Yet, despite having a
[8:25] 60-mile round trip commute to work, my
[8:29] fantastic volunteer Ryan has only had to
[8:32] fill up gas twice so far in 2026.
[8:37] Great right?
[8:38] Well, not exactly. You see, for as good
[8:42] as that mileage is,
[8:44] it should be better. But, his overall
[8:47] efficiency is far more limited than it
[8:50] ought to be because of a system error
[8:53] that prevents him charging past 80%.
[8:57] And this ties into how many problems
[9:00] this car has had.
[9:02] Ryan has owned this fewer than 4 years,
[9:05] and there have been numerous recalls in
[9:08] that time over such things as the fuel
[9:11] injector catching fire, the display
[9:13] screen inverting and getting stuck that
[9:16] way, or the battery shorting out to such
[9:18] an extent that Ryan told me that Ford
[9:21] recommended not charging it at all for a
[9:24] year, which is kind of wild to me. But,
[9:27] then when you look at it, even the stuff
[9:30] that didn't warrant a recall are
[9:33] frustrating enough that it made me
[9:35] wonder why anybody would bother with
[9:37] this car. Like the charging door getting
[9:39] stuck, sometimes it won't open,
[9:42] sometimes it won't close, and as Ryan
[9:45] discovered, if you can't close it, you
[9:47] can't drive it because the car wouldn't
[9:49] let him go anywhere while the charge
[9:51] door was open. So, he had to take the
[9:53] heat gun to this thing countless times.
[9:56] And while these are just one person's
[9:59] experiences and not universal to every
[10:02] Escape plug-in hybrid, I do think they
[10:05] illustrate a car that probably needed
[10:07] more time in development. I mean, at its
[10:10] best, at its absolute best, it does
[10:13] enough to feel modern and practical and
[10:16] even pleasant because it doesn't leave
[10:18] enough of an impression to make you
[10:20] notice that it's underwhelming you. But
[10:23] at its worst, this is a needy machine,
[10:27] constantly asking for accommodation
[10:30] rather than simply making your life
[10:32] easier.
[10:33] Okay, so you save on fuel, but how many
[10:36] more recalls can I anticipate? What are
[10:38] our odds of catching fire today? You
[10:41] going to link the app this time or are
[10:43] you going to lag again? These issues
[10:46] have the potential to stack one on top
[10:49] of the other until they're piled higher
[10:51] than one of those trendy hipster bar
[10:53] hamburgers that's meant to be
[10:55] photographed instead of eaten because
[10:57] even without the recalls, you're still
[10:59] being treated to a painfully mid-tier
[11:02] experience.
[11:04] You'd think a plug-in hybrid SUV would
[11:07] have been a layup for Ford, especially
[11:09] with fuel costing what it does and
[11:11] people looking for a car that's
[11:13] versatile enough to be a good daily
[11:15] while offering more utility than just
[11:18] some standard sedan or even just some
[11:20] standard SUV. I'm not surprised that
[11:23] production costs were high, but I am
[11:25] surprised that it still feels this cheap
[11:29] and that it feels this disinterested in
[11:32] showing any signs of life beyond bare
[11:34] minimum functionality. This is a car
[11:37] that projects an attitude of cooperation
[11:40] and partnership, but ends up controlling
[11:43] you through its neediness. And that
[11:45] brings me back to the nice guy-ification
[11:49] of the internal combustion Escape. A car
[11:52] that, while not some paragon of
[11:55] engineering excellence, still felt
[11:57] substantial by comparison to this. The
[12:01] Escape plug-in hybrid bites off more
[12:04] than it can chew, like they wanted to
[12:06] make a RAV4 hybrid and just gave up
[12:09] halfway because it would require too
[12:11] much work. Maybe in that sense, it isn't
[12:14] the Escape plug-in hybrid that's the
[12:16] nice guy, it's Ford themselves. Because
[12:19] nice guys always try and outkick their
[12:22] coverage, then rage quit when they come
[12:24] up short. And Ford is doing the same
[12:26] thing here as 2026 is reportedly going
[12:30] to be the last model year for the
[12:32] Escape. And by accepting and moving on,
[12:36] Ford is already taking rejection better
[12:38] than any nice guy you're likely to ever
[12:40] meet. But that doesn't really absolve
[12:43] Ford from making this seem like a much
[12:45] more low-stress, capable car than it
[12:48] actually is. And I get that advertising
[12:51] isn't always about marketing to a
[12:52] consumer's taste, but trying to convince
[12:55] them to buy something they might not
[12:57] have considered before. Because you
[12:59] don't need to improve yourself or work
[13:02] on your desirability if you can simply
[13:04] convince someone to accept less. But
[13:08] wearing somebody down is not the same
[13:11] thing as winning them over. Okay, so you
[13:14] got them to accept a car that's good
[13:16] enough because it's available and it
[13:18] makes sense. Being chosen doesn't
[13:22] suddenly make the thing that's chosen
[13:24] great. And the Escape feels like a car
[13:27] that never achieves whatever potential
[13:29] it might have had because trying was
[13:31] beneath its dignity. Yet in that sense,
[13:36] it can never lose [clears throat]
[13:37] precisely because it wasn't really
[13:40] trying. It's just doing enough to get
[13:43] by.
[13:44] The Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid EV is a
[13:48] car that doesn't know how to win
[13:50] because its idea of victory
[13:53] is simply not being defeated.
[14:01] All right, this is kind of a tough one
[14:03] because conceptually, I just really did
[14:06] not enjoy this car. I feel like it
[14:08] presents a pragmatic option, yet it
[14:11] risks causing as many headaches as it
[14:14] solves. Like I said, at best, it's
[14:16] blandly inoffensive, and at worst, I
[14:19] could imagine a hard plaque of
[14:21] resentment building against this because
[14:23] it feels like it should be better than
[14:25] it is, but it's not. It doesn't feel as
[14:28] powerful as you're told it is, and it's
[14:30] one battle after another with all the
[14:32] recalls. Like they just fed a hungover
[14:35] groom six cups of coffee, and then
[14:37] shoved him into the chapel without
[14:39] noticing the wet patch blossoming around
[14:42] his crotch.
[14:43] It's really not the worst hybrid in the
[14:45] world. I would argue that it's not even
[14:47] bad, really. It's just disappointing.
[14:50] It's like I said, it's mid. It's not
[14:52] going to make your life miserable every
[14:54] time you have to drive it, and you will
[14:56] save money driving this. But it also
[14:59] doesn't feel like any great care went
[15:01] into making this. All right, look. I'm
[15:03] just going to wing it. I need to decide,
[15:06] and I haven't. So, I'm just going to
[15:07] roll the dice. Um
[15:10] Uh bottom five.
[15:13] You know what? No, it's not. This falls
[15:16] in the crack of the race to the bottom.
[15:19] It's neither top five nor bottom five.
[15:21] It's just it exists. Because it's not
[15:25] bad enough for me to truly rail against
[15:28] it, but it's also not good enough that I
[15:31] would ever really recommend this to
[15:33] anybody. So, there you have it. The top
[15:36] five and the bottom five remain the
[15:38] same. I'd like to thank Ryan for
[15:41] volunteering in the first place and
[15:43] providing such a satisfying shooting
[15:45] day, even though I didn't really like
[15:48] your car. I'm sorry. If you'd like to
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[16:14] for the main channel. It's probably
[16:15] going to be a while, just because I'm
[16:16] not sure when we're going to have
[16:18] another Monday that isn't already spoken
[16:20] for. I don't know. Maybe I'll just
[16:22] release it on a Tuesday. Some random
[16:24] Tuesday and just pray for the best.
[16:27] Now, if you think you have a car that
[16:29] can win the race to the bottom, or you
[16:31] have a car that you think Brian would
[16:33] want to review, and you're willing to
[16:35] come to us in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
[16:38] email me at
[16:39] regularcarstheroman@gmail.com.
[16:42] That's regularcarstheroman@gmail.com.
[16:47] Please specify in the email if it's for
[16:49] RCR, race to the bottom, or either.
[16:52] Merch links are in the description, and
[16:55] hey, thank you so much for watching.
[16:58] Your viewership is enough, and I
[17:00] appreciate it. Have an amazing
[17:03] rest of your week.
[17:06] >> And they say nice
[17:08] guy
[17:09] >> guy
[17:10] >> go and drive a [music and singing]
[17:11] plug-in hybrid. Nice guy
[17:15] for my hobbies that [singing] way.
[17:18] >> If you're a nice
[17:20] >> Nice.
[17:20] >> guy
[17:21] >> Guy.
[17:21] >> Drive the Ford Escape in silence. White
[17:25] lies aren't simply mistakes.