{"id":24169,"date":"2019-09-07T12:02:49","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T16:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=24169"},"modified":"2019-09-07T12:02:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-07T16:02:49","slug":"road-test-a-2012-ford-hybrid-new-york-taxi-with-400000-miles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/road-test-a-2012-ford-hybrid-new-york-taxi-with-400000-miles","title":{"rendered":"Road test: A 2012 Ford Hybrid New York taxi with 400,000 miles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/c2393f14-fe82-4e64-91dc-86b27ef3345c-Taxi-15.JPG?width=540&amp;height=&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"You've come a long way, baby. On its tour of downtown Detroit, the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi stops by Ford's original Highland Park plant where the Model T was assembled.\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div><p>You&#8217;ve come a long way, baby. On its tour of downtown Detroit, the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi stops by Ford&#8217;s original Highland Park plant where the Model T was assembled.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Henry Payne, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable-p-1 p-text\">Talk about built Ford tough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable-p-2 p-text\">I\u2019ve been tooling around Detroit in a bright yellow 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid New York taxi with 400,000 miles on the odometer. Four-hundred thousand. I\u2019ve never owned a car with 200,000 miles, much less a cab that survived New York\u2019s street of Hades for all that time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">With Ford about to launch the first new hybrid option of its popular Escape model in 13 years, the cab that the automaker loaned to me is a revealing artifact of the promise and drawbacks of battery-powered vehicles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The early 2000s were high times for hybrids as the Toyota Prius\u00a0accelerated in sales while pundits predicted peak oil, and politicians\u00a0declared hybrids Earth\u2019s best friend. Leading the way was New York Mayor\u00a0Michael Bloomberg who\u00a0tried to force yellow cabs to go hybrid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Bloomberg predicted all city taxis would be hybrid by 2012 and piled on incentives for cab drivers to get there (on top of $3,000 tax credits offered by the federal government). A leader in hybrids under Bill Ford, the Blue Oval was poised to take advantage of Bloomberg\u2019s activism and, in 2007, yellow Escape hybrids starting hitting the city streets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Or should I say bump-bump-bumping city streets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">I\u2019ve driven Gotham byways for decades going back to my \u201880s Jersey college years, and they make Detroit\u2019s oxcart paths seem smooth by comparison. Throw in city tempers and traffic thicker than Andrew Dice Clay\u2019s Brooklyn accent, and a mile in a city cab can feel like you\u2019re on an amusement park thrill ride.<\/p>\n<div id=\"module-position-SExRmMqiNmM\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\">\n<aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/89e75731-4688-4a06-ace0-fa6fb3e9ae31-Taxi-17.JPG?width=540&amp;height=&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"The interior of the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi doesn't have the pizzaz of the forthcoming, 2020 Escape Hybrid.\" width=\"540\" data-mycapture-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/89e75731-4688-4a06-ace0-fa6fb3e9ae31-Taxi-17.JPG\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/89e75731-4688-4a06-ace0-fa6fb3e9ae31-Taxi-17.JPG?width=500&amp;height=281\" \/>The interior of the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi doesn&#8217;t have the pizzaz of the forthcoming, 2020 Escape Hybrid.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Henry Payne, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<div class=\"clearfix\">\u00a0Now do it for 400,000 miles.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p-text\">I can only imagine what this Escape Hybrid has been through, and I admire its durability. No, not the interior which looks like it hosted a party of 6-year-olds. The ripped seats are patched with tape. The controller-knob graphics are worn to nothing. The driver\u2019s-side visor kept dropping into my face. The driver\u2019s-door window didn\u2019t work, the radio wheezed and the interior had more rattles than a haunted house.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ad-position-58\" class=\"partner-placement partner-spike partner-placement-visible\" data-ad-placement=\"native-article_link\" data-ad-sizes=\"[&quot;fluid&quot;,[3,3], [2,6]]\" data-monetization-id=\"native-article_link\" data-monetization-sizes=\"fluid,3,3,2,6\">But the hybrid drivetrain was healthy as horse. This is remarkable because we all suspect that car batteries will one day expire like our phones.<\/div>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Nope. Ford confirmed that the 400,000-mile\u00a0drivetrain contained the original\u00a0nickel-metal hydride battery mated to a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine and continuously variable transmission. Indeed, the combination of low-end electric-motor torque and smooth CVT shifting made for a drivetrain that had no business being competent after nearly half-a-million miles on Gotham roads.<\/p>\n<div id=\"module-position-SExRmMru6Eo\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\">\n<aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/735038a2-041a-4c7c-a7bd-b0be156b3974-Taxi-18.JPG?width=540&amp;height=&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"The back seat of the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi had seen some wear over 400k miles.\" width=\"540\" data-mycapture-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/735038a2-041a-4c7c-a7bd-b0be156b3974-Taxi-18.JPG\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/735038a2-041a-4c7c-a7bd-b0be156b3974-Taxi-18.JPG?width=500&amp;height=281\" \/>The back seat of the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi had seen some wear over 400k miles.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Henry Payne, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Rated at 30 mpg new, my cab was still clocking 24.7 mpg in my two days in Detroit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Alas, this reliability had little effect on the Escape Hybrid\u2019s sales durability. After debuting to media acclaim \u2013 it won the 2006 North American Car of the Year \u2013 Escape Hybrid sales dropped by 60% by 2012 even as the Escape overall achieved record sales. With a whopping $9,000\u00a0premium over a comparable\u00a0gas-powered model, not even government subsidies could make up the difference<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">A 2006 Roadshow review foreshadowed the steep hill Escape Hybrid had to climb: \u201cCommanding a serious premium over a comparable gas-powered Ford Escape, our front-wheel-drive 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid came in at $31,080. At this list price, the Escape Hybrid runs into a lot of competition, and the novelty and reduced consumption for its size may not be enough to make it a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">But the argument for the Ford Escape Hybrid as a taxi (or Uber as we say these days) is much more compelling. Especially with Ford\u2019s upgrade to lithium-ion batteries in its most recent\u00a0Fusion Hybrid and subsequent narrowing of the hybrid price premium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">While we won\u2019t see the slipper, new Ford Escape Hybrid \u2014 one of my New York Auto Show 10 Best new products \u2014 until later this fall, we do know it will only cost $28,255. That\u2019s just $3,370 more than the base\u00a0gas-powered ute. Furthermore, it will likely return fuel economy numbers similar to the $28,000 Fusion Hybrid\u2019s 42 mpg combined, a whopping 70%\u00a0better than the standard\u00a0$23,170 Fusion at 25 mpg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Driving an average of 10,000 miles a year, a normal Fusion hybrid owner would take 10 years to make up that $5,000 premium at current $3-a-gallon gas prices. But cabbies aren\u2019t average.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The average NYC cab driver puts on 50,000 miles a year (my taxi averaged 57,000 a year to clock its 400,000 total), which means they\u2019d get the premium back in a cool 24 months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">No wonder so many Uber drivers tell me they are looking at hybrids. They\u2019re economical \u2013 even compared to EVs which may never require a visit to the filling station, but need constant charging. Not so the gas hybrid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The beauty of hybrid taxi-nomics is they just make sense, which means manufacturers shouldn\u2019t have to rely on cockamamie political schemes to sell them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">That was not always the case. The nickel-hydride battery in the 2012 hybrid cab only delivered about 28%\u00a0better fuel economy compared to Escape\u2019s standard 2.5-liter mill. So it didn\u2019t make up the $9,000 premium on my Ford Hybrid taxi until, well \u2013 last year. That\u2019s a long time.<\/p>\n<div id=\"module-position-SExRmMrUgIc\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\">\n<aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/33beda93-541a-4066-b770-4c8489c3657d-Taxi-14.JPG?width=540&amp;height=&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"The 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi mated a 2.5-liter gas engine to a nickel-metal hydride battery and electric motor.\" width=\"540\" data-mycapture-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/33beda93-541a-4066-b770-4c8489c3657d-Taxi-14.JPG\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/33beda93-541a-4066-b770-4c8489c3657d-Taxi-14.JPG?width=500&amp;height=281\" \/>The 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi mated a 2.5-liter gas engine to a nickel-metal hydride battery and electric motor.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Henry Payne, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p-text\">We\u2019ll see if the new Escape Hybrid lives up to its potential.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">In the meantime, I didn\u2019t do the 2012 taxi any favors by taking it through the streets of Detroit. An NYC-mobile with 400,000\u00a0miles on its bod deserves to retire to Florida like other senior citizens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">But I put the ol\u2019 boy to work up and down the Lodge and I-75 and then up Woodward to visit Ford\u2019s birthplace at the Highland Park factory. It was about a century ago, of course, that Henry\u2019s gas engine defeated the electric vehicles of the time on cost and practicality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">A century later, Ford is betting battery power can compete with the gas engine. At least we know the battery can last as long as its gas engine.<\/p>\n<div id=\"module-position-SExRmMqS9oE\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\">\n<aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/a92630dc-a6a6-4043-90eb-0c3f5dc74299-Taxi-19.JPG?width=540&amp;height=&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Fill 'er up. Though hybrid engines are out of favor with governments these days, the gas engine is crucial to extended operation with easy access to gas infrastructure. Pure EVs have little charging infrastructure.\" width=\"540\" data-mycapture-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/a92630dc-a6a6-4043-90eb-0c3f5dc74299-Taxi-19.JPG\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2019\/09\/05\/PDTN\/a92630dc-a6a6-4043-90eb-0c3f5dc74299-Taxi-19.JPG?width=500&amp;height=281\" \/>Fill &#8216;er up. Though hybrid engines are out of favor with governments these days, the gas engine is crucial to extended operation with easy access to gas infrastructure. Pure EVs have little charging infrastructure.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Henry Payne, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve come a long way, baby. On its tour of downtown Detroit, the 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid NYC Taxi stops by Ford&#8217;s original Highland Park plant where the Model T was assembled.\u00a0(Photo: Henry Payne, The Detroit News) Talk about built Ford tough. I\u2019ve been tooling around Detroit in a bright yellow 2012 Ford Escape Hybrid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}