Driven to extinction: Ford Escape

Richard Ferlazzo couldn’t have been more right.

The designer was assessing Ford’s box-fresh Escape at the 2021 Wheels Car of the Year, and after giving his views on its design, summarised with the pithy observation that it “may struggle to get noticed.”

Yes, the Escape was ejected in round one of the event, but the judges all loved its ride and handling, yet instinctively knew that the dynamics alone wouldn’t deliver the sort of showroom sizzle that would pitch the Escape ahead of the likes of the Toyota RAV4 or the Mazda CX-5 in the VFACTS rundown.

In fact, its sales were even more dismal than we could have likely imagined. Ford sold 1673 Escapes in 2021, where it was beaten by the Renault Koleos (1937). To offer some frame of reference, the RAV4 shifted 35,571 units.

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The Escape’s tally grew to 2179 cars in ’22, its share of market rising from 1.1 to 1.2 per cent.

But again, a clogger like the Koleos beat it, selling 2552 units. At the last published sales report of this year, its market share had swollen to, you guessed it, 1.3 percent.

At this rate, it would only take another 150 years before the Escape became the dominant player in the Medium SUV sector.

As you may have cunningly deduced from the title of this section, Ford isn’t giving it that sort of stay of execution. In fact, the very last shipment of Escape PHEVs are en route to dealers as you read this. That means you can no longer spec an Escape to order.

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If you want one, you’ll have to get your elbows out and start perusing dealer stock. The pure-ICE Escape is already done, so the only available Escapes will be those that you plug in.

But not to a DC rapid charger, note. The Escape PHEV only accepts low-speed AC charging. That might be a bit quaint, but the plus side of which is that you’ll never find one hogging a public charger.

The Escape wasn’t helped by Ford’s perpetual dithering over its mid-sized SUV offerings post-Territory. You knew exactly what you were going to get with a big ‘un like an Everest, but an Escape? Or, come to that, the even more mystifying and equally short-lived Endura?

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They just proved that Ford could build a decent product but could neither get the marketing or the messaging right to resonate with the Aussie consumer.

In November 2022, we pitched the Escape into its first comparo. Ford Australia’s first plug-in hybrid offering lost fairly convincingly to a car with eight years of plug-in backstory, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. With DC charging ability, all-wheel drive, a superior warranty and a multi-link rear end, the Japanese car notched up a convincing win.

The Ford Escape certainly struggled to get noticed. Many would say that was warranted.

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A great used buy?

The Escape struggled in the new-car market, but may represent a decent pick second time round.

Low recognition means that search volumes for the Escape are tiny, which reduces competition. We’re seeing MY21 Vignales at less than $40K with 20K on the odo, a 20 percent drop in two years in a market where mid-range SUVs cling to value. A 2021 RAV4 Hybrid, by contrast, will have lost barely any value