Making Sense of the Ford Maverick Hybrid Availability

[Lone Star Proud]

Congrats, hopefully that start turning out the Hybrid in a more rapid pace soon! I am also selling my 2019 Ranger - tonight in fact! Carmax offer is for $37,400...XLT, 4wd Crew with tech/fx4/tow. I won't believe it is true until the check is in hand (but I have 2 other local offers at/above $35k as well). Not sure when you picked yours up, but I got mine back at the end of 2019 when they were basically fire-saling the 2019 Rangers. I would've been over the moon breaking even after almost 2 years...but with that offer I'm making more than a few bucks, used car market is crazy!

A two year old Ranger for almost $38 thousand? That's insane.

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[JBnorthTX]

The only thing that kept me from a hybrid was the $10k premium on price. Maverick offers hybrid technology at Civic / Corolla prices. This is the thing that's held this platform back.

Ford probably underestimated the impact of this. Hybrid technology at a slight discount instead of a premium, and the overall low price point seems to have pushed demand toward the hybrid.

Also, total demand probably exceeded expectations. What if the current ratio of hybrid to eco orders was the same as it is now but the total number of orders to date was 60% of actual? The hybrid production capacity constraints would not be having as much of an impact on build times.

Finally, I expect the total time to roll out a brand new model is a lot longer than most people think. The project was likely well on its way before COVID related supply chain issues became a thing. It's easy to say Ford should have simply delayed announcing the Maverick until the outlook was better, but since they likely underestimated hybrid demand a decision to "proceed as planned and try to do our best" might not be so unreasonable.

 

[JBnorthTX]

I think it's possible they didn't expect so many customers to want hybrids. With the benefit of hindsight we can see they were quite wrong.

 

[V2WIN]

Ford probably underestimated the impact of this. Hybrid technology at a slight discount instead of a premium, and the overall low price point seems to have pushed demand toward the hybrid.

Also, total demand probably exceeded expectations. What if the current ratio of hybrid to eco orders was the same as it is now but the total number of orders to date was 60% of actual? The hybrid production capacity constraints would not be having as much of an impact on build times.

Finally, I expect the total time to roll out a brand new model is a lot longer than most people think. The project was likely well on its way before COVID related supply chain issues became a thing. It's easy to say Ford should have simply delayed announcing the Maverick until the outlook was better, but since they likely underestimated hybrid demand a decision to "proceed as planned and try to do our best" might not be so unreasonable.

It's times these, that "just in time " hurts.

 

[Ronaldo]

I’m surprised the hybrid split isn’t at least 50-50, the EcoBoost cost you $1,085 and you loose all that hi tech hybrid technology and 15 miles per gallon. The videos that came out today said that the two engines are very close on power. I live in the Los Angeles area and have no need for all wheel drive and 4,000 lb towing isn’t very much, you are still going to need a bigger truck to tow a real trailer. I have really fast cars and neither engine is fast so look at the Maverick as a economy car with a very handy bed because that’s what it is. My hybrid build date is 10-17-21.

 

[Lone Star Proud]

Exactly. i had no interest in a new vehicle until my current car started having problems in early August. Until then, i didn't even know what a Maverick was. When i started looking, all of the Ford information I saw was about the hybrid engine being standard at a great price. So, it is a little hard to understand how Ford was caught short by the large number of hybrid orders when they were aggressively advertising it this way.

 

[Packer Bill]

I would have been interested in the hybrid but I need AWD and 4K towing. Eventually the hybrid will have these capabilities.

 

[Jakb]

I think Ford underestimated the population that was disappointed with the 2010's version of "bigger is better" trucks. You can't find a nice city truck without going pre-2010, and the Ranger was a big miss on that.

A friend of mine summed it up nicely with:
"I want a vehicle that is cheap, comfortable, safe, hybrid/plugin, hold a carseat and allows me to get a sheet of plywood home"

I already have two of my friends who are eyeing the maverick as they have always wanted a truck but an F150 is just too much. They have been eyeing mini-vans, crossovers, sedans with roofracks and more. Nothing checked the boxes. All my talk has both of them considering Mav's.

The Hybrid Maverick could not be better designed for the 25-40 year old urban family.

 

[Hdang1980]

I could be wrong but isn't the maverick the first instance where the hybrid is cheaper than the gas version? For me personally, that's why I never got the hybrid version of my current car because of the extra few thousand dollars it would have costed.

 

[tonyinsd]

The idea of being able to go two months between fillups with my three time a week supply runs was a big attraction for the hybrid. But if the pricing were reversed, I would have gotten the non-hybrid version.

I can buy a lot of gas for $1,000.

 

[pxpaulx]

A two year old Ranger for almost $38 thousand? That's insane.

Yup and they paid it - no mussing or fussing and paid me the online quote. I sat for 20 minutes while they walked around it and took pics, didn't even drive it (it was really in excellent condition, I cleaned it spotless, garaged and only 14k miles). They paid about $2,500 below the original sticker...but over $4k more than I paid for it (after taxes!).

While the Ranger has ended up selling well, in 2019 they let them go at fire-sale prices probably due to lack of advertising/knowledge they were out there. Heck - I had someone come up to me in August asking if that was the new Ranger - and he loved the look of it! If he was that far behind I couldn't be bothered explaining that the Maverick was coming

 

[grumpyunk]

I have seen ZERO advertising for the Maverick.
If it had been introduced as in the past, it would show up on showroom floors and there would be at least some stock on the lot. Most dealers accept the 'mix' that is the most popular, as designated by FoMoCo. The 'mix' will tend to be the next level above the base, with added gizmos and features.
Looking at the sales of hybrids, a 'take' rate of 35% was their projection, and I think the rate for the 'reservations' was a big SURPRISE! I expect they are scrambling to get the hybrid certified and produced. They do not want delay as that delays cash flow. They better hope their engineers were on their toes in producing a new motor, building their own battery packs, and introducing a new model of the CVTe. That is a lot of eggs that have yet to be hatched. Should they run into problems with their new 'stuff' it could put egg on a lot of faces. Were I doing it, I would be VERY CAREFUL to introduce and produce a reliable product that will not come back to take a chomp on their tuchus. The HAVE to get it right, so slow, steady, careful steps in getting the production ling working without fuss or problems makes good sense to me.
In a normal intro, there would be NO ONE chomping at the bit, asking "Where is my hybrid? I ordered two months ago..." because no orders would have been taken until October 5. So, here we are a day later, one day after pubic intro, and people are creating a lot of stir around poor planning, poor publicity, poorly done blah blah blah.
Give it a month or so, let the line start cranking out the hybrids at a good normal rate, and all the wondering about Ford incompetence and chicanery will go away.
tom

 

[A_Turkey_Sammich]

I think it’s a combination of a lot of things mentioned already. My take with hybrid in general in addition to points already made…

I think it ends up a bit of a feedback loop/self fulfilling prophecy with the manufacturers. We’re only going to make (enter low %) hybrid due to the amount of takers on old goofy looking slow hybrids. They don’t sell as many hybrids because they aren’t on the lots like the standard drivetrains. I’m sure there are plenty of people that would of gone for hybrid but ultimately get the conventional drivetrain if they weren’t as scarce to find on lots ready to buy vs really having to hunt one down or order…especially with vehicles like this maverick where price, performance, etc is there with the hybrid option and just as suitable for what most buyers use the vehicle for. Naturally they sell more of the conventional models, so the cycle continues…we sold X conventional vs Y hybrid, so let’s keep making a much higher percentage of the conventional ones because that’s what’s selling….never mind that they are selling more of those cause that’s what they are making the most of. Not saying that changing that would instantly flip the tables making hybrid options hugely more dominant, but I bet the take rate for hybrid would go up significantly if the availability was there.

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