The Escape is one of those cars that got less interesting to me as it got better. The original, hybrid and boxy small crossover was really ahead of the market in many ways. While the model has improved measurably over that original, it has lost a little flair. The fact that it’s basically gone is both representative of where the auto industry over-pivoted towards EVs and, frankly, how it’s making up the gap with more expensive models.
While the Escape is one of The Morning Dump’s preoccupations, it’s not the only one. I’m also interested in how Tesla is selling Full Self Driving and, at least according to one report, it’s over-selling it. The USMCA? Probably, maybe, kinda dead. It sounds like there’s more talk coming about how it’s gonna be a bunch of bilateral deals, though maybe those can save it?
Here’s something I haven’t written about lately: Grand Theft Auto VI. It was way more expensive to make than I realized.
Money Talks So Escape Owners Won’t Walk
In researching The Morning Dump this morning, I’ve all but convinced myself that Ford is going to name one of its UEV-platformed electric vehicles the Ford Escape. It just makes too much sense. Assuming the Ford $30,000 EV pickup is the Ranchero, the family crossover based on it should just be the Escape. Right? Remember I said this… unless I’m wrong, and then you can just forget it (and if I am right I’ll just remind you of that fact a bunch of times).
By the way, the first ever story I wrote as an automotive journalist was covering Ford’s future CEO Mark “Execumullet” Fields announcing at the Chicago Auto Show that it was silly for the company to abandon the Taurus name and that it would be renaming the Ford 500 the Ford Taurus. That was a weird, mid car, but it brought the Taurus name back for a little while at least.
The Escape hasn’t ever quite had the prominence of Taurus or Explorer, though it has a loyal following and sold in impressive volumes, especially towards the end of last decade. That’s why Ford abandoning the Escape name always struck me as odd. It’s always been a great entry-point into the fold with a loyal following (my own MIL went Explorer->Escape->Escape). Essentially, the Ford Escape died so the $30,000 truck could live, and with both the Bronco Sport and Maverick in the fold it maybe made less sense to retain it.
I keep forgetting that Ford also abandoned the Edge around this time, and I assumed that Edge buyers would go Explorer and Escape owners would go Bronco Sport/ Maverick. My assumption was wrong. Well, half-wrong. Edge buyers are going to the Explorer and so are Escape owners.
What’s going on here?
Some Escape owners are managing to get great deals on the old stock of Escapes on dealer lots, but like Knicks hats, that’s an increasingly finite resource (I haven’t been able to find a hat all weekend). Other than not bringing back the Ford Escort, the people who run the company clearly have some idea what they’re doing.
If you wanted a cheap Escape, the MSRP was as little as $32k before Tax, Title and Licensing fees. As for the Ford Explorer, technically the cheapest is the Active 100A rental special is the cheapest at $40,750 out the door. I want heated seats and USB ports, so for the much larger three-row I think the regular Activ spec is the one to get, and at $42,075 delivered that’s a big jump from a base Escape.
According to Automotive News, the answer for Ford was just to make the Explorer $10,000 cheaper for Escape owners:
But current Escape owners can save up to $10,000 through private offers from the automaker aimed at keeping them in the fold, said Jim Moshier, general manager at Ricart Ford in Columbus, Ohio. Ford told dealers that those targeted discounts, plus more attractive lease options, would help make up for the Escape going away.
Moshier said his store is selling significantly more Explorer Active models this year, which Ford has prioritized building. Many of those base-model buyers are moving up from the Escape.
“It’s not that big of a jump when you add the private offers in there,” he said. “Ford met the need.”
I am on the record complaining about trimflation, so for me the big news here isn’t just that Ford is making it possible for Escape owners to upgrade to the Explorer, but that Ford seems to be sticking to its pledge to make more of the entry-level trims.
A part of me doesn’t love getting people who don’t really need a larger three-row vehicle into a larger and heavier three-row vehicle. The size of the Escape just the right size for people and offers a nice alternative for something in between the Bronco Sport and Explorer, which, again, makes me wonder if the new EV thing isn’t just going to be an Escape.
Tesla Is Reportedly Exaggerating The Safety Of FSD
I know people who are not particularly enamored with Elon Musk who have older Model Ys equipped with what Tesla calls Full Self Driving, and they love the tech. These are interesting conversations for me, because I am skeptical of the platform as a perfect replacement for drivers. I always make it clear to them that they also need to do it supervised as the system isn’t perfect.
Better than the average New York driver? Yeah, well, maybe it is.
This is the point Tesla has been trying to make to regulators: Perfect? No. Better? Yes. Is that true, though? Reuters looked at some of the claims made by Tesla and you’ll be surprised to learn that the company that exaggerates everything may have exaggerated something.
The presentation […] claimed FSD could have potentially saved 32,000 lives and prevented 1.9 million injuries.
Researchers interviewed by Reuters said those figures are highly misleading because they are based on the unrealistic assumption that every U.S. vehicle, including freight trucks and crash-prone motorcycles, would be replaced by an FSD-enabled Tesla car – and that every Tesla car is, in fact, at least seven times safer than the one it replaces.
The Reuters examination also found Tesla exaggerates the technology’s safety by comparing a rate of crashes in FSD-piloted Teslas that triggered airbag deployments to a U.S. crash rate for all vehicles that includes far less-severe accidents. The company also compares its cars to the average U.S. vehicle – which is much older than the average Tesla. That distorts the results because automakers have gradually introduced new safety features that reduce crashes.
This does seem misleading, but it appears that it’s misleading in the “lies, damn lies, and statistics” sort of way that many companies in all realms, including automakers, engage in. The regulators interviewed by Reuters said any approvals for FSD came after their own testing and didn’t rely on claims from Tesla for what it’s worth.
Yeah, So, USMCA Talks Are Now Bilateral Talks
President Trump last week claimed that the USA didn’t need anything from Canada and Mexico as a way of dismissing his own USMCA trade deal, meaning the most likely outcome is the USMCA goes away and is replaced by a bunch of bilateral deals. Or, similarly, the USMCA gets an extension because bilateral agreements act as quasi-amendments.
Per The Canadian Press, that seems to be happening:
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he expects to see bilateral agreements negotiated with the United States as Canada and Mexico look to extend a critical continental trade pact.
“I would expect that we will have bilateral arrangements between Canada and the United States, between the United States and Mexico, sort of adjacent to the trilateral framework,” LeBlanc said at the U.S.-Canada Summit in Toronto on Thursday.
“If those agreements resolve issues that all three countries are trying to resolve, I’m hopeful that we might, at that point, have the extension.”
Cool.
Grand Theft Auto VI Was How Much?
I finished GTA V in a hurry, realizing that I had a kid on the way and that this would probably be my last chance to finish a massive game. Little did I realize that it would be so long for the replacement that I’d maybe have time again to finish the sequel.
Also, according to this Manager Magazine article, it was a lot of money to make.
The wait is finally over: On November 19th, the video game “Grand Theft Auto VI,” or GTA 6 for short, will be released. This was confirmed by Strauss Zelnick (68), CEO of Take-Two Interactive, the video game company responsible for the GTA series, at an investor conference at the end of May. After two postponements of the release date last year and roughly 13 years since the release of its predecessor, GTA 5, the wait for millions of fans should finally be over: November 19th could go down in history as the day a single product turns the entire entertainment industry upside down.
Because GTA 6 is not only considered the most expensive video game of all time, but also the most expensive entertainment product ever. It has been in development since at least 2018 , and industry analysts estimate that production costs have now reached up to $1.5 billion . Take-Two CEO Zelnick declined to give specific figures in a recent interview , but confirmed: “It was expensive.”
Damn.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
While I will forever be a Texan, I think this Knicks playoff run is what finally made me feel, after living here for more than a decade, like a New Yorker. It not only brought the city together, it also exemplified everything that’s great about this place. We’re a messy, complicated, diverse, incredible mix of people. We can do anything. And if one piece of music exemplifies it, maybe that’s George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” The son of immigrants, Gershwin might have done well anywhere. Might. In New York, though, he flourished.
The Big Question
If you had an Escape and had to replace it, what would you buy?
Top photo: Ford
i wonder if the residual values on Explorers are higher than on prior Escapes so that the lessees get a monthly payment closer to their prior? resids on American econo cars esp with the new reputation of Recall Kings are never all that great historically.
The bronco sport is the escape with a different name basically. it’s a shame they won’t give it the hybrid drivetrain tho.
This former Escape owner thought the Edge was too big, so I definitely was not moving up to a huge Explorer. Like the look of the Bronco Sport, but drove my neighbors, just didn’t like it.
Traded Escape in on a newer Subaru Crosstrek for my wife and I took over her ‘old’ Crosstrek. Do occasionally miss the 2.0 Ecoboost though….
I woulda thunked Escape owners -> Bronco sport no?
I also dislike having to move up the explorer from a small nimble car, the explo is quite large.
I’m of an age where hearing Rhapsody in Blue makes me think of United Airlines. Oh, and Ira Blue on KGO. Back before it got destroyed, KGO had an amazing roster of talent over the years.
RICH LIEBERMAN 415 MEDIA: The Old KGO; Vivid Memories; A Comfort Blanket for Mom
I miss the Escape. We bought our son a used 2015 AWD as he was going off to law school in Wisconsin. It was reasonably efficient, competent and held up pretty well, although I had lost the discussion to have him keep driving the AWD 2002 CR-V we were letting him drive through undergraduate school in Washington (the other UW). Yes, it was louder on the road. Yes, it had 160K on the clock. But they were well-maintained miles and I’m pretty sure it would’ve gotten him through. And if it hadn’t, we would have crossed that bridge and written that check then.
He kept it until some air flow diverter valve buried somewhere deep in the dash stopped working a couple of years ago and would cost more than the car was realistically worth to fix, he replaced it with a CX-5. Other than not being able to demist/defrost the windshield, it still ran and drove fine.
A friend of mine got the original hybrid version as soon as it came out and then she bought one of the last. She loved the first and still loves the current one.
What type of hypno-gas are they pumping into Ford dealerships to get people to from a 40mpg car to a 20mpg car? Who would buy a 20mpg car unless it was a sports car, a bus or an off-road vehicle today anyway? How the hell are they selling these things?
Maybe they are getting them into the 29 mpg highway ones, or it’s people that don’t drive much and just need a grocery getter.
“Man, you’ll look so much better in the Explorer, more upright and commanding, you can look down on all the other drivers. You want to be taken seriously on the road, right? Plus it’s got so much more room for that generic hobby I asked about five minutes ago.”
Replace and re-order as required, but as stupid as this sales pitch seems, it works brilliantly. At some point, the problem is not the seller, it’s the buyer.
Car Buyers are very emotionally driven, and very illogical, as a general rule. Most things that actually sell vehicles don’t make any logical sense, because feelings don’t really care about facts in the moment.
See also: crippling credit card debt, financing fast food, and 15%+ interest car loans.
“Look, you’re getting so much more capability for barely more money once we slap that 10k (or whatever) on the hood. This is such a great deal.”
Never mind if the owner is a single person with no “big stuff” hobbies or dogs or whatever that might occasionally warrant a larger vehicle. People just see the out-the-door “savings” and think they’re getting a fantastic deal and don’t even think about the long-term costs.
“If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”
If you’re financing a $50k car over 5 years, by the time you’re done with the insurance payment you’re on the hook for $1200+/mo. The difference between 20 and 40 MPG is about 8% of that.
I am on the record complaining about trimflation, so for me the big news here isn’t just that Ford is making it possible for Escape owners to upgrade to the Explorer, but that Ford seems to be sticking to its pledge to make more of the entry-level trims.
Yup, it feels like this is good. Although it is good that (we hope) the factory and the dealers stock and make available the lower trims. I feel that they aren’t building a customer base by always pushing higher end vehicles and higher trims on everything.
I am a potential Slate guy. Maybe Ford can compel me otherwise?
If they name the new skunk works vehicle the Escape, I’ll never, ever, buy it, no matter how good it is. There is nothing I like associated with that name and vehicle. It would be like naming your first born Asshole Punch-me-in-the-face.
Why all the hate on the Escape? The last gen has the same (excellent) hybrid Ford /Toyota drivetrain with eCVT (hybrid & PHEV variants) as the well regarded Maverick , and the Escape dash/interior, with the latest version of Sync, is also considered pretty decent and also a close cousin of the Mav. Not perfect, but not bad.
The vehicle is right sized, has decent performance and comfort, and the hybrid and PHEV get excellent economy. IMHO it
iswas a very decent, affordable SUV and if you were lucky enough to get one of those crazy discounts, a hell of a bargain.The last-gen Escape in my life has consumed 105,000 miles, a steering rack, a short block, a long block, and a turbo. The packaging on this car is such a mess that the rear differential cannot be drained OR filled without dropping it out of the car and changing the battery means removing the wiper arms.
Just using the morning dump to ask why there’s been zero coverage of the BMW M Neue Klasse concept?
Seems like it would be huge news worth covering.
We have Escapes (and an old Mountaineer) and we certainly won’t be replacing them with Explorers, not even if they brought the US retail Hybrid version back.
I could go for a Maverick. IF they were to offer a PHEV Bronco Sport my wife and I would consider it.
Even if Teslas are 7x safer, 51% of the drivers are 14x dumber.
“But that’s not true I know a-”
Listen. I work in technology. I have had the misfortune of being a pedestrian in San Francisco. Whatever gains you think you’re getting from FSD getting less dangerous is being offset by the complete cognitive offloading being done by owners who are contemptuous of driving as a concept.
I’ve noticed it’s been a while since a Tesla cut me off, but I’m also not a pedestrian in SanFran. At the same time it seems everyone else is getting significantly worse at driving. Blatantly running red lights, no one using turn signals, driving off after rather significant wrecks…
At this point I’m not really sure what’s worse, idiot AI programmed self driving, or idiot phone addicted humans.
Wow, 1.5 BILLION to make a video game?! Holy fucking shit!
These things happen when you have hundreds of people working on something for at least eight years.
Oh yeah, for sure! So I’m not totally surprised
Yeah and you have to wonder if they are throwing pre-production cost in there also as they had to have people tossing idea’s around for stories after GTA 5 came out. Sure actual production on the game started 2018-2019 after Red Dead 2. I for one am not as hyped as a lot of other people for it as I am still disappointed the direction they took 5 with the online and gave up on the single player and same with RDR2.
Also if they are throwing marketing budgets in there too, which usually account for half of the total number. If it is all dev budget…. I think they could get away with word of mouth for marketing.