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
Picked up a 2019 Escape for a non-commute car for Spouse 2.5 years ago and have been quietly pleased with it and the 2.0 turbo. Not the most efficient, but it just took the run from SoCal to Michigan and is a surprisingly comfortable road tripper. Only paid $17k out the door for it and just hit 92k miles. Guess it’ll stay until something big goes bonk then I’ll look for a CX-50 with the six speed and the NA 2.5 to drive forever.
FSD is impressive. Up until the AI decides it needs a break because stuff got real. Hope you as the front left seat (in North America) occupant are ready to take over on a moment’s notice and bail out the car from whatever it’s gotten into.
I sprang for a Comma AI 4 running the Sunnypilot fork of Openpilot. Instead of trying to do everything it does a few things very well. It made a recent road trip much more chill since it handled the boring stuff like “keep the car between the lane lines on the highway”. Tesla won’t let FSD or Autopilot steer when a trailer is attached. Sunnypilot did a great job of that task. Very much worth it to me.
Hurray for Gershwin!! He composed so much great music. Would you believe he died at the age of 38 ?? Tragic!
Goosebumps all the way…I love this piece so much, majestic, powerful and oh so New York – I lived in Manhattan from the age of 24 to 59 (1979 to 2014), this piece is so full of excitement.
Replacing an Escape…hmm…I think I’d get a ’26 Outlander. Not the PHEV, just the regular one. If I could somehow wait a year or so, the new Rogue with the ePower might be interesting. Either that or just get a base model CX-50.
The Bronco Sport more or less took over from the 1st and 2nd generation Escape as a boxy little runabout that could handle some abuse. Well, don’t know for sure that the Bronco Sport holds up to being flogged like the early Escapes did. And part of the reason I happily used my 2009 Escape as a crap hauler and pothole surfer is that it was cheap.
Killing the current Escape does leave a hole in Ford’s lineup for a high MPG crossover. An upcoming EV crossover would meet some of that demand, but only for buyers ready to make the change to a full EV. Buyers that want the familiarity and lower purchase cost of a hybrid will switch brands as long as they aren’t blue oval diehards. Maybe that’s a small enough number of customers that Ford figures it won’t hit their bottom line that hard. But with the EV market slowing down and a sharp spike in gas prices that won’t go back down soon there have to be some executives in Dearborn wondering about their strategy.
“If you had an Escape and had to replace it, what would you buy?”
Probably a Kia EV5 or a Hyundai Ioniq 5.
I drove a friend’s Escape Titanium and was surprised at the pep it had, and that it handled better than expected. Low expectations based on the shape, but still pleasant to discover. I can see the appeal.
I came to like the final gen Escape as well, and thought the design was pretty classic (good) Ford – athletic but not over the top. But I’m sure that’s not a selling point anymore, in our everything has to be extreme era.
So Ford is subsidizing Escape buyers for the Explorer instead of the Bronco Sport that probably costs them less to build and is basically a direct replacement for the Escape? I don’t get it. Is this a “the first hit is free” thing and they think people will fall in love with the larger vehicle and pay full price next time? I’m not sure I give Ford leadership credit for that much foresight.
TBQ: My wife has an Escape Titanium with the 2.0 Ecoboost. I don’t think we’ll go Bronco Sport when she decides to replace it, as my sister-in-law owns one and it’s got less cargo room and legroom so we will probably look elsewhere. We like the CX-50, Rav4 and Tiguan
Mazda CX-30
TBQ: I’d buy a Bronco Sport. It’s boxy, like the original Escape. I’d definitely get the Badlands model, no 1.5 for me.
i’d go civic hybrid. civic hybrid is more car than most people need
I’d replace the Escape with Frontiers.
TBQ. The big question is if it meets your needs.
Assuming it does, there are a dozen SUVs in this category that you can choose from. I would lean towards a RAV4 given the cost of fuel right now.
If I wanted to stick with the Blue Oval, the Bronco Sport is on the lot as well and in my opinion looks a little better.
Not a freaking Explorer that’s for sure lol. I mean, I would imagine the people actually doing that had some sort of desire or need for a larger vehicle from the onset. My wife has a Forester. There’s no freaking way a Subaru dealer could convince her into an Ascent. That’s a massive leap in vehicle size.
It’s hard for me to understand this scenario directly, because if it had been me, well, I would never ever have bought an Escape lol. So let’s go back to the Forester scenario. I would probably recommend my wife consider something other than a compact crossover. But when that didn’t work, I would probably tell her to go take a look at the CX-50.
Tesla exaggerated? in other news, Forks found in kitchen, more at 11.
TBQ: a corolla hatch probably? I am not an SUV guy and wouldn’t want an SUV to replace this hypothetical SUV and don’t need that much space.
“crash-prone motorcycles,” Who you talking about here Reuters? get off my lawn! But yea, obviously tesla exaggerated. Thats what Elon does.
TBQ: I would probably leave for a different brand. The Passport is right there or if you feel like spending way too much there is the 4Runner. Doubt I’d consider a Hyundai/Kia. Funny you are writing this though because my neighbor had an Edge for years and now she’s in a new Explorer.
The Edge/Escape to Explorer reminds of when Toyota discontinued the Matrix. When I would take mine for service, sales would ask if I was interested in trading it in for a RAV4.
Toyota took a whole decade to replace the venerable Matrix with the Corolla Cross. I wonder if they would offer you that nowadays
Likely. They did try to get me into a CH-R when that first came out.
Oh no, the CH-R was laughable as a wagon or CUV. The cargo area was as small as the Mazda CX-3. No wonder why it sold poorly over the few years it was offered.
But the Corolla Cross looks legit, and has the right size and utility.
That’s because it is a Celica for the Prius era.
It sells like hot cakes here.
the new ones we didn’t get in North America look sharp. The 1st gen we got here did not and they were neither great fuel savers nor sporty in any meaningful way
“As a result, GTA6 will retail for $90”
More like $120 probably
I wrote a response to a cold start article a week or so ago about how Ford kinda screwed themselves by not really having a car that really fits the demographic of the typical Escape buyer. I won’t rehash it too much, but I think this proves the point. Which situation do you think Ford would prefer to be in – throwing $10k on the hood of an Explorer to keep a customer, or moving 200k units annually like Chevy is doing with the redesigned Trax? I know most here have a distain for Escape because it’s a 4-wheel appliance, but those appliance sales add a bunch to the bottom line, regardless of how un-exciting they are.
They really fumbled this. No sub $30K vehicle on their dealers anymore, no vanilla compact SUV (hottest segment still) available on their dealers anymore. Ford cited they had to cancel the Escape as they needed Louisville assembly re-tooled for an upcoming mini EV-truck. Then you realized they have a factory in Ontario that hasn’t produced a vehicle over the last 2 years (Edge/Nautilus) and it’s already re-tooled for EV-production. They could’ve done that truck there and leave Escape and Corsair production alone, but alas they didn’t.
Now they have 2 idling factories and last I heard the Ontario site will start building the Super Duty later this year; do they really need to have a 3rd site doing 3/4 ton and up trucks? That also means all the brand new EV tooling they had on Ontario will be re-sold or moved over to Louisville. Stupid management, no wonder why they end up saving money elsewhere, just to recall later.