An electric motor has the most torque at it's lowest speed, and loses torque with faster RPM.

A combustion engine has low torque at low RPM and increases up to a maximum, in this case, at 4250 RPM.

So for taking off from a dead stop, the Escape Hybrid is very good at pulling trailers... probably up there with super-duty trucks. It would not be nearly as good at highway speeds on hills though....


P.S.
Oh... there is a current limiter, so if the wheels don't turn ( Like once I tried to pull a stuck vehicle out of a deep snow drift, and from a dead stop, after 1 second, the electrical current was cut and the car wouldn't budge... ) it won't burn up the motor ( or battery ). Once the wheels are turning, you have tons of torque at 1-5MPH, then it starts falling off... then the combustion engine starts ramping up, and then most of the work comes from the engine... it's a constant trade off.