I hope you're right but intuitively it doesn't seem like it. Fortunately I have to do this only once a month on average.

That hill is no place to lose control due to failing brakes. About two years ago one gal was driving her husband's truck down that trail. I forget the model but I recall it was something much heavier than an Escape. Somebody failed to train her adequately and she rode the brakes down rather than justing the low-range. About halfway down -- fortunately past the big drop-offs -- she lost all braking and ended upside down alongside the road. She was not hurt.

Next time I do that run it I'll set up a cam so I can post a video, and crunch some numbers as to just how much energy we are talking about here.

The thing is I am very happy about all other aspects of its off-road performance; it just seems like something is "missing" about the drive train not being able to absorb the energy of a controlled descent the way a conventional SUV or truck does. I strongly suspect that the design can actually do it and it is just the control system that isn't sufficiently flexible enough to take advantage of it. If true that is sort of frustrating.

End result is I would not recommend the FEH for the average driver for this kind of work.