Are you sure that Ford merely bought the technology and plugged it in? I've heard that story from Toyota salesman who are hawking the Highlander (they say the FEH is old technology), but Ford's people claim they did a lot of engineering on their own, but some of it would have violated Toyota's patents, so Toyota needed to be compensated. My sense is there had to have been a great deal of work involved in adapting the ideas to a heavier, 4WD vehicle (hardware and software). From what I've read, the Escape system is very different from the one in the Highlander (one motor vs. three, and so on). And for what its worth, the behavior of FEH hybrid system is very different from that of a Prius. The FEH traction motor has a whole lot more torque and stays on in low-speed situations where the Prius motor goes over to the ICE, for one thing.

As an aside, one of the things that impresses me about the FEH is that the hybrid system just keeps doing its normal thing while climbing mountains, or on jeep roads, or in the snow, and so forth. Ascending a 5000 foot mountain in Tennessee, and going back down the other side, we got over 30 mpgs overall. I don't know why it impresses me, it just does.

Yes, was this a missstep on Ford's part? Mine is PZEV, because I bought it close to an urban area in the NE where those standards are required; I made sure it was PZEV or I wouldn't have bought it. Ford should have made them all PZEV, unless there's a good reason they didn't that I'm not aware of.