It's called omitting features as a way to create profit. Think about it. The FEH & MMH cost more to mfg that a comparable ICE vehicle. They have to make this up somewhere. And the somewhere is options. They easily could have included all these features but it would be at a loss of profit margin.

 

LOL, you think the FEH is a profit to Ford? They're losing money with each one they sell. It's a loss of several thousand, I've heard as much as $8,000 on each FEH they sell. This is a production problem, they simply don't manufacture enough for the FEH technology to be profitable to them yet. It was the same with the Prius, it's only recently that the Prius is making Toyota any money, they lost money for years on each one they sold.

Additionally, Ford has to rely on market comparisons/surveys to decide what options to offer. If they don't think there's a market for it, they don't offer it. On the other hand, they've been known to make bad decisions, and that plays into it as well. While cost is an issue, offering something that people won't use is a very costly mistake, so with vehicles that they're already losing a lot of cash to sell, they can't really afford to offer an option or technology that people aren't going to be interested in.

 

ok. let me rephrase it then. They don't offer the options so they will lose LESS on each unit. Given your theory of not offering the options that they don't think people want, then why do they offer some of these same options on non-hybrid models? explain please professor.

 

Easy, because they don't see anyone as being a potential buyer of the Escape and the Escape Hybrid. They see two groups, people looking to see the Escape as an possible purchase, and people looking for a hybrid that's not a Prius, with nearly no intersection between the two groups. The tastes in one group has no interaction with the tastes of another group.

Actually, the bare bones truth of it is that Ford doesn't really want anyone to buy their hybrid (as it's costing them money), they have it for use in marketing, corporate imaging/politicizing, to raise their CAFE averages, and as a shield against criticism. The fact that it sells and people like it is a secondary bonus.

 

Maybe -- but you can't even pay extra to get that mirror. Right there in the Accessories catalog it says something to the effect that here's the Homelink mirror, and it's not for the Hybrid.

1. Thou shalt not install Homelink.
2. Thou shalt not install Bluetooth.

 

It makes no sense to me whatever as I have installed both Homelink & BT in mine & both systems work just fine.....

~John

 

This will sound incredibly stupid to all except the home mechanic, but I miss clearly identifiable jack points on my FEH. Many of you will say "but there are and they are in the owners manual". Yes...true for the weak factory supplied jack. But you can't do tire rotations (front to back) with that device. Each time I have used my 3 ton floor jack under what looks like the strongest part of the unibody (and these are scarce) I can see and hear the metal bending...not good.

 

You forgot...

3. Thou shall not have two compasses less thy might become confused.

I was just looking at a Cadillac brochure. It is interesting that if you order their Nav system, you then loose the otherwise standard compass containing mirror.

And I will also add..

4. Thou shall not have Sync.

It is interesting that the '08 Escape/Mariner are the only new design vehicles from Ford, now with the same new Nav system as other models, that isn't offered with Sync as an option.

 

It's from Microsoft. No thanks. We don't want _that_ in the car. I would go out of my way to avoid anything from Microsoft.

 

5. Thou shalt not have steering wheel audio controls. Total bummer.