Ford unveils Maverick, a compact hybrid pickup truck for under $20k | Hacker News Reader

Ford unveils Maverick, a compact hybrid pickup truck for under $20k

techcrunch.com

39 pointsnomoreplease46 comments

> The truck’s smaller more approachable size and its base price of $19,995

Ford's website shows $21,500 with destination. Ford just jacked up the destination charge to $1500 in order to hit that magic "less than $20,000" base price.

This is a great move, so I don't want to sound like I'm poo-pooing this. The target audience is largely fleets and small businesses who are in the market for a Transit Connect with a bed. So I'm sure it will sell quite well. I just don't appreciate the misleading headlines when it comes to vehicle pricing. I doubt dealers will stock too many XLs, so most non-fleet buyers will opt for the XLT, which is $4k more expensive before options.

Still, $25k for a hybrid pickup is a damn good deal. Specced as I would buy it is $28,300. I also appreciate that Ford went hybrid-by-default. That's a bold move, but probably well informed by their fleet sales.

Yeah the destination charge games is just a little annoying to me. I'm wonder if it is also there to help avoid losing too much margin in cases of 'Ford Plan' discounts on the upper trims.

My main vehicle right now is a WRX, so a 40/33MPG Compact truck is a great Ironic DD for me.

I also appreciate that they are -not- locking the Ecoboost behind the XLT trim. I do think it's silly that there's no aluminum wheel option package for the base model though. Same for AWD, but I think that's a little less important for a truck that is FWD.

If I had one fear on this, it would be the CVT on the 2.5L engine. The Powershift was a good example of how Ford sometimes ignores warnings of engineers about reliability in the name of hitting a price point. Hopefully they aren't repeating the same mistakes. I guess it depends on the overall design; if it's something like the Toyota HSD, should work great and possibly be better long term than the 8 speed used in the Ecoboost.

Price obfuscation always benefits sellers and disadvantages buyers, and is always just a tool to extract more from buyers. There is never any reason the bottom line price cannot simply be stated. You do not see a breakdown of labor costs, materials costs, waste disposal costs, utilities, etc.

Make it plug in hybrid and we’ve got a heck of a deal.

With the electric F-150, I'm surprised this doesn't come in an all-electric option.

Nah. Its better to have a wider variety of vehicle types to satisfy the needs of different people.

I personally would rather buy Hybrid or PHEV over full electric. Besides, Ford already has the MachE and F150 Lightning for those who want full electric.

Sure, but the F-150 and the Maverick are two very different vehicles. I suspect the people who want full electric would be the same people who would be interested in a compact pickup.

But the minute you add a 1500 lb / 300-mile battery pack to a vehicle, it rockets out of the low $20,000 price range.

The biggest news of this vehicle is its price target. Sure, Ford is clearly cheating with the $1500 destination charge, but this is a low-$20,000s vehicle with only 160 HP.

This hybrid is fundamentally a different vehicle than pure electric (high torque / high-speed / etc. etc.). This is clearly some kind of cheap fleet-vehicle will be (hopefully) mass produced at rock bottom prices. None of these specs (2000lb tow capacity / 160HP engine / undisclosed 0-60 times, etc. etc.) are good by any stretch of the imagination.

This is a boring "Prius" idea, except made by Ford. Get an engine with just barely enough specs to get a job done, and then knock the price really low.

It should be a plug in hybrid tho

it looks like a cool vehicle and a good price, but this article is pretty ridiculous. i know techcrunch is mostly just a site that regurgites press releases, but i had to laugh at "no armrests or speakers in the backseat to make room for bigger water bottles"

Making the hybrid FWD-only seems like a missed opportunity

Wonder if they'll do a single cab with a longer bed

It doesn't look like Ford offers AWD as an option on any of the Transit Connects. I suspect that fleet buyers don't care about AWD and aren't willing to pay the premium and fuel economy penalty for the option.

I'm not really up to speed on Ford's AWD system, but if the frame already supports drive to the back axle then I would've thought RWD would be doable, and more desirable in a truck

I guess it could be a limitation of the hybrid engine

They're working with the Focus platform here.

They don't have a drop in RWD drivetrain for that. It would be a substantial engineering effort.

Releasing this vehicle for North America is already kind of a gamble and I'm not surprised they're being conservative and sticking to the existing drive-trains for that platform.

The cynic in me thinks this will just allow them to drop the hybrid model when 'it sells badly', although I guess someone's buying FWD CR-Vs and RAV4s - they're both in the top 10 sellers

RWD is doable, but they'd have to completely redesign the transmission/hybrid system to accommodate AWD/RWD. And that would add a lot of costs. Ford uses a GKN differential in C2 AWD applications and it's not a cheap unit.

FWD works just fine on the Transit Connect, which is what this is intended to compliment/replace. I've driven minivans loaded to the gills with crap and never found FWD to be a problem there.

That's what qualifies as "compact" these days?

When compared to other trucks such as the midsize ranger, and full size f150, yes.

Are there even any consumer line pickups sold today that come with a 2 door cab?

You can get a 2 door cab on The Colorado, I think you still can on the Silverado and F150.

Most folks go with the 4 door option, so that's what dealers tend to stock, so you don't see them often.

I guess this is the kind of truck you get when you don’t really need a truck but every now and then you go to IKEA and the box doesn’t fit in a sedan and so FWD is alright. I wish they had an extended cab with a longer bed though.

But for the price of a Honda Fit, pretty awesome!

> I guess this is the kind of truck you get when you don’t really need a truck

Snobby.

I mean, he's not wrong. It's not going to come close to the towing or carrying capacity of a "real" pickup (standard FWD?), but on the other hand a huge percentage of pickup owners don't need that capability. Question is whether they'll recognize that, or whether it'll be "But I need a real truck!"

I claim that a lot of people own trucks because their friends own trucks and owning a truck is part of their identity. Drive through any suburb in the midwest or south and you will see these - mostly men - who don't want to be seen in sedan. Is this truckly enough to check the box for that group? If not, then I wonder what the target market is for this.

I was going to comment that signaling identity in a group by possessing expensive objects sounds so exhausting. Then I reminded myself how much time and money I've sunk into terminal and code editor color schemes, and mechanical keyboards that are less practical and harder to use than my laptop's built-in one.

If you've sunk a new F-150 (+gas) worth of money into keyboards then I'd really like to see your collection.

After encountering a lot of the "truck as an identity not utility" people, many couldn't tell you the displacement of their engine (or even a turbo 4 vs v6 vs which one of the v8 options), if it is FWD/RWD vs 4wd or other relevant features that aren't prominently featured in the marketing materials. They may use it to haul a piece of furniture or plants from Home Depot twice a year, but otherwise they'd probably be better off with a car for the ride comfort/fuel economy/lower opex. In CA/Chicago/NY the primary status symbols are Audi/Tesla/etc., but in flyover country, it is 100% a giant pickup absent of pickup only function (heavy towing, large item hauling, extensive offroading) use.

This _should_ in theory compete more against the 2nd generation Ridgeline in terms of compact pickup and FWD drivetrain far as utility goes, but at almost half the price, much better fuel economy and unknown reliability as the wildcard?

I think that's true to a point. From what I've seen these people "have as many v's as their neighbors". You don't want to be living in rural Kansas and driving around a v4 "like some kind of Democrat" (a phrase I've heard in western Kansas before)

That's truck "enthusiasts" for you, a good proportion of them are elitists. They love to pretend that owning a truck means that one must go off-roading and tow something giant to some outdoorsy spot every weekend. Nevermind that the people who need "work trucks" buy vans a large proportion of the time because securing tools is really important for people who work out of their vehicles.

Suburbanites buying trucks need space for runs to LowKEA Depot and the occasional furniture purchase. Offroading capability is limited to driving in a field/yard. This thing will tow a small trailer/boat without any issues. It's the perfect truck for most buyers, but the F150 is safe because "truck enthusiasts" will never accept this.

In 15 years when fleets of these are cheaply available on the used market, we will probably see a surge of popularity from younger people for them.

It seems like America is ready for small European passenger vans. The Renault Kangoo and its equivalents are perfect for that.

That and hot hatches, pretty please.

Ford make tons of hatchbacks in Europe - it's their main thing they're known for - not sure why they don't sell them in the US.

Americans love hot hatches. In fact, hot hatches were the last models to of hatches to be sold in the USA. The Fiesta ST lived on longer than the Fiesta, as did the Focus ST/RS. It's not just Ford either, VW only sells the GTI and Golf R in the USA, not the base Golf.

But the compact crossover has displaced the normal hatchback in the USA. So while Europe gets the Focus hatch, the USA gets the Ecosport. This isn't really an America-only trend, but it's happening all over the world. One would think that Toyota's new Corolla Cross crossover would be a purely American offering, but it's actually offered in SE Asia and South American markets.

There's not really a good reason to go with a hatchback over the crossover variant, unless you're going for performance. So companies are introducing crossover versions of their hatchbacks, which slowly cannibalize sales of the original hatch, which gets killed off.

This is how most/all first owners act.

You think the first owner of a 3-row SUV is jamming six kids in the thing and towing a camper? Of course not. The vehicle won't see that until it gets several owners down the economic ladder. Ditto for pretty much every measurable capacity of a vehicle.

The kind of people who can afford new cars can afford to buy more vehicle than they need.

And then more of those same kind of people write obnoxious and long internet comments complaining about it.

I don’t know where this is coming from, but I can tell you is not at all what I’m saying.

I don’t need a truck because I don’t want 15mpg. I’m rarely limited by the cargo space of my sedan, and I much rather drive something that is easier to move through air and easier to park anywhere I go.

I also don’t go off-road to need ground clearance or 4WD.

But for 19k and 40mpg, this truck looks very appealing for those rare occasions when I could use it, since the downsides seem to be reduced. I could move my bikes easier, or load a kayak, or bring bags of dirt for the garden without overthinking it.

If all you need a truck for is every now and then going to Ikea it would be a lot cheaper just to pay Ikea to deliver.

Or rent a car. I own a smallish car for routine needs and am a member of a car sharing service so I can rent a station wagon, minivan, or van the handful of times a year I need one.

The majority of working pickups are compacts way smaller than an F-150 that are part of landscaping fleets and the like. They're all FWD.

I would not call any new pickup in the US from the last 10 to 15 years a compact. The smallest ones keep getting bigger and bigger in the US.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-vs-2nd-vs-3rd-gen-si...

I am not a contractor but I do find myself needing to get some lumber, a few sheets of plywood, some mulch, etc. fairly often to maintain my home and/or to do small projects. This thing would be perfect for this and would be a real improvement over having to rip everything out of my wife's minivan once a week to knock out our projects. Annoyingly I cannot use the hose to spray all the dirt/sawdust/bugs out the minivan when I am done, so that somewhat limits what I am able to do with that car.

It would also be pretty convenient for when I want to toss a few bikes in the back and go explore some trails with the kids without having to strap a bike rack to back of one of our existing vehicles.

I think that if the penalty for owning a truck is small (by making it easy to drive and park and by having it be fairly fuel efficient as this new Ford is) then the convenience factor becomes really compelling, even if you don't "need" a truck all the time per se. Even if you only needed to use the bed once a week, so long as the form-factor isn't a cost the other 6 days I would think this would be a pretty solid thing to have at your disposal. In a similar vein, most people don't "need" seating for 5 in their daily driver sedan but it is simpler to just have that extra space available at all times for the twice a week that you put the whole family in and go to a restaurant.

It looks fantastic, is Ford reinventing itself as a 'ford'ward looking company? Sedans are out trucks are in, and trucks are what Ford does best. In a few years if the offer a sub 25k all electric even with moderate range they will own the market.

Funnily, in Europe Ford is known mainly for economical sub-compact hatchbacks that your grandmother would drive to the supermarket once a week, and cheap generic fleet sedans for salesmen driving up and down the motorway.

It's quite funny how they're toting "..smaller more approachable size" like it's a new thing, when the rest of the world has functioned with utes of this size for decades

It is funny, but man do I appreciate this as an American. I'm so sick of all cars being huge. I LOVE my little turbo hatchback. But I also have plenty of need for a truck bed as someone on a large rural property. The ad ford released today has me really excited and I am absolutely buying one of these.

It's such a shame for you guys that GM and Ford never properly exported our Australian utes over there - it sounds like the 'performance car front / utility rear' model would have suited a lot of consumers really well.

I'm looking to get my first non-gas car and 40mpg is not good enough. Am I representative of a large part of the market? Dunno.

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