Ford Delays Debut of Hybrid SUV

Monday 4:46 pm ET

DETROIT September 22, 2003; Reuters reported that - Ford Motor Co. has delayed the debut of its gasoline-electric hybrid sport utility vehicle by several months, saying on Monday it wants more time for testing.

Ford is the second Detroit automaker to delay plans for a high-mileage, high-technology hybrid truck. DaimlerChrysler said last year it was canceling plans for a hybrid version of its Dodge Durango SUV.

Ford's Escape and hybrid pickups from DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler unit and General Motors Corp. are now all promised for 2004.

Ford had said it would sell an unspecified number of hybrid Escapes to business fleets this year as a test program, and sell them to retail buyers next year.

But Ford spokeswoman Angela Coletti said on Monday the automaker was delaying sales to fleets, and that hybrid Escapes would now go on sale in "late summer" of 2004.

Coletti said Ford is already conducting durability and fuel economy tests on some hybrid Escapes.

"External fleet testing would have given us the same information that we're collecting internally," Coletti told Reuters. "It's a more efficient use of our resources to conduct the same testing internally."

Coletti said Ford was still targeting fuel economy of up to 40 miles per gallon in city driving for a front-wheel drive hybrid Escape versus 23 miles per gallon for the regular front-wheel-drive Escape with a four-cylinder engine.

Hybrid vehicles use an electric motor and battery pack to improve the fuel efficiency of a traditional engine. The batteries charge when the vehicle cruises or brakes, and the electric motor eases the load on the engine under acceleration.

Environmentalists have demanded more hybrid vehicles from Detroit's Big Three, but automakers have run into several engineering hurdles. Making the electric motor, batteries and all other pieces of the hybrid system work together requires complicated software. Many hybrids do not save enough fuel over the lifetime of the vehicle to pay for their extra cost. And hybrids' fuel consumption can be dramatically affected by driving habits.

So far, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. are the only automakers offering hybrids. Sales of their three hybrid cars have totaled about 27,000 vehicles through August, or about 0.2 percent of the U.S. market.

Toyota has been more enthusiastic about the potential for hybrid vehicles, rolling out an updated version of its Toyota Prius sedan and promising a hybrid version of its Lexus RX 330 SUV next year.

Honda sells a hybrid version of its Civic sedan, but is slowly phasing out its two-seat hybrid Insight and has not said what its next hybrid model will be, although insiders say a hybrid version of the Accord might be in the works.