DETROIT – Ford Motor Co.’s new gasoline-electric hybrid sport utility vehicle will not be available by year’s end to fleet customers as originally planned so the automaker can conduct internal testing, a Ford spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Angela Coletti said initial plans called for a limited number of hybrid Escape SUVs to be delivered to fleet customers by the end of the year for external testing.
But Ford has decided to do the testing internally and, as such, will launch the hybrid Escape for fleet purposes late next summer, the same time it debuts the SUV for retail customers.
“There’s a more efficient use of our resources to conduct that same testing internally,” Coletti said. “Externally or internally, it will generate the same data.”
Ford unveiled the Escape hybrid earlier this year at the New York International Auto Show. At the time, the world’s second-largest automaker said the vehicle would be available in low volumes for fleet sales late this year and ready for retail production in the second half of 2004.
The hybrid system in the front-wheel-drive Escape allows the vehicle to get 35 to 40 miles per gallon of gas in city driving, compared with 19 miles per gallon in a 2003 Escape with a V6 engine.
A similar hybrid system will be available in the new Ford Futura midsize sedan, also introduced at the New York show. The gas-powered version will be available in late 2005. The hybrid model will follow, though no date has been announced.
Coletti said Ford already is conducting durability and fuel-efficiency testing on the hybrid Escapes “from Boston to San Francisco.”
Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. already sell hybrid vehicles in the United States. Like Ford, General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group also have announced plans for hybrid vehicles.
In a report Tuesday, Banc of America Securities analyst Ronald Tadross said GM and Ford are at least six years behind Toyota in hybrids. Toyota, Japan’s biggest automaker, was the first in the world to commercially mass-produce and sell hybrid cars with the Prius in 1997.
“Ford looks better positioned due to a Toyota relationship that Volvo had when it was purchased,” said Tadross, referring to Ford’s acquisition of Volvo’s car unit in 1999.
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