The 2023 Ford Maverick is an easy mini truck we’ve driven and reviewed a couple of instances now; I drove a non-hybrid a 12 months in the past, loaded a fairly good jag of bulk backyard materials into its little mattress, and was impressed that it was truck enough to do mild hauling duties for the common suburbanite. It’s crammed with considerate design touches, equivalent to all of the methods Ford has compensated for the mattress dimension, and the essential however hip inside.
However a model we hadn’t pushed a lot is the Maverick Hybrid, the powerplant that caught all people’s consideration when the little truck was launched. When the prospect introduced itself lately, we had one large query that hadn’t been answered in earlier protection: What sort of real-world mileage would the Maverick Hybrid get?
Listed here are 5 ideas about this interesting little truck:
1. Because the web likes to say, do that one bizarre twist
And by twist, we’re speaking an old style ignition key that you just flip within the steering column. No newfangled begin button right here.
The non-hybrid XLT additionally has a key, and we have by no means given it a thought. However the Maverick Hybrid XLT combines this old-fangled know-how with the comparatively new-fangled know-how of a hybrid powerplant — and that mixture takes some getting used to. Once you press the ignition button of a typical hybrid, you do not have a reflexive expectation of something aside from the car activating ultimately or one other. However if you flip an ignition key, and you are a driver of a sure age, you may have been conditioned by tens of 1000’s of key turns over a lifetime to count on an engine to fireside up. So, if you key up the Maverick Hybrid and your ears are met with … nothing … your response each time is similar: “Oh crap, it received’t begin. … Oh. Duh. It’s a hybrid.”
It is humorous the way it solely takes a cut up second in your thoughts to race to, “Geez, the place are my jumper cables?” However when you notice the dashboard has come alive and all is effectively, you merely twiddle the shifter dial and take off beneath electrical energy. It took most of per week of outings for me to lose that response. That’s my drawback, not the truck’s.
2. The Maverick Hybrid continues to be maddeningly arduous to search out
The Maverick Hybrid is such an excellent little rig, it’s no marvel it’s in such ridiculously excessive demand. A search of dealer inventories inside a 50-mile radius turned up solely 9 Mavericks — none of them the hybrid, and nearly all exhibiting supplier markups of $5,000-$9,000 over MSRP. In the meantime, 39 Rangers had been in inventory, and 266 full-size F-150s.
The seeming lack of ability to fulfill demand for the Maverick has given rise to a conspiracy idea that it’s all a ruse, and that Ford, or at the very least its sellers, would favor to upsell you to a giant, costly truck quite than provide you with what you truly need. Let’s hope no person’s truly that devious. The much less cynical explanations are the lingering results of the chip shortage, and Ford badly underestimating a staggering degree of curiosity in an inexpensive small pickup. The corporate racked up 86,000 orders for the 2023 Maverick in simply seven days earlier than order-taking was shut down.
3. ‘Tis a present to be easy
The inside of a Maverick in XLT trim is fundamental and spare, but fashionable. The supplies are characterful, and the cabin is crammed with helpful cubbies. The non-hybrid I drove final 12 months had an inside crammed with orange accents, whereas this Maverick Hybrid was much less busy in black and blue, pairing properly with its Atlas Blue Metallic exterior. And a few arduous plastic on the sprint that appeared bizarre to the contact within the first truck has both been softened a bit, or perhaps I simply received used to it. It’s advantageous.
I really like how fundamental and no-nonsense the Maverick is in XLT trim. No difficult options. The eight-inch infotainment system is rudimentary; they do not even name it Sync. Stereo? It really works, you’ll be able to catch the information on it. HVAC? Blows cold and hot, yep. It does have drive modes. And in any other case, effectively, that’s about it. The truck has what you want and nothing you could not get alongside with out. If that is the way you make a car inexpensive nowadays, then that is completely acceptable.
4. It’ll match into any parking area
The most effective issues concerning the Maverick is how straightforward it’s to park. The week after the Maverick, it received swapped for a Chevy Silverado ZR2 AEV Bison, a truck that needed to go up many parking areas. You’ll be able to put the Maverick wherever.
One element that takes getting used to are the weird inside door pulls. At one level, I parked, popped the door open, grabbed for the spot in area the place there’d usually be one thing to carry onto, and got here up with a handful of air, as a result of on the Maverick the door deal with ends in a stub. After flailing, I ended the swing within the nick of time.
5. Most of all, the Maverick Hybrid will get nice fuel mileage
The EPA charges the Maverick Hybrid at 40 mpg metropolis, 33 freeway, 37 mixed. Sounds spectacular. Might it obtain these numbers IRL? Perhaps even beat them?
Just a few days operating suburban errands would reveal the reply. I wasn’t hardcore hypermiling however drove moderately, like somebody who’s paying a little bit of consideration to the mileage he is getting — which, when you’re focused on a Maverick Hybrid, you absolutely do.
I saved it in Regular mode, by no means dabbled with Eco. The truck didn’t get off straightforward with strictly flatland duties, both. I stay on a hill with an elevation of 500 toes, and it’s steep sufficient that the street up has switchbacks, so the Maverick needed to pull some grades. Although in fact each journey off the hill was a regeneration goldmine.
There was a stable mixture of floor streets and interstate, so the EPA mixed score of 37 mpg was the quantity to benchmark in opposition to.
The Maverick’s 2.5-liter four-cylinder is rated at 162 horsepower and 155 pound-feet of torque, with the electrical motor contributing to a complete of 191 horsepower. Ford, curiously, doesn’t cite a complete torque quantity, however a Maverick discussion board member claims 267 pound-feet, at the very least for a brief burst. Irrespective of the precise numbers, the hybrid, which is the bottom powertrain, feels loads adequate for its mission.
The cabin is quiet and cozy, like all typical compact SUV. Transitions between electrical and ICE energy had been imperceptible, the CVT was inoffensive as CVTs go, and the regenerative system simply did its factor. A easy gauge lets when you’re recouping or expending vitality.
No vary nervousness right here: The Maverick began out the week estimating its vary at 550 miles.
With that 37 mpg because the quantity to beat, the dashboard readout began heading north of that – the mileage determine even climbed at freeway velocity, which isn’t normally a hybrid’s forte. Quickly it was over 40 mpg. It hit 42.5 earlier than settling again into the 41-something vary.
However there’s all the time an opportunity {that a} dashboard pc is, how let’s say … generous, embellished, rigged? Working example, Tesla’s accused of telling some whoppers with its vary readout.
So, I pulled right into a gas station for a fill-up to find out the Maverick’s precise fuel economy.
Which was: 44.0 miles per gallon.
The Maverick will get double the mileage of most full-size gasoline pickups — and even triple. It might probably’t do every thing they do, however it may possibly do some, sometimes. And perhaps that is all the potential you want.
Your mileage could, as … fluctuate. Mine may, too. If I had tried tougher, the little truck might’ve carried out even higher. The federal authorities’s fueleconomy.org web site has an underused characteristic — the power for car house owners to report the mileage they’ve skilled. Two Maverick house owners there claimed mileage of 47 mpg and 50.7. Conversely, when you drove the Maverick such as you didn’t care, it’d most likely nonetheless do OK.
The EPA estimates you’ll spend $1,450 a 12 months on gasoline with a Maverick Hybrid, and save $2,500 in gas prices over 5 years.
A Maverick Hybrid XL begins at $23,400. An XLT geared up like this explicit truck (XLT Luxurious bundle, black look bundle, Co-Pilot 360 assists, spray-in bedliner, all-weather mats) would value you $30,625 together with the $1,495 vacation spot price — that’s, when you had been in a position to get one at MSRP from an honorable dealership.
Three weeks after I discovered simply 9 Mavericks in stock inside a 50-mile radius, a contemporary search turned up 22 of them, and 5 had been hybrids. Supplier markups had fallen to as little as $3,000 over MSRP, although the hybrids had been nonetheless getting marked up as a lot as $10K by the worst pirates. However the shortage scenario is perhaps easing a bit — and your likelihood to seize a modestly priced, 40-mpg-plus pickup truck could occur sometime.