2021 Ford Escape review: A sensible choice

There are so quite a few interesting things occurring at Ford proper now. The rough and tumble Bronco arrives this year, following the launch of the tiny-tough Bronco Sport. There is certainly now an electrical Mustang SUV. Heck, the F-a hundred and fifty is a dang hybrid with an inverter so beefy that it can electric power an total household. So the place does that go away other solutions, like the Escape?

The 2021 Ford Escape is not a particularly interesting trip, even loaded up in Titanium trim with its most strong EcoBoost turbocharged engine. It is really just a great and relaxed commuter with wide appeal. Unable to get by on playing to feelings and buzz, the humble Escape is confronted with, in quite a few approaches, a considerably harder endeavor than its far more breathtaking stablemates: to offer alone on practicality and worth on your own.

EcoBoost with AWD

The 1st matter I notice about the Escape? The oddly positioned engine commence button. It is really crammed into a minimal nook behind the steering wheel and just about impossible to see from the driver’s seat without craning my future and contorting my wrist. Not a superior ergonomic introduction. 

Fortunately, that button fires up a strong minimal engine: Ford’s two.-liter EcoBoost 4-cylinder with 250 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. Paired with an 8-velocity automatic transmission, the Escape accelerates with astonishing eagerness and has a really responsive throttle. I’d say the Escape two.0T has some of the greatest get-up-and-go in the compact crossover course.

End-commence gasoline-conserving tech can help the EcoBoost two.0T obtain an EPA-estimated 23 miles for every gallon metropolis, 31 mpg freeway and 26 mpg combined — figures that are unchanged from final year’s estimates. Through my freeway-large 294.six miles of screening, I averaged 28 mpg even.

Escape potential buyers can opt for a scaled-down, one.five-liter, a few-cylinder EcoBoost engine with 181 hp, as properly as two hundred-hp hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions. The entry-amount one.5T — which we drove final year — is the most inexpensive trim and most likely a superior apples-to-apples match with the likes of the non-hybrid RAV4 and CR-V in terms of electric power and efficiency. The electrified versions are the most successful variants of the Escape, averaging 41 mpg with the conventional hybrid and supplying an supplemental 37 miles of electrical cruising range with the plug-in.

With conventional all-wheel drive and 3,five hundred lbs of towing capability (when outfitted with the trailer tow deal), the two.0T is also the most capable model of the Escape lesser engine choices only allow for it to tow one,five hundred lbs. Handling and braking experience about on par with the rest of the little SUV course — far more individuals-mover than canyon-carver — so don’t anticipate to be blown absent by the Escape’s functionality.

The Escape options numerous driving modes to help you great-tune the SUV’s actions, ranging from sporty to thrifty, but I find it’s frustrating to toggle between these options. There is certainly only one button and it cycles by way of the Escape’s 5 drive modes — Normal, Eco, Sport, Rain and Snow. So when going from Eco to Sport is one tap, finding back to Eco or Normal can take 4 or 5, assuming you don’t unintentionally tap also promptly and overshoot it.

Creature comforts

On the exterior, the Escape’s smoothed-in excess of structure is rather vehicle-like and approachable. The sizing is superior for straightforward city parking and, from the driver’s seat, the SUV features pretty superior visibility in all instructions. My case in point options a palms-cost-free electric power liftgate that opens smoothly and promptly with a kick beneath the bumper.

Within, Ford’s designers experimented with to generate a quality experience with a bunch of fake uncovered-grain wooden and, on my Titanium design, leather-based-trimmed seats. Apart from the aforementioned commence button, the dashboard and console controls experience properly positioned. Having said that, the wooden appears to be like truly pretend when you give it a nearer seem. A great deal of the cabin components — like the challenging plastic door playing cards and simply scratched reduce sprint — experience inexpensive. 

Ford can make up for this with a several stable tech options. B&O badges indicate quality seem delivered by substantial-stop audio manufacturer Bang & Olufsen. Audio good quality is higher than ordinary to my ear, but not audiophile amount. A electronic instrument cluster with individual themes for Sport and Normal driving performs pleasant nature-influenced animations on startup and shutdown. Also optional is a visor-fashion head-up display that rises from the top of the instrument cowl. I’d prefer HUDs be projected directly on the windshield, but any HUD is superior than no HUD at all.

The major celebration the place tech is involved is the Sync 3 infotainment procedure. Its program is properly structured and its characteristic set checks all of the proper boxes, with USB connectivity, Android Car, Apple CarPlay, Amazon Alexa integration, Bluetooth and satellite and Hd radio tuning. Voice-activated navigation has been a hallmark of Sync considering that its inception and proceeds to work properly below, with great normal-language recognition for addresses.

The Escape also options Ford’s Co-Pilot 360 Assist, a conventional suite of driving help options, which include pre-collision support with automatic crisis braking, lane-trying to keep support, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-targeted traffic warn. Stepping up to the Titanium trim — or optioning Co-Pilot 360 Assist In addition — provides adaptive cruise control that performs in stop-and-go targeted traffic and targeted traffic-signal recognition, both of which are new for 2021. The In addition update also involves lane-centering steering support and a characteristic named Evasive Steering Assist which performs in live performance with the crisis brake support to help drivers to steer about obstructions.

As usually, Ford’s Lively Park Assist — now in its second generation — is even now exceedingly knowledgeable and at moments less difficult to work than parking it yourself, demanding just a solitary button push to enter parking manner when the car handles steering, shifting and braking.

It is really great and that is Ok

The 2021 Ford Escape commences at $26,a hundred thirty, which include a $one,245 location charge, for a foundation one.5T S design with front-wheel drive. Entirely optioned, the two.0T AWD Titanium tops out at $40,820 — curiously, a skosh increased than the loaded Hybrid Titanium’s $39,435.

Possibility the two.-liter EcoBoost and the Escape features a slight functionality advantage in excess of considerably of this course. Having said that, the far more popular one.five-liter design lacks that advantage and the recently updated Nissan Rogue, the Kia Seltos and Toyota’s RAV4 become threats with far more equivalent on-highway manners and a bit superior inside good quality. The Kia, for case in point, is considerably considerably less high priced than the Ford when comparably outfitted. The Escape’s tech is even now top notch — particularly its one-button parking engineering — but that is not as considerably an advantage as it applied to be now that the competitors has caught up all through this most current generation. At the other stop of the spectrum, the Subaru Crosstrek and Ford’s individual inbound Bronco Sport appeal to drivers hunting for far more off-highway utility in their little SUVs. 

The 2021 Ford Escape is just not the most interesting matter Ford can make proper now, but it’s even now a really knowledgeable participant. As a volume vendor, it’s a really critical design to Ford’s base line.