Ford's new hybrid Maverick: A 40 MPG pickup for $20,000.

[Xist]

The Maverick seats five, has an eight-inch touch screen in the dash and gets 40-miles to the gallon in city driving. It will be one of the tiniest trucks in the U.S. At just under 200-inches long -- about 16.6-feet -- the Maverick is only six-inches longer than a Toyota Camry and more than four-feet shorter than Ford’s F-250 Super Duty truck.

The Maverick’s starting price of $19,995 is about $1,250 below a base Honda Civic compact car. It’s even cheaper than a typical used car, which hit a record of $22,568 in May, according to researcher Cox Automotive.

The $21,250 Civic is rated up to 32 city / 42 highway. I would like to see ecomodders having their way with each of them!

Unlike Ford’s money-losing entry-level offerings of the past, the company says Maverick will still manage to make a buck thanks to sharing many components -- including that hybrid drivetrain -- with its mechanical siblings in the lineup; the Escape and Bronco Sport compact sport-utility vehicles. Another contributing factor: Ford is making the Maverick at a factory in Mexico, where workers’ wages are a fraction of their U.S. counterparts.

The Maverick’s maximum payload of 1,500-pounds -- which Ford says equals 37 bags of mulch -- is less than half of what can be loaded into the back of an F-150.

Ford Takes Aim at Import Crowd With Small Pickup Under $20,000

Is this the compact pickup for which many of us have been hoping?

[Xist]

After I posted I realized that everybody knows that Jalopnik is the world's best news outlet, so I should have gone there first!

One of my favorite pastimes is to corner people and loudly and wetly complain at them about how all of the good small, cheap pickup trucks are gone. It looks like I may need to find a new hobby, as Ford’s just-revealed 2022 Maverick is a small pickup that starts at around $20,000. Thanks to a standard hybrid drivetrain, Ford says it’ll get a surprising 40 mpg in the city, and the version with the optional turbo Ecoboost engine can tow up to 4,000 pounds. It’s about time.

Unlike Ford’s larger trucks, the Maverick is a unibody design, which helps to keep it light and can make for better packaging. The base model truck, called the Maverick XL (even though it’s really sort of an M at most, if this is a size analogy) is a first for Ford trucks in that the standard engine is a 2.5-liter Atkinson-cycle engine. You know, like a Prius or a Mazda Millenia.

The bed is four and a half feet long, and with the hybrid engine you can load up to 1,500 pounds of whatever in it, and tow up to 2,000 pounds of more whatever, possibly in the shape of a jet ski.

The Ecoboost 2-liter turbo engine is an option across the board, and with that option ticked power jumps to 250 HP and 277 pound-feet of twisting. The towing rating doubles to 4,000 pounds with this engine, and instead of the standard, hybrid-friendly CVT transmission, the bigger engine gets an eight-speed auto, along with an option for all-wheel drive.

Summon freebeard!

Is it not a geodesic dome if it has rectangles?

It’s very much a mid-sized truck, not a true compact.

Tech-wise, there seems to be plenty packed into even the base Maverick, including a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hot spot, the now-expected center-stack touchscreen display, two USB ports (only two?), Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, and two 12V outlets in the bed, with two 400W, 110V wall-type outlets as an option.

Other interior shots reveal under-rear-seat storage compartments, though it appears those rear cupholders are a decadent option:

I prefer the 2007 Fit's back seats:

While I was hoping for a genuinely small truck, the realities of the current market make that unlikely, but I think what Ford delivered is actually quite promising: starting at around $20,000, genuinely good fuel economy, and a fairly useful, straightforward design. I can see this being a popular work truck as well as an alternative to some small crossovers and SUVs.

[samwichse]

Puny Payload
The Maverick’s maximum payload of 1,500-pounds -- which Ford says equals 37 bags of mulch -- is less than half of what can be loaded into the back of an F-150.

What a time to be alive when a 3/4 ton truck is considered a "puny payload"

I wonder if they'll make a single cab, long bed version. That's what I need.

[redpoint5]

Nice! I guess now I can't corner people and loudly and wetly complain at them about how there are no true hybrid trucks.

... I'll still wonder aloud why the industry is still chopping at the hybridization of their fleet from the wrong end of the segment; the smallest vehicles. If they'd have started at the heaviest vehicles, they'd have solved the problems of recovering hybrid expenses and packaging more easily.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Xist

Summon freebeard!

When I was building geodesic domes in the 1980s we called that a riser wall. What you have there is a 2v Icosahedron. They have a traditional equator.

[Xist]

When Jalopnik mentioned how long the Maverick's truck bed was I looked up how short that was comparatively. However, I didn't want to take away from Torchinsky's fun writing style with boring data.

That wasn't the most interesting Jalopnik article I have read.

Google says that the Nissan Frontier's short bed is 59.5 inches long, but the Explorer Sport Trac was only 48".

The Santa Fe's bed is 48.4-52.1" long.

The Subaru Baja's truck bed was 41.5"

I thought the Avalanche bed was tiny, but apparently it is 63.3"

Then there is this modified Ram 4,500 that for some reason a sheikh had modified with a 16' bed, which is in a museum for some reason:

[redpoint5]

How long is the Maverick bed?

More important in my view is how wide. The limiting factor for what I can get into a car is hardly ever length, as I can get 6+ in with the seats folded down, and whatever doesn't fit can hang out the back. What limits utility in a car is the width and height that can be accomodated.

[Xist]

The bed is four and a half feet long. I cannot find exact numbers, but it is designed for 4x8 sheets to sit on the wheel wells and the tailgate in its intermediate position. https://www.autoblog.com/2021/06/08/...rick-flex-bed/

[JSH]

Originally Posted by samwichse

What a time to be alive when a 3/4 ton truck is considered a "puny payload"

I wonder if they'll make a single cab, long bed version. That's what I need.

No, they won't make a single cab long bed. Regular cabs are down to 3% market share.

[jakobnev]

Regular cabs are down to 3% market share.

They just need an open bed for their bull****, otherwise a station wagon or van would suit their needs better.