As usual, my wife approaches purchases like this with moderated, analytical reason. Most of the reasons didn’t have to do with mode, design. They concerned an older vehicle that made sense to replace for positive economic reasons. So, our newest family vehicle is a hybrid. A Ford Maverick truck. It’s a crew cab pickup.

Now, that the Maverick has been in the Lot 4 garage a few months, I thought I should jot down a few notes about use and value. First and most important, the Mav is our family vehicle. Our family car. Our family truck. The way I bet Ford thought about it.

Because we live in northern New Mexico, we have beaucoup hills and mountains everywhere. Hardly any trip is on level terrain. For this reason as well as several others, the gasoline power will kick on as needed.

In the two months she’s been with us, we’ve added to the gas tank twice. Averaging about 50 mpg each time. That’s fine by me. Helen is adept at driving the truck as an electric. That’s been obvious the few times I’ve been out and about with her to include errands of mine along the way. And it certainly made more sense than rolling my old Dodge pickup out of the garage…running a few local errands at 15mpg.

The MAV rules.