2025 Ford Maverick Hybrid AWD First Drive Review: Just What the Cheap Truck Needed

Back in 2021, Ford took a mighty big gamble on a tiny little truck, launching a front-wheel-drive, unibody pickup based on a compact car platform, of all things. And then it had the nerve to make the most affordable version of it a hybrid. Now, a whole pandemic (not to mention a presidency) later, we finally have what we’ve been clamoring for since day one with the 2025 Ford Maverick: an all-wheel-drive version paired with the frugal electrified powertrain.

How Did We Get Here?

Perhaps that’s not the right question. After all, we knew this was coming. Instead, we should ask how it took so long. From the moment it launched in four years ago, we’ve asked Ford time and again when the hybrid Maverick would spawn a second pair of axle shafts. The non-answer, often given with a twinkling eye and a sly smile, was that if Ford were to do such a thing, it would come only after its engineers had found a way to satisfy the durability standards expected across its truck lineup.

Reading between the lines, that was Ford’s way of saying that it wasn’t simply a matter of snatching the rear axle out of a turbo model, or even one of the Maverick’s C2 platform siblings. Also on that branch of Ford’s family tree are the Escape, Bronco Sport, Lincoln Corsair, and about a half-dozen other models sold globally, including the Focus. (We miss you, old friend.)

As impressively diverse as that chassis may be, nowhere among that vast clan of Fordlings will you find another pickup truck sold in the United States. Here, pickups have to adhere to the company’s informally named but nonetheless ironclad quality standard: BFT—Built Ford Tough.

“Marketing speak,” you might say, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but there’s a fundamental truth to it. Maverick was the company’s first stab at a compact, hybrid, unibody truck—everything the company’s historical pickup customer disclaimed. Needless to say, things went about as well as Ford could have hoped given what was going on at the time.

Thanks to the Escape hybrid, Ford already had the necessary powertrain on its hands, but unlike the Maverick, nobody really expects the Escape to be able to tow. And sure enough, the little crossover caps out at 1,500 pounds—500 pounds less than the Maverick’s base towing capacity. And so Ford’s engineers went to work applying the same beef-it-up strategy that they employed with the EcoBoost Maverick, and voila—we get an AWD Maverick Hybrid that tows every bit as well as the turbo.

Tick the box for the 4K Tow package and, voila, you get a turbo-matching 4,000 pounds of trailering capacity. And its max payload is only 100 pounds less too, at 1,400 pounds. Remember when a 1,500-pound payload capacity was enough to define something as a “real” pickup truck? The Ram and Silverado still carry the “1500” designation in their names to this day.

But really, what’s most remarkable about the Maverick AWD Hybrid is just how unremarkable it is. It offers the same power and torque as the standard Hybrid—191 horses and 155 lb-ft—and only weighs about 170 pounds more. And perhaps unsurprisingly given there’s only a healthy adult’s weight difference between them, the AWD gets virtually the same fuel economy as the 2WD Hybrid, checking out at 40 mpg city, 34 mpg highway, and 37 mpg combined (the 2WD gets 42/35/38 city/highway/combined).

Driving Experience

From the moment you open the door until you’re well underway, there are cues all over the 2025 Maverick that scream “pickup.” It clunks, clangs, and thumps like one. Chalk that up to the stiffer mounts for the powertrain and high-durability suspension bushings, along with the strategic deletion of superfluous NVH controls. None of this is new for 2025, mind you, but it’s a fascinating reminder that what we call authenticity is oftentimes more finely engineered than we’d like to admit.

Go a little hot into a turn, and you’ll get a kind reminder that the Maverick has more in common with a Focus than it does with a Ranger or F-150. It tucks in nice and flat, with no uncomfortable bobbing or unsteadiness. The AWD system’s minuscule weight penalty is easily forgotten thanks to the hybrid’s torque electric assist. The CVT is forgettable, which is as much a compliment as anything else. Sadly, we had little opportunity to put the AWD system to much of a test; our day was pleasantly California-like, even for late March.

Our drive took us into the mountains west of San Diego, where any meaningful evaluation of the Maverick’s EPA fuel economy figures would be fruitless under even the most ideal conditions. We saw our average drop as low as 28.4 mpg, but the real-time readout indicated a steady 39-41 on the rare, flat highway surfaces we did encounter, and our slow crawl back to home base saw our average tick back up into the low 30s.

Ford Maverick Features, Options, and Competition

Pop quiz: What does the 2025 Ford Maverick XL have in common with my 1990 Mazda Miata and my 2010 Jeep Wrangler Sport? Bzzt! The answer was “manual side mirror controls.” I can’t think of another car with push-’em-yourself side mirrors in 2025, which means it’s probably one of those “truck people are cool with it” type things only done on the cheapest contractor specials.

Ford ditched the old eight-inch touchscreen for 2025, so even the base Maverick XL gets the 13.2-inch widescreen unit. It’s a Sync 4 setup that is pleasantly responsive and quite pretty to look at, but unfortunately you’re forced to interact with it more often now that Ford has deleted the Maverick’s physical HVAC controls. Heat, AC, defrost and recirculate are all digitally controlled now. Nope, we’re not wild about it, either.

This would normally be the point where we could point to the Maverick’s various competitors for comparison, but simply put, there there isn’t really any true competition. The Hyundai Santa Cruz is a nominal alternative to the Maverick, but at the risk of sounding dismissive to the little west-coast ‘ute, it’s a crossover first and a truck second. It’s much nicer than the Maverick, and for not much more money, but its standard 191-hp four-cylinder engine offers none of the Maverick Hybrid’s frugality (and no advantage in power either).

The Early Verdict

The 2025 Ford Maverick Hybrid AWD’s greatest virtue is also its biggest drawback. It’s cheap, and it feels it. The interior is reasonably cheerful, but despite the strategic use of textures and patterns, there’s no mistaking the hard plastics for what they are. And Ford hasn’t done its customers any favors by deleting the HVAC controls. Not only is the user experience worse, but it makes the truck’s interior look even more barebones than it actually is.

But in spite of all that, I’ll say this anyway: Finally. If you were holding out for an all-wheel-drive Maverick with the frugal hybrid engine, your wait is over. It’s just a shame the world has changed so much in the meantime; otherwise, this might have been a $25,000 truck. Instead, well, here we are. And since it’s built in Mexico, Ford has a tough row to hoe in the current political and economic climate. Here’s hoping price creep doesn’t kill an otherwise impressive offering.

Quick Take

Our favorite affordable pickup truck finally (finally!) gets the powertrain it deserves.

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