Why doesn't Ford just build it for consumers. (Prius, hybrid, lawsuit)

[brikag]

Hate to tease, but Ford is giving 20 Plug-in flex fuel Escapes to the Dept. of Energy. Why?

Ford delivers first-ever flex-fuel plug-in hybrid

[f_m]

There is a ton of liability when you sell products to consumers, so they have to be very, very sure nothing goes wrong.

Ford has had tons of lawsuit $$ against them, here are just a few:

Navistar slaps Ford with $2 billion lawsuit - Autoblog

Pearsonesque $2 billion consumer-fraud lawsuit against Ford

Ford Settles Ignition Lawsuit

If just 1 person gets injured (not even killed) they could have another multi-million dollar lawsuit.

[Tek_Freek]

"the Escape is powered by lithium-ion batteries"

This is the same battery Toyota gave up on for the '09 Prius. These are the same type that burst in to flames and were replaced in laptops.

A bit on the iffy side for mass production, but I'm not sure why they don't have a version with current battery technology.