Ford's Escape Route

After putting his foot down in the spring of 2003 about the Escape Hybrid's launch, Martens gave the team a rare gift: no outside interruptions. From May through December, it wouldn't have to do management reviews and other presentations. Martens would check in periodically and test-drive the latest prototype so he could keep his bosses informed. "I was getting questions from above," he says. "Weekly." A grin. "Daily."

Once the team was shielded from top management, pro-ductivity soared. "People who'd been saying, 'I don't know how we can get there,' said, 'My God, we can get there.' "

During this "dark period," Martens says, "I allowed them to be entrepreneurial, and they doubled their productivity." Issues that had been stalled for months got resolved: reaching the fuel economy goal and building the first preproduction model. "The same people who had been coming into my office saying, 'I don't know how we're going to get there,' were saying within weeks and months, 'My God, we can get there,' " Wright recalls.

Early this year, as the August 2004 deadline for production approached, Martens continued streamlining the bureaucracy. If the team requested a technical expert or equipment, it got it. No formal requests or delays waiting for approval. "People knew they couldn't say no," says Wright. When the language barrier was impeding work with the Japanese battery supplier, a Ford battery expert fluent in Japanese was dispatched to Japan within 24 hours. Decisions that normally would take days were made on the spot.

Wright put the pedal to the metal. "Every day is a lost day," she would tell the team. She quickly established a launch plan and a "meeting cadence": daily get-togethers at 8 a.m. for two hours, with suppliers in Germany and Japan participating by video. There were also weekly meetings with chief engineers and technical forums to tackle specific issues. Wright devoured the details. "Most chiefs won't do that. I find it helps motivate people and helps educate me."

Launch mode meant acting as an even more integrated team. During the design phase, small groups had focused on each system to master its separate technology. Now the challenge was orchestrating the interaction between systems. "I told them, 'If one person is struggling, we're all struggling,' " says Wright. She could be tough, but Martens believed she was what the team needed, just as Patil and his more collegial style had been effective in development. She was the hybrid team's second motor; if Patil's job was to inspire invention, hers was to wrap it up.

Letting go didn't come naturally to scientists like Sankaran. One of his goals was eliminating extraneous engine noise. Like a conductor with extraordinary hearing, he could detect an occasional, almost imperceptible high-pitched tone even though the transmission met the noise requirements. Technically -- officially -- it was good to go. But, Sankaran says, "as an engineer I wanted to say, 'What are the physics behind this sound? I can do better.' " Ultimately, though, he was persuaded to let it go by taking consolation in another of Wright's reminders: "This isn't the only one we'll do." There will be more hybrids down the road.

Although a great deal is riding on Ford's first hybrid, it isn't expected to boost the company's bottom line immediately. Even if it sells the 20,000 models it will produce the first year (something it's likely to do since almost 60,000 people have registered for a newsletter promoting the vehicle), that will amount to a fraction of Ford's total. Last year, the company sold 167,678 standard Escapes and more than 800,000 F-Series trucks. Ford won't say how much it cost to develop the hybrid. But despite retail prices of $26,970 (for front-wheel drive) and $28,595 (for four-wheel drive), a few thousand more than standard models, it will probably take years for the project to pay for itself. And while the hybrid market is growing rapidly -- 30% in the United States last year -- it's still relatively small. Out of 16.5 million vehicles sold in the United States in 2003, fewer than 3%, or 47,500, were hybrids. Some analysts expect hybrid sales to reach nearly 100,000 this year.

Still, Ford is hoping the hybrid pays off in less tangible but important ways, starting with good publicity. Environmentalists have ripped Ford for having the worst fuel economy of the major automakers in its light-duty vehicles, which average 19 mpg (highway). "The Escape Hybrid is important from a corporate prestige standpoint," says CSM's Brooke, who specializes in hybrids. "Bill Ford has been whacked by [environmentalists] because they said, 'You didn't walk your talk.' So this is Ford's first shot back, and it's a real good first shot." Like the $2 billion makeover of its Rouge industrial complex into a model of sustainable manufacturing, the Escape Hybrid -- the first of three hybrids due out over the next few years -- is part of a long-term strategy to develop technology less harmful to the environment. "Bill has a huge emphasis on getting this technology into as many products as possible," says J Mays, Ford's head designer.