Welove trucks. Whether for work, leisure, or both, pickup trucks are synonymous with US auto culture. The most visible (pun intended) are the full-sized trucks, with three of them in the top ten selling vehicles list for 2024. But the moment you move beyond the basic trim levels, big trucks become very expensive very quickly, and they are heavy on fuel. The Tremor is themid-range Ford F150and starts at $64,450 (it gets 16 MPG in the city and 21 on the highway).
There are good choices with mid-size trucks, but your best-priced truck would be a compact. If your trucking needs will be met by the dimensions and abilities of a compact truck, you will have a choice of two models. Both are really affordable, both seat five and come with great tech. One has more of an SUV vibe, and is available only with gas engine. The other is pure truck, and comes with gas and hybrid options. The latter is marginally more affordable and the hybrid is a fuel efficiency winner.
We used the EPA for fuel consumption and related information, as well as J.D. Power and Edmunds for reliability ratings and other information. Pricing and model information come from the manufacturer’s website.
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Ford Maverick pickup – affordable and versatile
The Ford Maverick is a compact crew-cab pickup, currently the most affordable in the US. The Maverick is ideal for work, if work does not require big loads, and as a fun and capable lifestyle vehicle. The range is versatile, with five trim levels giving you choices of afrugal hybrid, powerful gas turbo, FWD, and AWD. The Ford Maverick boasts some very good tech for its price point, as well as good driver assist, and safety features. The available 4,000lbs of towing capacity lets you pull a trailer for longer loads, or weekends away.
Ford Maverick range
The buyer has a choice of power trains, with AWD either optional or standard on the whole range. The hybrid has less power and torque, but significantly better fuel efficiency. The turbo gives much more power, but fuel efficiency is not that great. Unless you need a compact pickup with lots of power, the hybrid seems a logical choice.
Ford Maverick
Power Train
Hybrid/Gas opt
Transmission
7-speed automatic
8-speed automatic
Drive line
The Lobo and Tremor options come with an automatic transmission, which some drivers prefer to the eCVT for its more traditional feeling. The eCVT is widely used in many top-selling hybrid models in the US, so that’s obviously a popular choice.
The MSRP figures are via Ford and correct at the time of writing, but the Maverick range is built in Mexico, which could affect prices.
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Ford Maverick specifications
The Ford Maverick hybrid and gas drives show the typical city/highway driving fuel efficiency difference between the two kinds of drives. Because of theregenerative brakingand electric boost of the hybrid, the city MPG figures are better than those for the highway, while the gas Maverick has poor MPG figures in the city that are better on the highway. This is important depending on where you do most of your driving. In the city, the hybrid is way better, while on the highway, the ICE MPG is somewhat more respectable. For the sake of brevity, the table below will compare the most efficient FWD hybrid with the most efficient AWD turbo gas option.
2.5L I4 hybrid
2.0 I4 Turbo Gas
Horsepower
MPG (City)
MPG (Highway)
MPG (Combined)
Cost to drive 25 miles
Range per tank
524 miles (13.8 gal)
412 miles (16.5 gal)
The Ford Maverick hybrid makes a lot of sense, while the ICE not so much. You can get a full-size two-wheel-drive Ford-150 2.7L turbo for not much more than the Lobo, and that will give you 19 MPG in the city. Sure, the Lobo is AWD and a more premium trim than the base-line F-150, but the city MPG difference is only three. If you can cope with the Maverick hybrid doing 0-60 in 7.7 seconds vs 5.9 for the ICE, the 20 MPG difference is huge.
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Ford Maverick features
The Ford Maverick is great value for money because it is a pretty premium package for the price. The load bed, while not huge at 54 x 53-inches, is quite a user-friendly space. It has a flexible divider that can extend the load bed length by driving the with tailgate locked open – Ford recons you can carry an off-road motorcycle like this. The tail gate can also be locked half open, which will line up horizontally with the wheelwell arches and let you carry longer items flat.
Interior tech
The Ford Maverick comes standard with a big 13.2-inch infotainment screen with wireless smartphone compatibility, including Apple CarPlay andAndroid Auto. The driver has an eight-inch instrument screen behind the wheel. There is a rear-view camera, as well as an optional 360-degree camera with bird’s eye view.
Available options you can add include a 5G hotspot and wireless charging.
Driver Assist
The XL trim is well-equipped for its price range, although the seats are cloth and the cruise control quite basic. Standard tech includes:
If you want more technology to make driving easier and less tiring, available driver assist tech includes adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go, and lane-centering, road signage recognition, evasive steering, connected navigation, and intersection assist.
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Reliability and warranty
J.D. Power gave the Maverick an overall rating of 80/100, and 85/100 for reliability, with a resale value of 83/100. Edmunds gave it 7.5/10, with its great owner’s reviews giving the Maverick 4.5 stars out of 5.
The Ford Maverick has the standard Ford warranty:
Alternatives to the Ford Maverick
The only real alternative on the US market is theHyundai Santa Cruz, which starts at about the same price as the Maverick, and more of less the same features, but lacks the hybrid option. Otherwise, you will have to start looking at mid-size pickups, starting with the excellent Ford Ranger.
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