Most Ford Maverick Owners Don’t Use Their Pickup For Towing

The Ford Maverick debuted for the 2022 model year to tremendous interest, which resulted in the compact pickup being in short supply and high demand for some time. As one might expect given its roughly $20k starting price at the time, the Maverick proved to be appealing not only to traditional truck shoppers, but also, those that had never owned such a vehicle before. Thus, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that while it is capable of towing up to 4,000 pounds when properly equipped, most Ford Maverick owners don’t use it for such purposes.

“Towing for big trucks is very, very important. Towing for small trucks is significantly less important,” Ford’s development boss for the company’s EV skunkworks program, Alan Clarke, explained to InsideEVs in a recent interview. “Less than 25 percent of Maverick owners have towed a single time in the life of the vehicle.” Clarke likened this phenomenon to shoppers who buy seven-seat, three-row SUVs, even though they may only have small families with two children and could instead get by with something with less capacity.

“People buy all these vehicles that have three rows of seats,” Clarke said. “You buy it for the third-row seat, but you never use it.” In fact, a recent study found that only around three percent of the owners of three-row SUVs actually use that third row of seating. Regardless, it’s clear that they like having the option of utilizing that space if needed, at least, which is likely also true of Ford Maverick owners and their desire to tow things.

“[It’s not like] we don’t care about towing,” Clarke said. “We want our customers to tow. We want them to be able to. But it’s something that’s typically infrequent. Towing your boat, towing your jet skis, those are the most common ones. [With] this class of vehicle, you’re not towing a fifth-wheel trailer across the country.”