EREV is an interesting vehicle and from what I’ve seen, Ford tends to tip a PHEV with slightly larger battery into the EREV category.   While the benefits of more on site power is there, I think the real point is to add enough electric range to get around some of the tougher government rules, like California and aligned states. Maybe I’m on the wrong wavelength with this but seems like a compliance  vehicle but with enough power and features to avoid being branded a slug.

To me an EREV only makes sense if you normally drive less than 100 miles per day empty but occasionally need to take a long trip or tow something.  Otherwise it's essentially a powerboost hybrid.

Ford vehicle reliability is crazy I think-My wife and sister both had 2010 Escape and my sisters car was pretty much identical to my wife's car outside of it being a limited vs XLT that my wife had -they where even the same color-she had a shit ton of problems with hers, while my wife's car was decent to good for the most part. We had a water pump go on it while visiting family in VA and nursed it home to MD. She had some recall issues with it, but it was resolved without any major problems. 

To be fair, I don't know how much styling is playing a role with the escape's struggles. The biggest issue with the current escape imo was the front end, and the refresh they gave it looked considerably more attractive. It's not the most unique design in the segment, but the facelifted escape certainly isn't an ugly vehicle by any stretch, it's just one of those "Meh, it's ok" kinda designs.    I personally believe the greatest thing working against the escape is it's reputation. Ford's reliability is very hit or miss, some vehicles are great, some aren't, and the escape is seen by many as being one of their least reliable vehicles. Buyers see how reliable something like the rav 4 is, and find that more appealing.    While improved styling would help the escape, I believe moving it over to an EV platform, and marketing it as being an insanely reliable, virtually unkillable, vehicle would appeal to a lot of buyers who would otherwise go with a Toyota or Honda. 

For me personally, it is towing capacity and range holding me back from jumping to BEV for my work truck. I'm just barely into needing a 250 class vehicle. The 150s will technically/legally tow my 26ft enclosed with lawn equipment, but I tow essentially 100% of the time with my work truck and I think we all know if you're almost at max capacity all of the time things are going to start breaking down pretty quickly.  We did make the jump on my gf's commuter to bev and went with a new model Y a few months ago and even with all the classics/custom builds I own, it is one of the coolest cars I've ever been in and it just keeps getting over the air updates to make the FSD and UI better. Quieter than her previous MKC, though on very rough roads I notice it struggles a little more controlling the NVH. Fast af too. Not going to put that shit eating grin on my face like 7.3psd turbo noises or a big block 460 screaming at 6k rpm (but putting the hammer down legit makes me giggle lol), but objectively it is an amazing car for people that just want to go a-b with little or no maintenance. Price is definitely a barrier for most now, especially with the tax credit going away - we pulled the trigger because it was, not because we were having any issues with the mkc. As far as an EREV, it defeats the purpose for me. Delete the engine for batteries, then put the engine back in and add all that complexity back in. Might work for some people and might even sell better than a pure BEV, but I'm not interested. I'll wait until battery tech improves. If Tesla can do it with Semi someone can do it with a pickup that needs to tow around 10k every day. 

I don't even think those are the plans-what they put out is nebulous at best, given past history. The only thing that has changed is that we finally have an extra plant that Ford could have used the past 15-20 years for other product. 

BTW just because I explain why Ford does something doesn't necessarily mean I agree with it.   But sometimes mistakes of the past force less than ideal decisions now.   I think the biggest goof other than EVs was not doing an even cheaper version of c2 a decade earlier and using it for edge, escape, fusion, focus, maverick and bronco sport with hybrid powertrains and having 3 c2 plants.

Because cR-V is more important to Honda than Escape is to Ford and Honda is more conservative.   Ford did the same thing with Lightning because f150 is important.

What really cracks me up is every time Ford rolls out a new direction, they use the oft repeated phrase, "This is our Model T moment"...when in truth, when Henry rolled out the Model T, one of the hallmarks was that he kept making improvements to the process of making them and lowering the price.....guess they forgot about that part of the equation. 

https://www.autoblog.com/news/china-is-putting-a-hard-limit-on-how-much-energy-evs-can-use