I totally agree with Martin's points. Very insightful indeed.

However there's yet another perspective worth identifying:

The batteries. (oh no, not again !)

Yes, these continue to be a problem. Panasonic has lost the legal battle with Cobasys and is hence prohibited from producing NiMH batteries with a higher nominal capacity needed to take scalability to the next level. Currently, Toyota has roughly 50 to 60% subsidiary ownership of Panasonic and that means that much of Panasonic's NiMH production is dedicated to Toyota.

Now, Honda and Ford have been sharing Sanyo's NiMH production for a while and this arrangement has not been very satisfying to either. Honda has even been forced to secure their hybrid batteries from Panasonic as well just to meet the production demands for their HCH-II. Let us just say that Honda is hurting badly in this front. On one hand they would like to raise production but on the other hand the batteries are hard to come by at a satisfactory cost cost/price point.
So Ford is likely to be hurting as well as a result of this.

Now who do you figure is at the end of all of this. Some say Cobasys. They not only placed gag orders on Panasonic and Toyota (and also likely on Sanyo), but they are also collecting a pretty good quota on royalties derived from the production of NiMH batteries from both companies.

SO... now we have the symptoms we see.
Toyota is desperate to get Li-Ion tech on their hybrids just to break free from the Cobasys prison. That will happen as soon as they can secure the chemistry or licensing side of things.
Honda, cannot secure more NiMH batteries and is edging its bets on smaller hybrids (which conveniently use smaller packs) and alt fuel platforms which avoid heavy battery use (Diesel and they Fuel Cell stack). Their fuel cell stack places a very strong emphasis on Ultra-capacitor tech.

Where does that leave Ford? In my view, Ford would not be able to manufacture more hybrid escapes even if it wanted to.

Sad indeed.

Cheers;

MSantos