Thumbs up to Lincoln for offering us a gas-electric hybrid Aviator able to cover about 15 miles on electrons when conditions are just so. But here’s the rest of the story: second-tier hybrid engineering at a first-tier-plus price. 

The standard Aviator has a 400-horsepower twin-turbo V-6 and a 10-speed automatic transmission. Want more power yet? Instead of a V-8 option, Lincoln offers this plug-in hybrid called the Grand Touring All Wheel Drive. It adds an electric motor to the V-6 for a new total of 494 horsepower and 630 pound-feet of torque. But 94 electric horses won’t really motivate the hefty Aviator without waking up the V-6, so even just a short run to the supermarket on juice only calls for a light foot, crawl speed, flat ground and moderate temperatures.  

That’s not unusual in a vehicle like this. What is odd is that Lincoln has not integrated the electric driveline well. The watts kick in—and out—noticeably enough to make the Aviator’s progress unsettled and jerky even in Normal drive mode, never mind Sport (“Excite,” in Lincoln-speak). This isn’t what a buyer is looking for when she drops, as in our case, $83,245 on a fancy SUV. The other kids—BMW, Volvo, Lexus, etc.—smoothed out their hybrid drivetrains long ago. 

Once we’ve learned to compensate for this, the Grand Touring delivers what a Lincoln driver probably expects: a hushed and coddled ride that feels miles distant from the road surface. 

The deluxe two-row cabin also offers an odd mix of yay and nay. The front seats are some of the most adjustable and comfortable around, but the electric door handles, inside and out, require exact hand and thumb placement. (And if the power goes out?) The computer system is easy to use and up to 26 stereo speakers is impressive, but the three-level seat heaters don’t automatically step down as the temperature rises. A Lincoln Way app lets us turn a smartphone into a key—lock, unlock and start the Aviator from afar—and also check the fuel level, get maintenance alerts and find the vehicle in a giant garage. The flip side is that the Aviator will be sending your driving information back to Lincoln, too. We get something, we lose something. 

The full-Monty hybrid Aviator Grand Touring AWD offers a lot, but also too little, and at a shocking price. On paper at least, the gas-only Aviator Reserve, at about $59,000, seems much a much better value—but we still have to pay $2,500 more for all-wheel drive.