Ford announced yesterday that it was offering five-year, interest-free loans on its Escape Hybrid after seeing a double-digit sales jump in a month-long trial run of the deal in Washington, D.C. and California.

While the 36-mpg-averaging Escape Hybrid is no Prius, Ford's willingness to forego a chunk of profit (financing is one of Ford's major revenue sources) and Americans' interest in jumping on the hybrid bandwagon are promising signs: 1,441 Escape Hybrids were sold in March alone.

Of course, more than ten times as many gas-only Escapes (and over 8,000 petro-drunk Expeditions ) were sold in the same month.

But baby steps are still steps. As self-proclaimed enviro and vegetarian Buddhist William Clay Ford, Jr., the prime mover behind Ford's reopening of the supergreen, William McDonough-redesigned Rouge River plant told Ford executives earlier this year, Ford customers "are changing, and we're going to change with them."