I have a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid with about 150,000 miles.
It sometimes is lacking normal power - slow to start but fine once to full speed. When it is lacking power I notice that the gas engine is not shutting off when stopped at traffic signal like it normally does with charged batteries. It will be like this or a few days and then suddenly has its normal power and shuts of at traffic signals again.
Seems to be some failure of communication in the hybrid controls with system not telling the electric motor to do its thing. Any guidance out there as to where I should start looking for fix of this intermittent problem?
I have a queasy feeling you have a battery pack going south.
Thanks for your “insight” @insightful, but I do hope you’re wrong 
I should add that I have also noticed that the screen which shows the current hybrid drive operations (arrows showing current power from motor to battery, battery to motor, or motor to drive train) indicate that there is power going from electric motor to drive train when the car is feeling sluggish, but I suspect that is not true. It looks like controls are telling the motor to provide power to drive train, but it isn’t doing it. It is looking to me like a connection problem that isn’t going to show up at garage if it is currently running ok.
I hate intermittent problems.
lets see, 9 years old, 150K miles…Insight gave a good guess…It’s time to have the battery condition evaluated and that means a Ford dealer’s service department…It’s the cost of replacing these batteries that’s the weak knee of ALL hybrid vehicles…
That queasy feeling is because I drive a 2010 (you guessed it) Insight.