Ford has shown off the Explorer, a new electric vehicle for Europe. The Volkswagen MEB platform will be used to make this small SUV, which will be made in Germany. There will also be an Explorer EV in the US, but it is likely to be much bigger than this one. This differs from the familiar Explorer SUV with three rows of seats Ford said would be coming to the US soon. On the other hand, this Ford Explorer is a brand-new electric crossover that is smaller and was made for the European market in Germany. It will come out later this year and is based on Volkswagen’s MEB platform. Ford and VW worked together to make this happen. Ford hasn’t told us how big the Explorer EV is, but it looks like a small SUV like the Bronco Sport or the Escape that we can buy in the United States. It has a smooth, grille-free front, a low-slung but still boxy shape, and exciting details like chunky wheel designs and a slatted design element on the C-pillar. Inside the car, there is a 14.6-inch vertical touchscreen, a digital gauge cluster, a large Centre console, and a storage space that can be locked. According to Ford, the area behind the back seat of this two-row vehicle with five chairs totals 17 cubic feet. We don’t know much about the Explorer’s powertrain, but its battery packs will be about the same size as those of the Volkswagen ID.4, which come in 58.0-kWh and 77.0-kWh sizes. Ford has said it will offer both rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive models, so we expect outputs to range from less than 200 horsepower for the base model to more than 300 horsepower for the top models. Ford will make the Explorer in Cologne, Germany, and for the time being, it will only be sold in Europe. Ford is now taking orders for cars that start at the same price of $48,000. Even though this model will not be sold in the US, it could be a preview of the Blue Oval’s future electric SUVs. Next year, a second, more significant Ford electric crossover based on the MEB platform is coming to Europe. We had thought before that it might also come to the United States.
