Featured 2024 Ford Explorer EV

I love how they refer to the storage space & the back end cargo space as massive, then illustrate by using a dog cage that you'd put a Pomeranian in ... LoL
yea - our 12 month old Lab puppy would have to crawl into that and then curl up.
Still - kudos to Ford for creating it all EV . Who knows if it'll come to the US
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Important detail missing from some of the sources covering it: it’s a close relative of the VW ID.4.

At a glance, it looks like it could more of its own car than the Honda Prologue (badge-engineered GM down to the switchgear, without much that makes it a Honda). But even so, we are a couple of generations into EVs and some of the largest manufacturers are treating their big releases like market experiments where they aren’t even doing much of their own research and development.

It’s not like it matters to someone who drives this whether this car is a “Ford” or an “Explorer”, but if it doesn’t distinguish itself, why does it exist except to satisfy regulators or shareholders? It’s the same story for a lot of cars made in the past 30+ years. But EVs have even less to differentiate them, so a platform- or badge-engineered EV in the same market with similar specs is pointless from my perspective.

 

Maybe to give dealers and mechanics experience with EVs and Ford some market research against the day when a certain % of cars sold must be non-ICE.

 

Not sure what "distinguish itself" possibly means. Are there any small pickups nowadays at all? Are there any small electric pickups available? I don't know how much more it could distinguish itself.
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Are you talking about the Toyota Hilux from the other thread? Small pickups are great.

This is the Ford Explorer EV (no relation to the Ford Explorer, some strong relation to the VW ID.4). It’s a run-of-the-mill mid-size family crossover that happens to be an EV. It doesn’t distinguish itself at all because it’s like a dozen other options on the international market.

It probably won’t even hit a different price point or feature set if sold in the US. I could be wrong, but this looks functionally the same as an ID.4 except for the branding, styling, and different interior.

 

They already developed and now sell the Ford Mustang Mach-E. There is probably some complicated reason why they aren’t selling that instead of the Explorer EV overseas. Given that the Mach-E and the Explorer EV are roughly the same size, price, reason to exist, market, and so on – this seems to me like a regulation compliance car done on a budget. I would say the same about the Honda Prologue. They know how to develop an electric car (the Honda e is an example of that), but they chose to borrow a cheaper-to-develop compliance car from GM to sell in the US so they can say “we’re electrifying our model range”. I think we’ll look back on these cars in a few years as poorly supported transitions rather than serious investments in EVs.

I could be wrong, but it’s happened before with hybrids and EVs. A lot of cars are transitional efforts or placeholders, and platform-sharing can be one indicator of this.

I’d contrast this to what Tesla has done with the Model 3 and Y, or what Toyota did with the Prius and other hybrid models. Those are serious commitments to R&D and supporting cars over years and potentially decades of improvements and long-term maintenance.

 

Oops, yes I was thinking of the Helix even though i'd watched the video.

 

The Corolla, Corolla Cross, C-HR, and Prius are all built on the same platform. Same with the Camry, Crown, Rav4, and Highlander The industry has come a long way from the lazy badge engineering of the past.

Many cars with no relation to each other are functionally the same. It is possible to tweak a platform to have changes beyond appearance.

First, the Mach-E would be an import for Europe, so will get hit with a tariff. Second, it using a clean sheet EV platform. The platform is a modified ICE one like TNGA-E that Toyota uses for EVs. A clean platform results in a better all around EV for lower cost. Using VW's lets Ford get an EV out now, while they focus on developing an affordable EV one. Which they have delayed a the three seat row EV for.

This also isn't a one off project, but part of a partnership with VW for several vehicles. Ford gets this EV, and VW a Ranger based pick up. Plus each will develop a full size of city size commercial van for both to use. This will save both companies cash over them working separately. Ford, Volkswagen Sign Agreements for Joint Projects On Commercial Vehicles, EVs, Autonomous Driving | Ford of Europe | Ford Media Center

Honda can do an EV, but like Toyota, didn't think EVs would come so fast. They simply don't have the resources ready to put out an EV in suitable numbers for the North American market. GM has been positioning Ultium for supplying other makes from the beginning. The two also have a long going partnership on FCEVs, so it made sense for Honda to go to them for an EV until they can produce their own. It isn't like Honda, or others, haven't done such before. The first Passport was an Isuzu that Honda arranged until they could make their own SUVs.

 

Those are great examples of platform sharing. Arguably, Toyota uses platform sharing to keep costs down, since those cars are competitive on price and come in significantly different sizes and configurations even when sharing the same platform.

The Honda Prologue is more in the category of “lazy badge engineering”, given the lack of anything beyond styling that is Honda. Giving it front wheel drive as an option doesn’t make it a Honda.

This Ford Explorer EV looks suspiciously like the same kind of thing as the Prologue. Maybe it won’t be.

The “until they can produce their own” idea is exactly what I mean by a transitional car. It’s necessary for some car makers to make dealers/shareholders/regulators happy since they don’t yet have the product ready. Historically, that kind of transition has been neutral or bad for people who actually own the cars. Transitional cars and brands often get killed in their prime, or lose support from the manufacturers, or end up being marketed or priced improperly so they can never take off.

I would be hesitant to get a Honda Prologue since it seems to be an overpriced, dead-end product made for them by GM. Platform sharing and badge engineering is great when the savings gets passed on to consumers, but look at the pricing on the GM Ultium tech and BEV3 platform cars – they’re all extremely expensive. Even when the Chevy Equinox EV comes out, it doesn’t look like it’s realistically going to be available for below $40k. The EV and PHEV mass-market will never exist if the only options are absurdly overpriced compared to the alternatives.

I find the Honda situation disappointing, since they haven’t consistently been able to (or been willing to) mass-market many hybrids and EVs in the US, despite working on the technology for longer than almost anyone else except for Toyota and GM. And the car they are planning on selling (the Prologue) is a late-to-market $50k+ GM aimed at only at the people who already own EVs or top-trim Hondas. In Honda’s case, why can’t they produce their own mainstream electrified cars in the US besides a hybrid option here and there? I didn’t have this question 10 years ago, but what have they been doing for the past decade? Today, Honda have two hybrids and no EVs for sale, which is pretty much where they were 20 years ago.

A lot of manufacturers that have felt forced to rely on platform sharing like this before (Honda Passport, Saab 9-7X and 9-2X are good examples) risked harming their brands, and it wasn’t much better for the customers who were stuck with these transitional products. In Saab’s case, it helped kill their brand forever. In Honda’s case, they eventually figured out how to design and market SUVs, but I seem to remember some disastrous safety and reliability issues with the original Honda Passports (Isuzu Rodeos) – did they actually make money on that venture or not? Given that the Chevy Blazer EV has had a bad launch, and that the Honda Prologue hasn’t yet arrived in “early 2024”, is this platform sharing going wrong again? If some of the GM Ultium models fail and the Prologue also fails, wouldn’t Honda have been better off doing what Toyota is doing? Is Honda prolonging the inevitable of going all-in on EVs and hybrids with these half-measures? I’m including cars like the international Honda H-RV/e-ny1 and the venture with Sony among the half-measures, as well as the collaboration with GM.

For me, the issue with platform sharing isn’t about purity of brands. Who cares about that, really? I’m concerned about whether platform sharing is a signal that manufacturers don’t have their future figured out, such as Honda and its EVs/hybrids or Subaru and its EVs/PHEVs, or that they absolutely do, such as Toyota and its hybrid lineup for the past 20+ years. Looking at the halting progress of innovative and efficient cars, especially in the US, why can’t manufacturers consistently produce more affordable and practical cars like the Prius? I don’t have the answer, but I bet the answer isn’t what most manufacturers are doing right now.

 

Honda has been doing what Toyota has been, focused on hydrogen fuel cells. That meant not making the investments to support mass EV production. Designing a great EV doesn't help if you can't make more than a trickle, as happened with the Rav4 Prime. VW is ahead of Ford in those investments, which is why using their parts for the Europe EV makes sense vs trying to meet both Europe and NA demand with a Mach-E on their own.

Then Honda is just a smaller company than Toyota overall, that is more diversified in products. They make jets because airplane companies weren't interested in buying jet engines from them. So they have less resources to use for corrections. Then efficient cars aren't a big market in the US. Cheap gas here means they focus the hybrids and EVs they have elsewhere in the past. Doesn't help that they wrecked their hybrid rep here with the Civic. They had to call the new Civic hybrid the Insight 3 for a generation, because of that. Motorcycles and related vehicles are likely their bigger global concern, and they have been doing more there for electrification.

Subaru is owned by Toyota. A beloved kei truck of theirs is now a brand engineered Daihatsu. I'm pretty sure Toyota got the idea for TNGA-E from Subaru's GMP-E. Then Toyota forced them to work on an EV SUV together, and 'borrowed' a Subaru trademark feature for their model in the process.

 

I would say its not complicated. Ford in February of last year announced a strategy change for Europe, where in the last 3 decades ford has lost a great deal of money. For European production costs are high and profits, well they are negative. I don't think the ID.4 is an exciting vehicle, but for the European market and with some ford changes at least they will sell some.

Honda under invested in EV technology and supply chains. I don't think they know how to develop a profitable plug-in for the european market on their own. Trying to do this vehicle on its own for europe would keep ford's european operations in the red.

It is also a way to reduce R&D and manufacturing costs.

Ford has committed a lot of money to R&D for the mach E and F150 lightning, not this joint vw/ford vehicle. Profitability of the mach E isn't there because it is trying to compete on price with the tesla model Y and tesla's costs are much lower. The f150 lightning is a fine truck and leads sales of bev trucks, but ford's costs are too high right now. Maybe they should just buy batteries and motors from tesla ;-)

 

Ford ID4. I wonder how it will compare to the original ID4.