Aside from presenting the cool Mustang and its many variants (Dark Horse, GTD, a trio of motorsport versions) plus the refreshed 2024 F-150 pickup truck best-seller, Ford has yet to be too active in America as of late.
Sure, they have all sorts of related activities – a decked-out M-Sport Ranger for Dakar 2024 or the Ranger Raptor here, an award-winning Maverick there, or even an F-150 Lightning Flash for those who prefer the EV lifestyle. But the big sales are still coming from the trucks and commercial vehicle businesses, as always. And it's not hard to understand why – the Ford Mustang is the last representative of the passenger car sector for the Blue Oval, which is quite sad, indeed.
Oh well, at least they take good care of the crossover, SUV, and truck arenas, right? Well, not quite, as the Escape, Explorer, Edge, and Expedition are growing a little long in the tooth these days. No worries, though, as there are solutions – and the rumor mill thinks that most of them will be upgraded sooner or later.
The imaginative realm of digital car content creators prefers sooner, so they are always ready to share their visions about refreshments and new generations of Ford CUVs, SUVs, and trucks. Just recently, the good folks from the Rcars channel on YouTube have imagined the potential next-generation EV variant of the mid-size Ford Explorer crossover SUV.
This model line – which has been around since the 1991 model year – has gone through various transformations over the years. There was a humongous scandal regarding the risk of rollover crashes in early Explorer models equipped with Firestone tires; the second generation went from a compact two-door SUV body style to a mid-size sport utility life during the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s and now dwells around as a unibody mid-size crossover SUV since 2011.
Interestingly, the current generation, which launched in early 2019 at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Michigan, is not only a big American SUV sharing the platform with the Lincoln Aviator that can be had with gas, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid powertrains – but also something entirely different, aka an upcoming battery-powered compact crossover SUV built on the Volkswagen Group's MEB platform to suit the Old Continent's tastes.
So, depending on your choice, the Ford Explorer is either a rival for models like the Kia Telluride or the best-selling Tesla Model Y. That's quirky, right? Well, if we are to believe the pixel master from RCars, America's next-generation Explorer will also adopt the EV lifestyle but with the same underpinnings as the Ford Mustang Mach-E or perhaps with the tougher platform of the F-150 Lightning. Either way, this unofficial redesign aims to share the potential new styling with us – do we like it or not?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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