According to the Cologne-based publication Kölnische Rundschau, Ford informed the Cologne workforce on Thursday morning. According to the report, Ford cited new global safety regulations for the powertrain of these vehicles that will soon come into effect. Ford has decided to launch vehicles worldwide that comply with this new standard.
However, the report does not specify which "global safety regulations" these will be. In the EU, some additional assistance systems will be mandatory for all new cars from 2024; for newly homologated vehicles, this obligation already applies from July 6, 2022 - and from 2024 also for vehicles with older type approvals. However, the powertrain will not be affected.
According to the Kölnische Rundschau, the Explorer will not be available to customers until "next summer". So far, only non-binding reservations have been possible. Actually, the production of the Ford Explorer, which was presented in March 2023 and is based on Volkswagen's MEB platform, was supposed to start now after the plant holidays at the Electric Vehicle Center in Cologne, which Ford opened in June 2023, and then slowly ramp up for a start of sales in early 2024.
2024 Ford Explorer for Europe
As already mentioned, the Explorer is not based on a Ford technology platform, but on Volkswagen's MEB. However, at the time of the model's unveiling, Ford did not provide any technical data on the powertrain, so the exact performance of the rear-wheel and all-wheel drive systems, as well as the battery sizes, are unknown. The VW brands offer a battery with 82 kWh gross/77 kWh net for vehicles of this size. The rear-wheel drive produces 150 kW, and for the all-wheel drive option with an additional ASM on the front axle, VW offers two levels with 195 and 220 kW system power.
At the moment, it is not known exactly which components Ford gets from Volkswagen and where the Cologne SUV model differs from the other MEB models. At the premiere, Ford said that the Explorer's battery could be charged from ten to 80 percent in just 25 minutes. At VW, the factory specification so far has been 29 minutes.
Source: Electrive
