Advert
The Ford Explorer is an all-electric family SUV offering a spacious interior, a long driving range, and a driving experience that will be familiar to owners of another popular EV model.
Ford has been slow to bring all-electric cars to market. So far all we’ve had is the Mustang Mach-E. After what seems like a very long wait, the Ford Explorer (not to be confused with the Ford Explorer on sale in places such as America with a petrol engine) is finally here. But is it actually a Ford?
Pricing Insight: Save up to £5,427 per car – see Price and Model Range section below for more details.
It’s good news that Ford has brought another EV to market, but the Explorer is actually built on the same platform as the Volkswagen ID.4. Ford has styled its own exterior, and the overall consensus seems to be that people generally like the design – it looks more like a boxy SUV than the more streamlined ID.4.
The interior shares many similarities with the ID.4, but Ford has attempted to make its own mark with the overall appearance. The Explorer is spacious, with lots of rear legroom like the ID.4, and a decent-sized boot, but at 470 litres, it’s smaller than the ID.4’s 543-litre boot (the Explorer measures 4,468mm in length, which is 116mm shorter than the 4,584mm of the ID.4).
There’s a compartment under the boot floor to store charging cables, and if you fold the rear seats down, the Explorer’s luggage space increases to 1,400 litres. There’s also lots of storage between the front seats, including what Ford calls a ‘MegaConsole’ under the central armrest with 17 litres of space – enough for a laptop and other items. There’s also a space underneath the centre console, but this is both hard to see and to access. There are two USB-C sockets hidden at the back of a storage area under the touchscreen, and behind the touchscreen is a ‘secret’ lockable storage compartment.
The Explorer has an 82 kWh battery (with 77 kWh usable capacity), a 286 PS electric motor, and is rear-wheel drive in the case of our test car. It has a towing capacity of 1,000 kg.
Apologies, but we’re going to have to mention the Volkswagen ID.4 again, because, unsurprisingly, there are lots of similarities in the driving experience between the two cars. One of the first things that you’ll interact with is the gear selector, a stalk on the right-hand side of the steering column that you twist which is virtually identical to that of the ID.4.
Once you’re underway, the comfortable primary ride will be familiar to anyone who has driven an ID.4, but the large (20-inch) alloy wheels and low profile tyres on the Explorer don’t help with secondary ride quality – the impact from potholes are transmitted through the car. The Explorer is refined at motorway speeds, although there is some road noise – again the large wheels and tyres are likely to be a contributing factor in this.
The rear-wheel drive chassis delivers rewarding handling, and avoids the wheelspin and torque steer of front-wheel drive EVs. However like the ID.4, the Explorer doesn’t allow much slip of the rear wheels, although an ESC button reduces the intervention of the traction control system.
Drive modes are Eco, Normal, Sport and Individual, and you can select B on the gear selector for increased brake regeneration. With a 0-62 mph time of 6.4 seconds, performance is absolutely fine, but like the ID.4, the Explorer’s brakes don’t have much feel.
The Explorer shares the basics of the ID.4’s original infotainment system software, about which Volkswagen received a lot of feedback… there were various issues, including the touchscreen having hardly any useful shortcut buttons, resulting in the driver having to press a lot of buttons to get to various sub-menus to operate basic car controls.
Thankfully Ford has improved the user experience of the ID.4’s original infotainment system. As well as a driver’s instrument display and a head-up display, there’s a very tall 14.6-inch touchscreen, which includes three very small shortcut buttons, but you’re still missing shortcut buttons for items such as media and navigation.
Climate controls sit permanently at the bottom of the screen; you need to press the central button to bring up the full climate screen (this is the only way to adjust fan speed).
Another obvious tell-tale sign that this car is based on the ID.4 include the electric window switches – there are just two switches for four windows – to operate the rear windows you need to press a third button marked ‘Rear’. Like the ID.4’s original touchscreen, this is too much button-pressing. A small panel of controls for the lights to the right of the steering wheel is also carried over from the ID.4 – with front and rear window demist buttons also strangely positioned in here.
On the centre console between the seats is something that looks similar to the ID.4’s volume slider switch, but to change the volume, you need to press the buttons at each end rather than use it as a slider – the control isn’t that clear and it’s not that user friendly.
The lane departure warning system can be switched off, but there’s no shortcut button to do this – you need to delve into sub-menus on the apps screen to do this. And if you get out of the driver’s seat for only a few seconds the Explorer will switch itself off, meaning that you’ll have to reset any car control settings.
The Ford Explorer Premium RWD has an official WLTP combined electric driving range of 354 miles (there’s a 20-mile reduction in range for Premium trim), or 281 miles for ‘Range Extra High (Motorway)’. After a week on test in winter the real-world range was averaging 310 miles. The Explorer’s combined energy consumption is 14.7 kWh/100km.
The Explorer has a maximum rapid charging rate of 135 kW, enabling a charge from 10% to 80% in around 28 minutes.
Our test car had an optional heat pump which uses waste heat from the powertrain to warm the cabin, aiming to minimise loss of range in cold weather.
The Ford Explorer Premium RWD is priced at £49,975. Our test car also featured options of Rapid Red Exclusive Paint (£800), Driver Assistance Pack – Windscreen Head-Up Display, Driver Alert, Lane Centering with Lane Change Assist, Active Park Assist and 360-Degree Parking Camera (£1,300) and Heat Pump (£1,050), taking the total price of our test car to £53,125.
The Explorer is available in two trim levels, Select and Premium, each with either 52 kWh Standard Range or 77 kWh Extended Range batteries, all with rear-wheel drive, and the Premium model is also available with a slightly larger 77 kWh Extended Range battery and all-wheel drive. Prices start from £39,875 for the Explorer Select 52 kWh RWD. The Explorer is generally slightly more expensive than the ID.4.
Ford Explorer – typical real-world pricing
Save up to £6,898. Real-world discounted prices for the Ford Explorer typically start from £33,227, or £3481 a month on PCP, depending on version and finance terms.
Pricing, including illustrative monthly PCP payments¹, is based on independent real-world market research from Insider Car Deals and is correct at the time of publication.
Insider Car Deals helps you understand what prices are realistically achievable when you are ready to buy a new car. Whether you’re sense-checking a quote you already have or preparing to negotiate with dealers, detailed pricing insights will help you avoid overpaying, buy with confidence and get a better deal. Find out more HERE.
1 All PCP monthly payments shown are illustrative only and do not constitute an offer or financial advice. Figures are based on manufacturers’ published PCP terms and, unless stated otherwise, assume a 4-year term, 8,000-10,000 miles per year, a 15% customer deposit, and any applicable manufacturer finance contribution. A Guaranteed Future Value (GFV) or final payment may be required to keep the vehicle at the end of the agreement. Always request a full written quotation from a supplying dealer before committing to purchase.
If you’re looking for a spacious electric family SUV with a good overall driving experience, a long driving range, and at a price that isn’t at the very top end, then the Ford Explorer Premium RWD could fit the criteria for your shortlist. It’s just a shame that Ford couldn’t develop its own EV, and instead had to use a Volkswagen platform. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with the platform, it just means that you don’t get a unique Ford driving experience like you do with the Mustang Mach-E.
So as they both have so many similarities, which do you choose, the Explorer or the ID.4? The answer probably depends on your brand preference, and whether you prefer the more boxy SUV design of the Ford or the more streamlined styling of the Volkswagen. The Ford Explorer Premium RWD is awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 9 out of 10.
Drive an EV for less than you think with Select Car Leasing 
Save 20-50% on an EV through salary sacrifice with The Electric Car Scheme 
ClearWatt supports buyers, sellers and owners of EVs with app-based battery health testing and detailed EV data insights available for every used EV in the UK. Take the stress out of buying a used EV with ClearWatt and save 10% on all their products with promo code “GCG10”. 
Zapmap: UK's No.1 EV charging points app 2025. Zapmap helps EV drivers search for EV chargers, plan longer journeys and pay for charging. 
With Pod, you're in good hands. With over 15 years of EV charging experience, drivers trust Pod to keep their EVs charged and ready to go. 
Paul Clarke, GreenCarGuide Editor
