Ford has quite a few problems on its hands right now. From production to quality, it needs to sort those out if it wants people to buy its EVs. Unsurprisingly those problems aren’t just specific to the North American Market. Reports have emerged that say that Ford is delaying the launch of the Explorer EV by six months. While that’s not unusual, Ford is actually giving two different reasons for the delay.
If you recall, Ford partnered with VW to use the brand’s MEB platform — the same platform used by the ID.4 — to build an Explorer EV for the European market. The plan was to have the electric crossover launch in early 2024. But it would seem that isn’t the case anymore. Ford told Automotive News Europe that new EU battery standards are the reason for the delay.
“Ford supports the upcoming European standard for electric vehicles because it is in line with our internal philosophy of delivering high-quality and safe vehicles to our customers worldwide. This means that the new Explorer will now be delivered to customers from summer [middle of] 2024,” a Ford spokesperson told Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.
But as Auto News Europe pointed out, that reason is probably bull. The standards Ford cite have been known in the industry for a while, so one would assume Ford was aware of those standards when building the vehicle in the first place.
Meanwhile over at NPR, Ford CEO Jim Farley appeared to give the real reason behind the delay of the Explorer EV: fire countermeasures.
“…we weren’t happy with thermal propagation — — the countermeasures around fire — with the vehicle,” he added. “So we took a six-month delay to get the engineering right. That was the principal reason.”
So now due to these battery issues, the Explorer EV isn’t expected to launch until mid-2024. Until then, Ford might also want to work on getting its story straight for vehicle launch issues. A multi-billion dollar company giving out two different reasons over production issues could turn some customers off.