SPEAKER: The Ford Explorer
is an important SUV, not just for Ford, but for
SUV shoppers in general. That's because when
it debuted in 1991, it redefined what a
family vehicle could be. We're here in Washington
state on the banks of the Columbia River. And the big news is
the Ford Explorer has changed from front-wheel
drive to rear-wheel drive. We've got several
versions to drive, and we'll be able to
see why that matters. But before we get
into that, remember to click Subscribe and visit
Edmunds for all your car and SUV shopping needs. Even though it's all new, it
still looks like an Explorer, because some of the key design
elements are still here. For one, the windshield pillar-- blacked out. Always done that. Also, the middle
pillar-- blacked out. We get to the C pillar,
and it's prominent and it's body colored. And then back here at
the rear, the rear pillar is also blacked out so that the
side window and the rear window blend together. Explorers have always
had these elements, and this one does, too. Perhaps the biggest difference
is here in the front. Last time around, it
was front-wheel drive. The engine sat that way. There was a lot of radiator
and stuff like that up here. It gave it a lot of bulk in
the front end of the car. Now when you've got the
engine turned this way-- push the engine back, shorten
the nose a little bit-- it tightens up the front end,
makes it look more aggressive. And it also has a
good approach angle. The switch to rear drive
results in a wheel base that's over six inches
longer between the front and rear tires. And that improves
weight distribution from a dynamic
standpoint, but it also improves passenger and
cargo space inside. The switch to rear drive
also helps with towing. Ideally, you want your
trailer's tongue weight to be pressing down on the axle
that is propelling the vehicle. And you get that here. But you also get extra stability
because of the longer wheelbase when towing. And the tow rating, as a
result, is up slightly. It was 5,000 pounds last year. It's as much as 5,600
pounds this year. The first thing you notice
about the new Explorer inside is that it's spacious. It's comfortable. It's really easy to live with. These seats, for example-- they're really nicely shaped. They have great padding. They're really comfortable. These are the Platinums, but
I was in a Limited yesterday-- same thing there. The steering wheel is
nice and chunky, too. You know, it feels real good. The tactile feel is really nice,
and it's comfortable over time. The controls-- they're
really easy to figure out. Here are the audio controls. Here are the HVAC controls. The touch screen
is easy to reach. There are two touch screens. This one has the bigger portrait
one that's about 10 inches. There is an eight inch
landscape-oriented one, really nice as well. Both of those are great. Really easy to use this cabin. And there's a lot
of storage, too. The glove box is big. You can hook up a phone
through the access ports here. This is pretty big,
the center console. You can see I have
my phone here, but I could also put it here
on this wireless charge pad. The door pockets are big. There's place for
your stuff alongside. So you're not going to
have a problem of where to put your stuff. One of things I'm not
terribly sure about is the interior quality. It's good. There's nice soft touch
material here and here and some other places. A few of these other ones
look a little bit hard. But the main thing
for me is a couple of these seams, this
one in particular. They're really
prominent and they stand out and catch your eye--
at least they catch my eye. Recently, I was in
a Kia Telluride. In that one, material's
quality just felt a step above. Here I am in the middle
row of the Ford Explorer, and right off the
bat, I can tell this has got plenty of room. I'm 6'2. I've got extra headroom even
with this panoramic sunroof. Leg room. I got a little extra to give
the person in the back seat if I need to. It reclines. That's nice. One thing that's different
about the Explorer compared to the competition
is most versions are going to have captain's
chairs as standard. And these are really nice. So back here, I've
got a couple of USBs under this hatch-- just one
USB and one USB-C, though. I'd like more of those,
but they're not here. I've got controls for
the air conditioning. And the vent is up here, which
is interesting, not here. It looks to be
really easy to put child seats in the Explorer. The latch anchors are right
here where you can see them. They're really easy to get to. As for storage, there
seems to be a lot of that. There is a juice box
holder right up high here where a child can reach it. And further down,
there's a place for a water bottle
and other items. And here in the middle, there's
more storage and a couple more cup holders. You may have noticed
there's no console here. That's because Ford
says they want to keep this open for third row access. So this is really low, and it's
actually made to be stepped on. As you can see, there isn't
a lot of room for someone my height, which is 6'2, to
sit back here in the third row. I'm a little taller than what
they had in mind, I'm sure. But even so, I've
got lots of headroom, and there's an AC
vent back here. That part is covered,
it's just this knee here. The one on the side where I
can get between the captain's chair, actually no problem. But this is pretty
flat, so I don't know how that would be
over a long distance. It feels pretty good so far. Back here though, there's
no USB ports to plug into, and the cup holder is kind
of hard to get to on the side here. Another thing worth noting
is that the child seat anchors are really easy to
get to here in the third row. And that means that four child
seats can fit in this vehicle. The other thing is that the
Explorer-- this third row can only hold two people. It's not equipped to hold three
like the competition can do. So what that means
is that Explorers can seat seven with
a bench seat, six with captain's chairs. The competition is one better. If that matters to
you, I don't know. It depends on the size of your
family or your soccer team. Getting out of the third
row is really easy, because there's two ways
your child can do it. There's a loop at
the base of the seat, or they can press this button. Behind the third
row, the Explorer starts out with a competitive
amount of cargo space. It slots in between the
Telluride and the Pilot. This piece here,
you can flip it over and you got a dirty
side if you've got something muddy you
want to put in here. Or you can drop it here for
a little extra stability if you don't want
groceries to slide around. And you can just pull this
lever to fold the headrest down. And then this button here
will fold the seats down. You could do both together
or the left and right individually. Once you do this, the
amount of cargo space that you end up with
is right in there with the others in the segment. It's a virtual tie. And then of course, if you
fold down the middle row seats on both sides, the
amount of cargo space is over 85 cubic feet, which
is another competitive number. Because this has
captain's chairs, you'll have a little
void in the middle. It's not a completely
flat floor, but that's true of any
vehicle with captain's chairs. Now we're on the road, and
I'm driving the hybrid. And that's what's interesting
about this new Explorer. There are four powertrain
choices, including the hybrid, which they've never had before. The base and the XLT come with
a 2.3 liter EcoBoost engine. Near the top of the
range, the Platinum has a 3 liter V6
EcoBoost engine. And the ST, which
is new this year-- it's got a high output version
of the 3 liter EcoBoost engine. And then that leaves the
hybrid as the fourth choice. This one has a 3.3 liter V6. Not turbo charged, but it
does have a hybrid element in its transmission. And that's the unique
part here, is all four of these powertrains have a 10
speed automatic transmission. And the hybrid version
has an electric motor built into the case. And the upshot of that is you
don't get any weird hybrid CVT feeling that you might get
in some of the competition. This drives absolutely normally
when it comes to shifting. You just have the hybrid
for low-speed operation and fill-in, and other things
that improve fuel economy. How much fuel
economy improvement? Well, they haven't told us
what the rating is right now, but they say that this
should have a 500 mile range. It has a tank that
holds 18 gallons. And if you do the math,
that's 27 or 28 miles per gallon combined. We'll have to see
where that shakes out. What's great is you can get
all-wheel drive on the hybrid. And it's not just
an electronic add-on like some of the
competitors have. This is genuine all-wheel
drive that mechanically drives all four wheels
when it's engaged. And that's really great,
because it gives it much more authentic off-road capability. The thing about the four
powertrains that's interesting is, the smallest one,
the 2.3 EcoBoost turbo-- it makes as much horsepower
or more than the base engines, which are really
the only engines in a Pilot and a Telluride. So you can only go up from
there, which is really nice. The reason why I'm not
really quoting hard numbers is because Ford's numbers
assume that you're going to use 93 octane
fuel, which frankly, you can't get, even in California
or most of the West Coast. But also, most people aren't
going to spend the extra money. They're going to want to put
in 87 octane regular unleaded, which you can do, because
that is the recommended fuel. But until we get horsepower
and torque figures on 87, I'm not really ready to commit,
or really even able to say, whether any of their
engines are more powerful than the
competition's offerings or not. One of the first things
I notice behind the wheel is I really do
like the steering. And it goes beyond the feeling
of the steering wheel, which is really chunky,
and it's not too big. When you go down
the road, it really has a great sense
of straight ahead. And we had some
strong crosswinds, and that didn't faze it at all. They went back to
rear-wheel drive, but they didn't go
back to body-on-frame. This is still a unibody vehicle. And that gives it a
lower center of gravity, which you can really feel--
the longer wheelbase as well. There's a stability
here, a real composure that really feels premium. And that premium ride also
comes from the suspension tuning and the noise abatement. We're on some pretty coarse
roads, and when we hit bumps, it's very settled. It doesn't upset
the cabin at all. And there's not a lot of road
noise coming up from the tires. I'm really pleased
with the visibility. It's really easy to
see out the front. The pillars are slender. That big C pillar that's body
color that we saw earlier doesn't really block my view. I don't feel like
I'm in a tank here. The only thing about visibility
that I'm not a fan of-- I didn't notice this earlier-- is these are shiny,
and there's definitely a lot of reflection coming up
off these HVAC controls here. This vehicle has the standard
eight inch landscape oriented screen, not the 10 inch
portrait screen we saw earlier. And it's really nice. The graphics are clear. They're easy to understand. It's responsive. And there's a side benefit
to not having the big screen. It doesn't fill up
this space, so there's a nice shelf underneath
that'll hold a phone. Now that I've been in this
vehicle for about four hours, I think I've got it figured out. I like the way it steers. It goes down the road
really nicely, and even in this crosswind. The seats are comfortable. I haven't gotten
tired of them yet. I've got all the
controls figured out. I could drive this thing home,
and I live almost 1,000 miles away from here. So we're still in the hybrid,
but we're towing a boat. And this is great. From the first moment I
pressed the accelerator, the take away was smooth. You could feel the torque of
the electric motor combining with the motor to really get
the vehicle going really easily. And then as we went up
through the first few gears, all the shifts were nice
and smooth and buttery. I really didn't expect that. And at the moment, we're just
cruising around on the highway, and it feels real happy. Tow ratings, they're
just a number. It's a reflection of the cooling
system and the suspension being up to it. But with some vehicles, you
feel like you're asking a lot. It's going to do
it, technically. It's fine, but you don't
necessarily enjoy it. This is enjoyable. This is not a problem at all. Frankly, I'm still trying to wrap
my head around the pricing. At the base model level, it's
really similar to last year. But if you go to XLT or
Limited, the price increase starts to get
pretty substantial. But on the other
hand, this vehicle is a lot more substantial. It really does feel like
a significant upgrade from last year. So extra money,
probably worth it. So what does all of this mean
for the new Ford Explorer? Well, I like the ride. It's quiet. It feels really composed. And when the road gets twisty,
it actually can play along. It's not an Olympic quality
athlete, but it works out. It's fit. It can keep up. As for the powertrain,
same thing. They're solid. The base offering is as strong
as competition's only offering. And the hybrid is just really
a no compromised machine. You can take it off road,
really, up to a point. It doesn't have low range. You can tow a boat or
something else that weighs within its capability. And it's not like you're
asking it to do something it doesn't want to do. It feels really up to the task. It's very well-rounded. The interior's nice
and spacious, too. It's got a lot of
thoughtful touches. Yeah, there's a couple of things
I wish were a little different. But for the most part, I've
got no complaints here. If you want more
detailed information, be sure to check out my article. And remember to hit Subscribe
and visit Edmunds next time you're ready to buy a car.
