Ford Explorer EV firms as replacement for soon-to-be-discontinued Escape SUV
Ford has cracked the door wide open for the new Explorer EV to come to Australia following the decision to axe the Escape SUV locally.
The decision to discontinue the Escape mid-sized SUV in Australia – in both petrol and plug-in hybrid forms – leaves Ford without a competitor in the second biggest segment in Australia (utes are number one).
It also means Ford doesn’t have a competitor for some of the top selling vehicles in the country, including the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage and Nissan X-Trail.
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“The Escape nameplate will be leaving Australia by the end of the year,” said Andrew Birkic, Ford Australia president and CEO. “We don’t make the nameplate decisions and those brand decisions lightly. We believe now is the right time.”
Birkic says the decisions was about positioning the brand for the future and the evolving transition to EV, something he says the company is “all-in” on.
“We have to make a business decision, where are we going to put our chips. We’ve made a decision that’s not Escape.”
The imminent demise of the Escape shines the spotlight on the recently-revealed all-electric Explorer that was designed for the European market.
Sharing only its name with the American Explorer, the electric Explorer is a medium SUV designed to compete with the Tesla Model Y, Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and upcoming Toyota bZ4X, Subaru Solterra and Volkswagen ID.4.
It is based on Volkswagen’s MEB EV architecture that underpins the ID range of electric vehicles.
Birkic says the mid-sized SUV category has shifted substantially to the point where many models are now more expensive. It’s also seeing increasing volume from some electric models, something led by the Tesla Model Y.
“Fifteen, twenty years ago, that segment where Escape plays – in terms of its price point and bandwidth – is very different than where it is today,” says Birkic. “It pushed much higher.”
Helping the Explorer’s cause for Australia is availability.
While its focus is the European market, it will be manufactured in right-hand drive for the UK market, instantly solving one of the hurdles that sometimes hits cars on the Aussie wish list.
And the Explorer EV is clearly a vehicle that could work in Australia if it was priced sensibly to compete with the Model Y, which has had a couple of recent price reductions and dominates the premium SUV segment for sales.
