2024 Ford Explorer review

I know, I know, I know. But please, just for now do not adjust your sets. Yes, it’s another electric SUV and, hang on, I think I can hear the yawns from here, but this one is important, both in terms of what it is, and the context of its arrival in the marketplace.

You will know of what Sir Humphrey Appleby would describe as Ford’s highly courageous decision to get rid of all the cars upon which it built its name in Europe – read Fiesta, Focus and Mondeo – and replace them with a bunch of far more expensive electric and electrified actual and cod SUVs whose longevity in the marketplace is far from assured. You may have read recent reports of the losses incurred by Ford’s EV division amounting to somewhere between $34,000 and $47,000 on every EV it has sold, depending on which one you believe.

And maybe you have to take one step back to make two steps forward, but if so, Ford appears to have had its Seven League Boots on at the time. Interest in EVs is on the wane in varying degrees in most parts of the world and Ford’s gamble is that this will be a short-lived hiatus between the early adopters having already bought and the rest of us coming around to the idea. It’s about as big a gamble as I’ve seen in this industry of late.