Ford’s Cologne-build Explorer might be delivered about half a yr later than initially deliberate. Now, the carmaker provides a motive for the delay: it desires to make use of a special battery to adjust to the ECE commonplace.
Till now, the plan was to fabricate the Explorer based mostly on Volkswagen’s MEB. Ford’s electrical SUV was thus to obtain VW’s batteries and electrical drives. Nevertheless, plans – at the very least relating to the battery – have modified.
The Ford Explorer will include a special battery that can adjust to the “upcoming European commonplace for electrical automobiles, UN Regulation 100.3/ ECE-R 100.3”, Ford spokesman Ralph Caba instructed 24RHEIN. If the brand new battery commonplace would require constructional adjustments of the automobile stays unclear. In spite of everything, along with the {hardware}, VW was additionally to produce the software program for controlling the battery and electrical drive.
Nevertheless, it appears unclear whether or not and why the batteries provided by VW shouldn’t adjust to the ECE commonplace, writes the portal Golem. In line with the German TÜV Süd, new registrations from 1 September would solely be doable in response to revision 3. That might imply: if the VW batteries don’t adjust to the brand new commonplace, no new VW EVs can be allowed to hit the highway from September.
Nevertheless, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) speculates that utilizing a special battery (a call apparently made by the corporate’s headquarters in Detroit) could possibly be a strategic resolution relating to Ford’s future generations of electrical vehicles. If the aim is to have as many similar components as doable to simplify manufacturing, it is smart to standardise the batteries.
“Ford’s headquarters in Detroit was considerably behind within the improvement of the longer term EV vary, Ford Germany considerably forward because of the cooperation with Volkswagen,” the paper writes.
Firstly of the yr, Ford introduced that it might not depend on cooperation with Volkswagen for its new technology of electrical vehicles. From the center of the last decade, the automobiles ought to use the in-house system developed by Ford within the USA.
Ford already transformed two manufacturing strains to construct electrical vehicles, and the conversion of a 3rd line is underway. Plans to postpone manufacturing of the Ford Explorer on the Cologne manufacturing unit simply grew to become public yesterday. It stays unclear what is going to occur with the German manufacturing plant and its staff till manufacturing is ramped up in the summertime of 2024.
Ford introduced the brand new electrical Explorer in March 2023. Order books have been to open in September of this yr, and the primary automobiles have been to be delivered earlier than Christmas.
Ford had but to provide any technical information on the drive system. The precise energy of the rear-wheel, all-wheel drive, and battery sizes are unknown. The VW manufacturers provide a battery with 82 kWh gross/77 kWh web for automobiles of this measurement. The rear-wheel drive produces 150 kW, and for the all-wheel drive possibility with a further ASM on the entrance axle, VW presents two levels with 195 and 220 kW system energy, respectively.
24rhein.de, golem.de, faz.web (all hyperlinks in German)