In 2021, Ford sold 140,000 SUVs in China, which is up by 0.6-percent compared to the previous year. One of their popular models is the Explorer, which is also America's third best-selling midsize SUV just behind the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Toyota Highlander. To keep its midsize SUV competitive, the 2023 Ford Explorer has been spied in China, and its changes are quite extensive.
These photos come courtesy of Han93 via Weibo, and it gives us a glimpse of what the Explorer will look like, at least for the Chinese market.
For starters, the front end of the 2023 Ford Explorer has been revised by giving it sleeker LED headlights, a new grille, and a cleaner front bumper due to the smaller foglight housings. Ford also added the Explorer script on its hood, just like in the previous generation model. The overall design puts it in line with other Chinese-marker Ford vehicles, such as the Mondeo, the Evos, and even the recently-leaked facelifted Focus.
The Ford Explorer's rear end has also been updated, and it now comes with LED taillights that stretch towards the Ford badge in the middle. It bears quite a resemblance with the upcoming Ford Everest as a result.
Even more extensive are the changes inside the Explorer. The dashboard design is completely new, and it ditches the portrait touch screen in favor of a ginormous one that stretches all the way to the front passenger side. There are also open-pore wood trimmings running across the dash, along with knurled climate control switches. The steering wheel and rotary gear selector seem to be unchanged from the current Explorer.
The Chinese-market Explorer already looked quite different from the American model, both externally and internally. To be precise, China's Ford Explorer has been rocking a slightly larger mesh grille and a more aggressive front bumper for a while now, along with a larger portrait infotainment screen compared to its American sibling.
Additionally, since China taxes big displacement engines much more heavily, the Chinese-market Explorer only comes with the 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine that produces 276 horsepower and 314 pound-feet of torque. This also drives the rear or all four wheels via a ten-speed automatic.
The 2023 Ford Explorer will most likely be locally produced at the Changan Ford joint venture plant in China. We certainly do hope that some of these upgrades are implemented into the American-market Ford Explorer when it gets facelifted for the 2023 model year.