Update: The story has been revised with an image and related commentary.
As part of its mid-term plan to increase its annual EV production to more than two million EVs by 2026, Ford was planning a slew of electric models, including a three-row SUV that’s the EV counterpart of the Explorer or Expedition.
However, the company has shelved plans to release the electric three-row SUV in response to changing market trends. It was to be a radically different vehicle from the gas-powered Expedition or Explorer, one featuring a visibly more aerodynamic design, sloping roof, and offering significantly more space and comfort.
Ford’s outgoing EV boss has a sleek SUV as his LinkedIn banner image, and all signs point to it being the model in question. It was expected to play the role of the Expedition in Ford’s EV lineup, offering generous space and comfort for three rows.
We could have converted an Expedition into an EV, but it wouldn’t have made for a very good EV and it wouldn’t have made for a very good Expedition. You’d have to put a really big battery in this vehicle in order to get just 300 miles of range on the highway, about 150 kilowatt hours of battery. That’s a big, expensive, and heavy battery.
Doug Field, Chief Advanced Product Development and Technology Officer, Ford Model e, Ford (Ford Capital Markets Day 2023 on May 22, 2023)
On May 22, 2023, at the company’s capital markets day, Ford President and CEO Jim Farley described the three-row EV as “a seven-passenger SUV that’s like your own personal bullet train.” Field said it would be “beautiful” and “unlike anything in the segment so far.”
He also confirmed that the electric model will be longer, sleeker, and quieter, but affordable. Ford aimed to engineer its battery and charging such that it could add 150 miles of range in less than ten minutes and travel long distances on the highway.
Ford planned to manufacture the Expedition-like electric three-row SUV in Oakville (Ontario), Canada, and launch it in 2025. Demand for three-row EVs wasn’t all that promising, and following a prolonged slowdown in demand for EVs across segments, the company decided to postpone it.
On April 4, 2024, the Blue Oval announced it was re-timing the release of the electric three-row SUV to 2027. Along with the demand for three-row EVs, it expected battery technology to improve by that time.
On August 21, 2024, Ford revealed it was calling it quits on all-electric three-row SUVs. “The reality is that the market changed,” then-Ford Model e COO Marin Gjaja reasoned, in a conversation with Reuters the following day.
“As we saw the growth and adoption rate fade, we were furiously trying to catch up,” Gjaja continued. Ford’s new electrification plan for three-row SUVs is adopting hybrid technologies. The reversal from pure-electric to hybrid will cost the company up to USD 1.9 billion.
On November 20, 2024, at the Barclays 15th Annual Global Auto & Mobility Tech Conference, John Lawler, Ford’s then-CFO, suggested that steep pricing is one of the reasons behind the decline in EV demand following the initial hype.
“The one thing we do know that I’ll say with certainty is that consumers are not willing to pay much of a premium for EVs versus an ICE vehicle,” Lawler said. On the other hand, they are willing to shell out more for hybrid, he added.
Field, who is leaving the company next month, posted on Linkedin that fitting batteries to large, expensive vehicles is a failed strategy, and hinted that Ford is pivoting to smaller, affordable EVs.
Lower battery costs will take time, so affordable EV’s must come from putting our best engineering and tech on our lowest-cost vehicles. Big batteries on inefficient vehicles will not drive EV adoption. Efficiency is the universal currency.
Doug Field, Chief EV, Digital, and Design Officer at Ford, on Linkedin, in February 2026
Featured image: Doug Field/LinkedIn
International Automotive News Editor since 2014, covering global motor shows, industry events, and test-driving various vehicles, with a focus on hybrid and electric cars in recent years.
