Ford Explorer EV sighted in Malaysia; on Charge around the Globe circumnavigation attempt journey

An example of the Ford Explorer EV has been sighted on Malaysian roads courtesy of Jaafar Musa on the Malaysian Electric Vehicle Owners Club Facebook group yesterday, though curiously this wears foreign registration; a plate of German origin, in particular. As we will see, this Explorer EV isn’t here in preparation for a local market arrival, but rather for a different purpose.

There is the ‘Charge Around The Globe’ script on the sides of the vehicle, along with a hashtag of the same name on its rear screen. A search of these finds a journey undertaken by adventurer Alexis Alford in the Explorer EV, a Guinness World Record holder for being the youngest person to travel to every country at age 21, breaking the previous record by three years.

Alford’s journey with the Explorer EV began in Nice, southern France in September 2023, with the aim of covering six continents and more than 30 countries on the way to becoming the first person to circumnavigate the globe in an electric vehicle.

A post by the official Ford News Europe Instagram account dated January 5 logged Alford’s entry into Bhutan with the Explorer EV, with 75 days and 14,890 km travelled as of the social media post on that date. The week that has passed has likely also seen the electric SUV’s passage through Malaysia, according to this sighting.

The Explorer EV that Alford has embarked on this journey with is a pre-production unit, and going by the different registration plates attached to the vehicle as sighted in the social media posts, there are several pre-production units travelling with the group.

Unveiled in March 2023, the Ford Explorer EV has been designed for Europe, according to the manufacturer, and has therefore been made to be more compact that its predecessor. The 2020 Explorer measured 5,050 mm long, 2,002 mm wide and 1,783 mm tall with a wheelbase of 3,025 mm.

This is also the first of Ford’s EVs to use the Volkswagen MEB platform through a partnership between Ford and Volkswagen. Its top specification is a dual-motor AWD with 340 PS and 545 Nm, with 286 PS and 170 PS RWD variants to join the range. A maximum range of 498 km on a full charge is targeted, according to Ford; a 10-80% charge time of 25 minutes was quoted at its debut.

GALLERY: Ford Explorer EV

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