Simplicity reigns in the 2025 Ford Explorer.
I noticed right away when I first started driving this full-sized SUV that Ford has stripped any extra knobs and switches to make the center display the priority.
The good news is that the climate controls are still easy to find. Ford designed the center display to accommodate Apple CarPly or Android Auto in a portion of the screen but left space for digital controls as well.
This is not always true on many of the vehicles I test. The digital display shows CarPlay, for example, but to control some of the other features of the car, you have to go back to the “real” home screen of the car (not the home screen of CarPlay).
You wouldn’t think this would be a big deal but the truth is, when you are driving 75 miles per hour and someone is on your bumper or there’s a truck barreling down the lane next to you, it can be disconcerting to have to be an interface design expert.
In the Explorer, that is not the case. Along the left of the screen, you will see a home button and other vehicle controls. At the bottom, there’s a row of climate control buttons for temperature, fan, and other options like the all-important seat warmers. It’s sparse and clean, meant to ward off the distractions that are so common these days.
In my tests, I was able to punch up the seat warmer with a click as opposed to hunting around for that screen like I do on many modern cars. Some vehicles are trying to be clever, making CarPlay the central focus but then forcing you to wade through menus when all you want to do is get a little warmer on a cold day.
It’s surprising how often this is the case, as though automakers are not testing their cars and the interface with real drivers often enough. They should put someone in the driver’s seat on a cold day and tell them, try to find the seat warmers in three seconds.
Many will fail to find it that quickly, but you will on the Explorer. I will say, it is a safety feature more than a convenience feature. That’s because, if you can find the most obvious settings quickly and go back to driving with your eyes on the road, that is much better for safety than even a lane-keeping system.
The screen also makes it easier to use CarPlay because you feel a little more comfortable knowing all the vehicle’s settings are also a finer press away.
I used the “home” button a few times to compare the explorer’s built-in navigation system to CarPlay’s system. (As usual, no matter what the car companies do, they can’t beat just asking Siri to find a location and send you there.)
Overall, the display is designed for safe driving, easy control — and finding the seat warmers is a nice extra bonus to help ward off the cold.