Customers who ordered 2025 Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator SUVs — as well as the Police Interceptor Utility — are beginning to take deliveries of their new vehicles.
Explorer is America’s all-time best-selling SUV, with more than 8 million sold. The new Explorer has an updated lineup of models, all featuring a redesigned interior, advanced new technology, and bolder exterior styling.
The 2025 Explorer is the first Ford vehicle to offer the new Ford Digital Experience infotainment system on a bigger, better digital display. The SUV’s fully redesigned interior features crafted materials and finely textured surfaces available in new colors. It also is the first Explorer with BlueCruise hands-free driving technology.
The new Lincoln Aviator showcases the brand’s evolved design language, with a “bold new exterior design,” and emphasizes signature features and connected experiences. The latest model includes the new Lincoln Digital Experience and BlueCruise, available on Aviator for the first time.
“Across all the models of Ford Explorer, luxury Lincoln Aviator, and the purpose-built Police Interceptor Utility, this plant serves diverse segments with incredible vehicles,” says Angela Weathers, plant manager at Ford Motor Co.’s Chicago Assembly Plant, which produces the SUVs and is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
“Our team enhanced pre-launch testing and quality checks to help ensure these vehicles exceed our customers’ expectations,” she says. “We’re thrilled to have Explorer and Aviator SUVs out for delivery, building on Chicago Assembly Plant’s 100-year legacy of producing groundbreaking vehicles.”
As Ford’s oldest continuously operating plant, Chicago Assembly employs cutting-edge tools like Ford’s Mobile AI Vision System (MAIVS) and other vision systems to assist in vehicle checks.
MAIVS uses mobile phone cameras and AI to perform quality inspections at various points during the assembly process. By catching issues right away, they can be fixed immediately without further disruption later in the assembly process. MAIVS integrates out-of-the-box mobile phones with Ford’s manufacturing systems. It is in use at a variety of workstations, performing a range of tasks at Ford plants around the world. There are 65 MAIVS cameras at Chicago Assembly Plant.
“We are on a journey to world-class manufacturing at Chicago Assembly Plant and everywhere across our footprint,” says Bryce Currie, vice president, America’s Manufacturing at Ford. “The ideas and innovations driving our lean transformation have really energized our quality culture and servant leadership here at Ford, and that’s reflected in the processes and tools we’re deploying at Chicago Assembly Plant and around the globe.”
