The 2025 Ford Expedition Gets A Cool Split-Tailgate And A Gloriously Weird Interior You’d Actually Want To Live With

Nothing exceeds like excess, right? In the land of interstate monotony and king-sized parking spots, the full-size SUV reigns supreme as the ultimate form of big-ass American family transportation. With no shortage of competition, the 2025 Ford Expedition is here, and instead of bashing you over the head with more screens than a franchise of Buffalo Wild Wings, it’s aiming to be genuinely useful.

It’s an unusually active time in the world of full-size body-on-frame SUVs, especially considering the messaging of the automotive landscape right now. With even the new BMW M5 being a plug-in hybrid, you’d expect automakers’ product planning departments to be going with plug-in power all over the place. Instead, over the past few years, Jeep has launched a full-size SUV that looks like a mock castle, Toyota started shipping an all-new third-generation Sequoia with a grille larger than Montauk, and over the past year, Chevrolet and GMC have updated their full-size SUVs; even Nissan has a new Armada on the way.

So, if the full-size SUV wars are here to stay, let’s see what Ford is bringing to the table. Over the past few years, the Expedition, once a pioneer in the segment for offering independent rear suspension as early as 2003, hasn’t had quite the appeal of the Chevrolet Tahoe or GMC Yukon. However, the new one promises to be different, because it’s actually surprisingly clever.

Up front, the new Expedition puts on a better face than the model it replaces. Simplifying the grille, along with the silhouettes of the grille and headlights, gives the new Expedition a more resolved, handsome look than the old model’s two-bars-of-trim-spearing-each-headlight-and-going-nowhere-in-particular look.

While the available light bar in the lower grille isn’t to everyone’s tastes, the new Expedition has a front end that looks styled by humans, whereas the old one…didn’t. However, the best exterior part of the Expedition is found around the back. No, I’m not talking about the odd two-tone tailgate paint treatment some models are getting, but I am talking about cargo access.

See, Ford has pulled a leaf out of Range Rover’s playbook and given the Expedition one of the greatest features an SUV can have — a split tailgate. The top three-quarters of the cargo hatch swings up while the bottom quarter folds down.

Not only should this reduce the total swing space of the liftgate, it should also make loading heavy cargo without scratching the bumper easier, prevent cargo from rolling out if you’re parked uphill, and with a 500-pound weight capacity, give you somewhere to sit. Well done, Ford. Equally well-done, something called the Cargo Tailgate Manager is available; it functions as either a seat backrest or a table for the fold-down part of the tailgate. Now that’s useful.

Lots Of Power, Even More Torque

As for what’s under the hood of the 2025 Ford Expedition, you’ll find a 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6 in two different output levels: a lot, and even more. Standard on most trims is a version that kicks out 400 horsepower and 480 lb.-ft. of torque. If that’s not enough for you, standard on the Tremor trim and optional on the Platinum trim is a version of that motor making 440 horsepower and 510 lb.-ft. of torque. No wonder this thing’s rated to tow up to 7,000 pounds with a standard hitch and receiver setup, and up to 9,000 pounds with a weight-distributing hitch. As for the rest of the powertrain, all trims come standard with a 10-speed automatic transmission, while a choice of rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive is available on all but the Tremor trim.

The Tremor Gets A Locker And Plenty Of Ground Clearance

That’s because the Tremor is a little bit different than your standard Expedition. It wants to head at least somewhat into the wilderness, so this off-roady trim gains standard four-wheel-drive with a locking rear differential, 275/70R18 General Grabber all-terrain tires, skid plates, extra lighting, 10.6 inches of ground clearance, and some nifty electronic assists. It’s got Trail Turn Assist, which will lock an inside rear wheel and have the vehicle pivot around it on a loose surface, and Trail 1-Pedal, which lets drivers modulate off-road speed using just the throttle pedal, both downloaded from other Ford off-roaders. Nice.

A Gloriously Weird Cabin

However, the most notable part of the 2025 Ford Expedition is the interior, because man, is it ever gloriously weird for the segment. You’d expect the interior of a big, rugged SUV to be full of angles and hard corners and maybe even bricks, right? Not here, because the Expedition features what can almost be described as a cylindrical dashboard. It’s pleasantly soft-looking, and a whole world away from the F-Series pickup truck-like dashboard in the old Expedition. Less utilitarian, more inviting.

It’s a similar deal with the new steering wheel, an unusual squircle that, at first, seems very low. However, part of that’s an illusion because Ford has put a massive 24-inch digital instrument cluster right up near the windshield, so you don’t even need a head up display that’ll simply wash out once you don polarized sunglasses. It’s a neat idea, and although it’s not new in the automotive kingdom, it’s still something I’d be interested in trying out in practice on the road [Ed Note: The dual-screen setup in the Lincoln Nautilus is legitimately useful, and since that’s a Ford brand, I bet this will be cool, too. -DT].

Speaking of the steering wheel, that trapezoidal black bump on the top of the steering column is part of the driver monitoring system for Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving assistance system, which aims to make long highway slogs a little less fatiguing.

Speaking of tech, switching back to a landscape-style infotainment screen makes the center stack look less claustrophobic, and it ought to work well with how people actually use Apple CarPlay and Android auto in cars. Moving the rotary shifter and volume knob to a Lincoln Navigator-style plinth beneath the screen is also a good move, because not only does it make the cabin look more upscale, it frees up room in the console for additional storage.

While we’re on the subject of storage, the new Expedition does a few things that simply make sense, and make you wonder why they aren’t commonplace across the segment. First off, the third-row seat has a pass-through so you can run skis down the length of the vehicle while still hauling a boatload of people. Secondly, since kids and adults alike are now glued to their mobile devices, the back of each front seat features a smartphone and tablet holder, so second-row riders can watch something hands-free while they devour some road trip food.

The 2025 Ford Expedition isn’t revolutionary. It doesn’t have the slow-breathing V8s of a Chevrolet Tahoe, the hybrid power of the Toyota Sequoia, or the sheer number of gadgets the Jeep Wagoneer and new Nissan Armada boast. However, by making some novel design decisions, Ford has created something intriguing, and worth consideration all on its own. While pricing hasn’t been announced yet, expect more details from Ford closer to the new Expedition going on sale in the Spring. My best guess? We might know more on Oct. 24, when order books are slated to open.

(Photo credits: Ford)

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