Looks like it’s a aluminum block with CGI heads and piston liners   https://www.drivingline.com/articles/inside-the-400-hp-twin-turbo-30l-ecoboost-that-powers-ford-s-explorer-st/  

Wow, she's a beaut!  Looks great! Congrats!

3.0L probably only Al in the Raptors like Ben mentioned.

Aaah.....maybe.

The downside with electrified vehicles that do a lot of towing is mostly due to the weight of the battery, everyone else that just runs up and down the road wth normal loads will have little to no issue.   In Australia, diesel pickup four wheel drives are popular mostly because of the fuel efficiency but also in remote areas the availability of petrol falls away quickly, so it’s a bit of a default fuel. The other side of that is that about 85% of the population lives with 150 miles of the coast, which is why BEV, PHEVs and HEVs have seen a big ride and make up 75% of new sales last month.   My take is something novel/unique to Australia like say, a 2.0 diesel PHEV in a pickup would cover both the urban emission requirements plus the long haul towing / light running fuel efficiency. The Chinese look to be having a crack at this with one or two models promised soon, will keep you posted.

It probably triggers some unexpected cascade effect of weight or parts compatibility or regulation compliance.

Weight can be a big factor in CAFE.  When Ford was building the Lincoln LS around 2002 they had to delete the subwoofers and rear headrests from the v8 sport models because that little bit of weight put them in a different CAFE class and would have triggered a gas guzzler tax.

Wiki says both are CGI

I'd also venture to guess that once you loaded up a Big Bend vs a Outer Banks (the lowest trim you can get with the V6) the price wasn't that different.   I was torn between getting the Outer Banks vs the Big Bend, but at the end of the day the larger screen (at the time) and some other stuff wasn't worth the extra money IMO.  I was messing around with the 2026 Bronco configuration and I was slightly surprised at the results I was getting with pricing-I was looking at the Big Bend/Outer Banks and Badlands-and the pricing was similar to one another-I was getting anywhere from $55-61K with the options I was picking.   The one thing that kinda pissed me off with the build and price is the painted roof colors options seem very limited on the Outer Banks-you can't get a Ruby Red OB with a Ruby Red Top, but they will sell you a Marsh Grey OB with a Ruby Red top-WTAF?! One the Badlands you can get a body color matched top without any issues....

The info I got said only 2500lb, but apparently that was increased with the refresh.