This past week, Stellantis hosted a top-secret, ultra-exclusive, red-carpet, Met-Gala-esque, invite-only event for dealerships in Las Vegas, Moparinsiders reports. The company brought along a handful of upcoming EVs with which to familiarize dealerships before the cars hit showrooms. Some of those dealers took photos, so now we have independent pictures of the 2024 Jeep Recon — not renderings, and not from Stellantis itself. What do you think?
In a post to Instagram (shown below), Mitchell Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of Canton, Connecticut, writes:
The future of Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram looks bright! Here’s a sneak peek at the Ram EV, Charger Daytona EV, Jeep Recon, & Jeep Wagoneer S! Which one is your favorite?
ÂÂÂÂÂView this post on InstagramÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ
Among the photos of the new EVs, the Recon stands out. The Internet has only seen what appear to be manufacturer renderings, or at the very most highly-polished media shots. These new photos are the first non-press shots of the future electric off-roader. What do I think? It looks fantastic.
Lee Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram was apparently also in attendance, posting this caption alongside its photo album of the event:
We had a great time attending the Stellantis event this week in Las Vegas! To see where these brands are going over the next 7 years is remarkable! Electrification is coming folks. Here is a sneak peak of what will be on our lot before we know it!
Here’s the album:
ÂÂÂÂÂView this post on InstagramÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ
It appears, based on those exterior hinges, that the Recon will indeed have removable doors, paying respect to its Wrangler big brother. The upcoming EV SUV does appear to be missing one Wrangler element, though: a removable top. Although hard to speculate based on this image and the limited information we have on the Recon, I’d expect there to be a full power-folding roof, possibly even a fabric one like the one found on the JL Wrangler. Let’s just hope it’s nothing like that disastrous leaky setup prone to failure that was found in the second-generation Liberty. This particular angle above looks very Bronco Sport; the two seem to be similarly sized (it’s hard to tell), though I much prefer the chunkier looks of the Recon.
Check out that front fascia! It looks incredible. It’s what the Renegade should have looked like back in 2015. The front bumper appears to be mostly steel [Editor’s Note: I doubt that. -DT], and those sharp blue tow hooks look great, taking a page out of the Wrangler 4xe’s book.
The 7-slot grille stays true to the Jeep heritage, adding a warm led outline on each slot. Who knows if this will make it to production, but it looks damn good. In the middle slot, you can see a forward-facing camera — a plus when it comes to off-roading, particularly when cresting steep grades. Some of that front end, and certainly the shape of the fender flares, give off Grand Cherokee and Grand Cherokee L vibes.
Here’s the side profile. Front and rear overhangs look pretty decent — not sure if I can say the same about ground clearance. It looks to be about eight inches based on my total-guess-o-meter. The rock rail takes a little bit of clearance away, but it looks very necessary given the limited clearance. Also: Take a peek at those door handles. How do those work? I’m very curious.
My overall thoughts? I dig it! I’m sure I won’t dig the price; expect at least a starting MSRP of $60,000 if I had to guess, but Jeep knows it has this market cornered. The Recon looks kind of like an EV Bronco Sport, and that’s a good thing ; I am excited to see how the Recon stacks up against that little Ford, as well as against the big-dogs like the Wrangler and Bronco. Those short overhangs should make it the most off-road capable high-volume BEV on the market.
Update (March 27, 2023 13:40): This is a preproduction vehicle. Jeep says it expects a production version to hit the market in 2024. It may look different.
I don’t think the Jeep Recon is particularly appealing, and I don’t see it finding a much of an audience. There is nothing particularly interesting about how it looks, and ultimately, it’s a Stellantis product.
I see exposed door hinges. Do the doors come off or is this all just bronco cosplay?
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I could tell it was an EV from the heavy-looking belly sagging between the wheels before reading the article. You can bevel the bottom of the door, change the trim color, and stick a rail down there all in attempt to minimize the visual impact of it, but you’re not fooling anybody about how low that is.
Don’t get me wrong, I like EVs, and I like the general styling of this, but I question the practicality of electrifying a vehicle that is presumably meant for off-road use if there’s no choice but to have clearance like this. Like safari’ing a Lamborghini, maybe some compromises just don’t need to be made.
The 7 slot grille was a Ford addition to mass produce the MBs in WWII, funny how they covet it as a Jeep thing. It might be good but as a veteran I am not thrilled with all the militarization in the country. War is not cool and we market it to kids and man children bros constantly.
Jeep is in a tough spot because the world wants everything electrified with maximum range which doesn’t work to the company’s strengths. But they do know how few Jeep owners take their vehicles offroad, so they’re making a decent EV for the mass market. They’ll take some heat from the MOAR POWAH crowd for how poorly the Recon really does offroad, but I’d bet 20% or fewer Recons will be used for offroading. Of all the Recons they sell, I’d bet 60% or fewer ever get offroad at all. That’s not terrible, and not a knock against Jeep, but that price needs to come down to compete with the Kias & such in that EV size class.
EVs can work off road. The electric motor is infinitely tunable. But for Jeep the obvious answer is a small range extender. And I do mean small, just enough to get you out of trouble and back to civilization. Ideally something designed for multi fuel. And as much as it may sound odd to say this, a rotary engine is nearly perfect for this.
With that colour combination, and the blacked out windows/pillars, it looks like a new model Land Rover Defender. Until I clicked through and saw the bigger pictures, I thought it *was* a Defender.
Lol pool, I thought the same thing. That’s going to pool water like a mofo, even just from washing it, not to mention snow/rain. I like the look of this a lot, but as someone else said, the all-black greenhouse is too much. And it’s electric. So, no thanks. Side note I parked my Gladiator next to a Rivian the other day, and complemented the owner and we got to talking. I asked him how he liked it, and he said, in the year I’ve had it, it’s been in the shop 3x and one of those was for a complete battery replacement. He further said: so in the little time it’s actually been at my house and not the shop, I like it a lot……
Hoping those door handles have big paddles in the bottoms of those slots.
Looks more Hummer-ish than Jeep-ish.
eh, at least the hummer has ground clearance and can sort of wheel with the wranglers, this is mall crawler at it’s best. and guess what there are not many malls around anymore.
Rock rails work better when they go from wheel arch to wheel arch and not leave big plastic gaps.
Thye claim it will be a rock crawler, but I doubt highly a 60K low riding Cherokee EV with street tire will make it up many rocks, so the effectiveness of those rails is moot.
The Daytona has Kammback going on. I dig it!
I’m not completely sold on this design, though its a bit hard to judge from the images. What’s with the whole blacked out greenhouse? How is the black separated? Just a paint split or are they separate parts? And I’m not crazy about how the intersection line shift upwards towards the front and also bisects the Marty Feldman rear lights. Also that illuminated grille is a bit too much, just looks really cheap.
Oh cool, a Ford Bronco wearing a Jeep Halloween costume.
There’s something really off about this vehicle’s design. Maybe it’s the Tonka bumper that looks like it’s tacked on to an otherwise finished front end. Maybe it’s the bulging rear tailight/bumper/badonkadonk going on. Maybe it’s the giant battery belly slung low and dragging. Maybe it’s all three, IDK the beer isn’t helping
The Wagoneer thing and the Chrysler look like a Toyota Venza. Ok, but derivative
I appreciate the attempt to mirror the various wasp-waisted lines of 66-74 Chargers in the Daytona. Certainly closer to the spirt of the original than anything Dodge has slapped the Charger name on since they began nearly five decades of shame beginning with the 1975 rebadged Chrysler Cordoba disaster. But, those are some ugly damn wheels. What is up with automakers and wheels these days? The only recent wheels I haven’t hated on sight were the steelies on the Bronco and Maverick. And those film-reel knockoffs on the Recon do nothing for me either.
The Recon is the only one of the 4 cars in those pictures that looks remotely close to production.
The Jeep Bronco looks alright, but I think Ford did it better.
I wonder who at Stellantis had the bright idea that instead of taking the Jeep Wrangler Magneto BEV concept and putting it into production that it would be better to instead make 3 different 4 door unibody vehicles with independent suspension all around, slap Fake Jeep Grills and Jeep badges on them, and sell them as the first electric Jeeps…
How is it better? It certainly costs more to produce 3 new cars instead of doing what amounts to an engine swap one one. It doesn’t help the brand image any, it just makes a better case for Jeep is dead and Stellantis killed it. And I’m certain that the Jeep Wrangler Magneto BEV concept is more capable at being a Jeep than ANY of the 3 BEVs with fake Jeep Grills and Jeep badges slapped onto them.
Seriously Jeep could do a BEV motor swap on a Suzuki Jimny and sell them in the US as Jeeps and it would be more of a Jeep than any of the 3 BEVs that are getting fake Jeep grills and Jeep badges slapped onto them.
Everyone: “The Magneto looks awesome! When can we get it?”
Jeep: “Here’s an electric Bronco. You can have it for $70K.”
It’s actually worse. Not only is the roof non removable, but at least the Bronco has one solid axle, a 2 door variant, and a body on frame construction.
If Jeep released the Recon with a body on frame construction with 2 and 4 door variants and they came with a removable roof I wouldn’t call it a Jeep, but I’d say it’s Jeep-ish, and I’d be interested in a 2 door one. But I bet you that the current Recon is going to have a worse turning circle than the current 2 door Wrangler and that alone is enough to keep me from even considering getting a Recon.
Stellantis won’t make an EV with solid axles for the same reason nobody else will: because driveshafts and differentials add a lot of drag, and an axle mounted motor makes for obscene unsprung weight(really bad on washboarded jeep trails). Also it seriously gets in the way of a skateboard type of battery.
They won’t just stab an electric motor in a Wrangler because it wouldn’t be a very good EV, and it wouldn’t be a very good Jeep. It would have little range and wouldn’t have the quietness that folks have come to associate with EVs, and so it wouldn’t be a very good car around town. The short range makes it a non starter for off roading trips that involve going more than maybe 100 miles from home.
That’s why they’d rather make a unibody, independent suspension, four door, crossover. Because it’s waaaaaaay better for what most jeep customers are actually doing.
Assuming there is no practical workaround for the problems you mention why does the Recon have to be a unibody 4 door with a non removable roof?
Why couldn’t it be available as a 2 door with a removable roof?
BEVs don’t have to be unibody, and there’s actually a lot of good reasons to make them BOF, especially for Jeep.
Now we can agree on that one. It’s a unibody four door crossover because Stellantis is boring and lame, and no other reason.
A short wheelbase two door sporty, if not terribly off-road oriented, little electric jeep would be a glorious vehicle indeed. Either unibody or BOF, not sure that makes a big difference to the consumer. Also a big battery in the floor would help with some of the stability issues inherent to short wheelbase 4x4s. They could make it really really short and tiny if they wanted to.
I still think they could make a BEV Wrangler with solid axles, even if it’s not that efficient.
That being said with the footprint rule not being applicable they should have made it compact and BOF with a removable roof, doors, etc. Kinda like a little Wrangler-lite
Instead we got this sad hunk of crud and 2 other ones.
I’m interested as to why you seem so hard set on a body on frame vehicle. As a serious XJ stan, I’m not sure unibody SUVs lack anything at all that body on frame ones have.
But yeah pretty much wrangler lite would be rad
How many convertible XJs are there?
How many removeable hard top XJs are there?
Is it easier or harder to make 2 door and 4 door variants of a unibody vehicle or a BOF automobile?
When an automaker makes a 4 unibody automobile the statistically likelihood that said automaker will make a 2 door variant and or a convertible variant is lower than if it were a BOF vehicle.
Also in general unless the unibody automobile is basically a BOF ladder frame with a body welded to the frame it is almost certainly going to have a weaker frame that is less tolerant of abuse and use.
Personally I’ve never seen a BOF vehicle with a crunched frame because someone jacked it up in the wrong place. I’ve seen several unibody vehicles with bent frame rails from being jacked up in the wrong place.
Also as someone who wants to keep their automobile for as long as possible having the ability to replace the body if the body is damaged is very nice.
*statistical
I can’t wait for an edit button
It would actually be somewhat efficient as around town BEV’s don’t really care too much about body shape. on the freeway it could be worse than this little Cherokee thing, but on the trails we use heavy axles all the time. the biggest issue would really be how many batteries and where to put them. Wranglers are kind of small already. for many jeepers though the fear of getting shocked in a mud pit or while crossing a fender deep water obstacle is a real thing. Honestly the 4Xe wranglers are pretty solid best of both world EV’s currently. They just have not gotten cheap enough for big mods, but replacing the solid axles with 1 ton Magna E-Beams and replacing the ice motor with more batteries may become a thing.
I mean Magna already has the E-Beam setup available. I suspect they will be used more for heavier duty trucks to retain RWD towing capabilities, or maybe it will just be for old hot rod conversions, who knows, but I could see Real jeepers pissed off about lack of old 1 ton axles eventually moving to this.
Until batteries have a power density close to gasoline you won’t see anything like the Magneto concept. EVs need to be super efficient with their power to get the range people expect, so aerodynamics are huge and a solid axle box is the opposite of good aero.
The Magneto made with current tech would either have gotten 100 mile range or weighed 8000 lbs. Plus it would have started at $80k and 3 people would have bought it.
What the hell happened to the post about the tornado-tossed Toyota?
https://www.theautopian.com/what-its-like-being-tossed-150-feet-by-a-tornado-while-sitting-in-a-toyota-4runner/
“The page can’t be found”
I’ve decided to publish that at a later date, when a bit more time has passed. Though it is a story about one man’s remarkable plight in an unstoppable 4Runner, and certainly worth discussing, one commenter was very upset, making the argument that maybe it’s not the best time to extol the virtues of a 4Runner given the tragic events (even though we did acknowledge the tragedy in the piece multiple times, and we provided a link to a donation site).
Out of respect to that commenter, who himself has struggled through similar storms in his lifetime, we’re gonna give it a bit more time. (Also, I’m very conservative with this type of thing given how young our site is).
Should you be curious, here’s the 4Runner in question:
https://twitter.com/marcusreynold19/status/1639747502390771722
Patience is a virtue. Good move.
Thanks for the response.
I’m curious to know if notifications are working now – I’ve signed out & signed back in via the emailed link, but I still can’t see a comment history or user profiles.
At $60k this would absolutely be a no-go. It’s hard to get a feel for the size of it, but it seems like a Renegade/Cherokee replacement, and that price would be absurd for such a vehicle. That money will buy you a very nice GC or JL, and even a base Wagoneer.
I feel like you really don’t have a handle on the prices of EVs, let alone what the past three years have done to new car prices. Like, at all.
It seems you don’t have a handle on the point I was making.
Again, hard to tell the size of this or what segment it’s supposed to land in, but at $60k it is competing with the Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee. From photos it looks like a small midsize, if that. If I’m wrong I’m wrong, but the price feels a cut or two above where it should be.
But s/he’s not wrong nonetheless. The prices are obscene.
The front end lighting, especially on the !!!RAM!!!, is… a bit over the top. The Recon looks good – a bit like a Bronco Sport and a Rivian R1S mashup.
Can’t wait to see a giant glowing RAM logo in my rear view, 6″ from my bumper.
The flat indentation in the hood makes me wonder how easy it would be to mount a spare tire on the hood, like on old Land Rovers or the Citroen 2CV Sahara?
Actually, you’re looking at the optional kiddie pool/bassinet hood.
Lol pool, I thought the same thing. That’s going to pool water like a mofo, even just from washing it, not to mention snow/rain. I like the look of this a lot, but as someone else said, the all-black greenhouse is too much. And it’s electric. So, no thanks. Side note I parked my Gladiator next to a Rivian the other day, and complemented the owner and we got to talking. I asked him how he liked it, and he said, in the year I’ve had it, it’s been in the shop 3x and one of those was for a complete battery replacement. He further said: so in the little time it’s actually been at my house and not the shop, I like it a lot……