And so it begins. The world is transitioning to electric cars, and Jeep – a brand that has been riding the coattails of solid-axle off-road vehicles since 1941 — is going to have to figure something out, because electric cars with solid axles just don’t make sense right now. Before you worry, no, the 2024 Jeep Recon is not going to take place of the legendary Jeep Wrangler, but it is going to represent Jeep’s very first “true” fully electric off-roader in the brand’s 81 year history. Here’s a first look at the Jeep Recon.
“The Wrangler stays the Wrangler — the icon of the brand…. the best of the best of the best is the Wrangler. Most capable” said Jeep brand CEO Christian Meunier at a press conference yesterday. This came after I asked whether the new Recon would be replacing the Wrangler, and after Stellantis’ head designer Ralph Gilles talked about how that very question meant his team had done its job right. The Recon, he said, was meant to take inspiration from the Wrangler, and you can sort of see that in the design, with the squared-off greenhouse, rear-mounted spare tire, and removable doors:
I asked my question not because I truly think the Recon will be able to fill the Wrangler’s shoes off-road — and I certainly didn’t think Jeep would just give up the Wrangler name — but I do think the Wrangler as we know it today just isn’t going to work as an EV, especially not near-term. And if the Wrangler is going to go EV, I could see it becoming something like this Recon. I’ll go more into that in a second, but first let me tell you what I know about the Recon (it’s not much).
It’s a fully-electric off-road vehicle capable of crossing the Rubicon Trail, per Jeep. Plus it can apparently “reach the end of the trail with enough range to drive back to town and recharge.” It will come with an electronic locker, skid plates, tow hooks, and “aggressive off-road tires,” plus a power sliding top, removable doors, frunk, and removable glass. That last bit is quite interesting; check out this photo showing the missing glass in the Recon’s cargo area.
Per Stellantis, the Recon represents a “Reinvention of the modern American icon,” and sits on the Stella Large alongside the Wagoneer S EV, which I’ll write about here in a moment. (You can learn more about the STLA or “Stella” platforms that will propel Stellantis in to the future here). Customers can reserve their Recon in early 2023, with the vehicle hitting the market in 2024.
It’s Not Going To Be Easy To Build An Electric Wrangler
Okay, so now that I’ve dished out the limited info I have about the Recon, let’s talk about the tricky spot Jeep is in right now.
The Jeep Wrangler — the vehicle that all other Jeeps emulate or draw inspiration from in some way or another — is a solid-axle off-road vehicle with huge knobby tires, tons of ground clearance, and the aerodynamic profile of a barn. These attributes don’t work very well in an electric vehicle, because they lead to fairly high Vehicle Demand Energy, i.e. energy needed to just shove the vehicle down the road. In other words, the Wrangler is, by nature, not a very efficient machine. The current gas Wrangler made some improvements over its predecessor, and can score MPG figures in the 20s. This isn’t great, but gas is cheap enough, blow-molding a tank to take more fuel is simple enough, and a customer can fill up in two minutes.
An inefficient overall vehicle design catered towards off-road capability works as an ICE, but in an EV, it causes all sorts of issues. Because it takes so much energy to get down the road thanks to those tires and aerodynamic inefficiencies like high ground clearance and sharp corners, range decreases just like it does on a gas car. But increasing the “tank size” on an EV is both heavy, expensive, and environmentally taxing. I could probably dig up some ABC coefficients from the EPA and roughly calculate how big of a battery, approximately, one might need in order to score 250 miles of range on a modern Jeep Wrangler (I’d have to make a few assumptions); suffice it to say: it’d have to be big. And thus, the vehicle would have to be expensive and heavy and filled with precious metals.
The current Wrangler as it sits ain’t cheap, but given how simple it is (it’s a body-on-frame vehicle with the same engine and transmission as darn-near every other Chrysler), you can bet the margins are good, and Jeep doesn’t want to give up on that.
The other issue is the solid axle, which is a key ingredient that has alway made the Wrangler the king of low-speed off-roading over uneven terrain. There’s a reason that the 4×4 museum in the UAE only includes solid-axle vehicles, and there’s a reason that, as good as the new Ford Bronco is off-road, it seems per comparison tests that the Jeep still has an edge. The solid axle has always been the Wrangler’s trump card (especially since it makes lifting the vehicle easier than if it had independent suspension).
The problem is: An electric car with a solid axle is tricky for a number of reasons that our suspension engineer Huibert Mees discussed in his article “The Surprising Ways Electric Car Suspensions Are Different Than Gas Car Suspensions: Ask An Engineer.”. I’ll quote him heavily here:
Batteries take up a lot of space and are heavy so you want them to be mounted low and as close to the center in the car as possible. Unfortunately, that’s also exactly where the driveshaft is. Having a moving driveshaft would take away too much space for the batteries which would hurt range too much. A perfect example is the new Ford F-150 Lightning. Ford ditched the live axle (shown above) and put in a new independent rear suspension just for the Lightning (see below). I think Ford knew it could never make the Lightning work well enough as an EV without going the extra mile designing a whole new suspension. Believe me, Ford would never have spent that kind of money on the F-150 if it didn’t believe it was absolutely necessary. I think you will see this happen more often as existing vehicles are converted to EV.
Huibert’s article goes on, saying:
The other reason is that a traditional differential with the typical ring and pinion gear — a pairing that turns the power 90 degrees — is not a very efficient beast. The ring and pinion depend on a sliding action between the gears in order to minimize noise, and this adds friction. Friction is an energy loss and EV’s are all about minimizing energy losses so that you get as much range out of a battery charge as possible.
I will say that there are some companies out there developing electric motors that are mounted on a live axle (see below) but as a suspension engineer, I would be very concerned about the increased mass from these motors. Unsprung mass is the enemy of good ride and handling and is the reason live axles are not in use much anymore. Increasing unsprung mass with the addition of an electric motor to the axle would be the wrong way to go, in my opinion.
Obviously, right now the Wrangler is sticking around with its gasoline, diesel, and plug-in hybrid powertrain options. The latter is a great compromise that allows the Wrangler some amount of EV-only driving while maintaining the JL’s tough and highly capable drivetrain architecture. Jeep did show a Magneto concept car at the Easter Jeep Safari, and though it had a solid front axle, it was basically a Wrangler with an electric motor hooked up to the manual transmission. I can’t imagine something this crude would work as a production vehicle, as it severely compromises battery packaging.
The Recon Looks Like It Should Do Well Off-Road
Without knowing much about the Recon’s features, and without having driven it, it’s hard to say how good it will be off-road, but one can learn a lot from pictures (because when it comes to off-roading, geometry is king, as I often say). The recon’s short overhangs look great, as do its big tires; I have concerns about those low rocker panels, but hey, you’ve got to fit batteries under there. If I had to guess, this thing — in highest trim — will utilize air suspension to offer decent highway range while still maintaining good ground clearance off-road. This is the direction I see most “hard-core” off-roaders moving as the world becomes more electric. We’ve already seen it on the new Defender, which is a gas car; EVs will make the pull towards efficiency (i.e. reduced Vehicle Demand Energy) even more important, and the best way to do that while still maintaining good off-road capability is air suspension (see Rivian R1T).
I still remain on the edge of my seat to see which direction the Wrangler will go if it does become fully electric in the future. The obvious guess would be to say that it will go to independent suspension with air bags and big tires (probably like this Recon), but I’m hopeful that Jeep pulls something cool out of its hat, and the Wrangler — if it does go fully electric — somehow keeps a solid axle. If only because it’s awesome.
All Images: Jeep
I need specs! Namely price and range! I still want an electric Wrangler (2 door) but this would be nice in the mean time.
Ok. Here’s the idea. Wrangler frame and body. Small 3 or 4 cylinder engine driving a Dana 18 transfer case. Then stick an electric motor in the PTO/overdrive port. Now we only have to figure out where to put the batteries.
Since you’re gradually describing a CJ3, stuff the batteries under the seats lol
David, why cant the wrangler use De Dion Tube suspension when it goes all electric???
You would need some massively telescoping cv axles to have any appreciable amount of travel. You’d definitely be losing the simplicity benefit. Making your independent supension semi-dependent by crosslinking air suspension might make more sense.
I like the look from the side, but I dislike something about the face of the Recon. I don’t really like the DRL shapes.
The front end has a cutesy charm to it, in my eyes, that doesn’t fit the rest of the car. It’s not bad at all though. I think it looks great overall. Love the brawny stance and somewhat utilitarian look of it. Good design.
I find the name a bit silly and militaristic. Recon. Un-recon-figurable axles.
And sadly, I’m afraid it’ll be brimming with silly easter eggs. What isn’t these days.
Given the direction Dodge went with its electric muscle car concept, I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually taught that old solid axle some new tricks to keep it in production on future electric Wranglers. It is a tall order, and there will be many compromises, but their customer base all but demands it. I guess they are testing the waters with this, without “tainting” the Wrangler name which is smart. Time will tell.
Let me get this out of the way: I’m a Wrangler owner and I suppose it’s a mall crawler. It’s not lifted and it’s pretty much stock, but it’s never seen a trail…and I love it and it’s the best car I’ve ever owned for a couple dozen reasons I won’t dive into now.
That said, one thing that the Bronco nailed for us mallcrawlers, which Jeep appears to be steadfastly refusing per this model: body mounted mirrors. I know the excuse, when you’re on the trail, side mirrors tend to get torn off. But…
We all know that these cars spend the vast majority of their time on-the-road, and most never see a trail. And plenty of us like doors-off driving in the warmer months (and occasionally during cool ones too). Having to mount janky aftermarket side mirrors is a pain in the ass every time I take my doors off, and adjusting them by hand is an even bigger pain in the ass.
Jeep, please body-mount your side mirrors. Make them removable for the 1% of off-roading seen by these cars. It’s a little thing that would be a big improvement.
I agree with the body mounted mirrors bit. If it’s really that much of an issue on the trail they could easily make the body mounted mirrors removeable as well.
My thoughts immediately went to the solid axle question too. The reason the Wrangler is so popular, in my opinion, isn’t because solid axles are better, its because solid axles make modification way easier. Im not debating whether I think solid axles are better off-road – I think you know where I stand on that – it’s just that I think a lot of Wrangler buyers put up with solid axles because that is what makes the Jeep LEGO kit work. You can lift ifs/irs vehicles, and there are certainly kits that will easily net you 2-3 inches without compromising too much, but if you want 37’s and a 5 inch lift…you are in for a world of pain with IFS/IRS. Let be honest, a lot of Wrangler buyers want that, even if it makes the vehicle nigh undrivable or they never intend to go off-road.
I dunno, seems like it might be a moot point anyway as I don’t know if there is a large venn overlap between off-roaders and EV buyers right now. I can see a huge overlap between ev buyers and people who want to look and feel like off-roaders though.
Totally. Lift-ability is key!
I get where you’re coming from, but I think it’s probably more just the HUGE aftermarket and the availability to personalize.
It probably started because of the simplicity of the suspension, but I highly double more than about 20-30% of Wrangler owners (on the high side) even know what a live-axle is. They just know they can put an angry face and american flag logos all over it.
I do worry that the cost to modify could go up, but then look at what Ford has pulled off with customization on the Bronco.
The Bronco works because they did all the hard work for you. You can buy one with 35 inch tires standard and moving to 37’s isn’t that hard. If you take away the need to lift, you take away the downside of IFS. Granted you get that tire and lift by being wider than a nuclear submarine, which is a compromise in its own right.
Not many things are going to kill the range on your EV like a 5-inch lift and 37″ tires, though. As long as range is a limiting factor for BEVs, people are going to be less likely to want to do huge lifts and huge tires. If and when range is no longer an issue, it will also be less of a problem to make EVs with solid axles.
Honestly if I got a Wrangler I wouldn’t want to lift it, however I’d still want the front and rear solid axles. Mainly for durability and simplicity but I also like the ease of modification.
I fully agree with you about the modification bit. Personally I’d want to put in chromoly shafts and Cable actuated OX lockers in them.
Also I can’t tell you how many cars I wanted to buy only to figure out that noone makes snow tires in the stock size anymore, and since all the cars I liked were unibody (inherently because they were fuel efficient 4X4s, if given the option I prefer a body on frame construction) lifting them was a pain. Where I live the local government requires you have snow tires and 4WD for ~half the winter in order to drive on the public roads or that you put on chains and chains suck!
For example I found a very low mileage Subaru Justy with a manual transmission, 4WD, and a whole parts car for pretty cheap. It looked like and amazing deal and I was so ready to buy it. But noone made snow tires for the little tire size that was stock. In order to get snow tires the next smallest tire size would require a decent lift. By putting on the lift and those tires the vehicle would become the opposite of what I wanted. Gone would be the MPG because the lift and taller tires would worsen the aerodynamics, the taller tires would give the Justy taller gearing which would require me to rev the engine higher more often, and the taller tires would give me a turning circle larger than some school busses, not to mention the tires would rub every time you hit a pothole or a speedbump.
So the fuel efficient compact 4X4 would have the fuel efficiency of a Suzuki Samurai, but without any of the advantages of a Samurai and likely a worse turning circle than a Samurai. So I sadly had to pass on it.
While I don’t want to lift any vehicle of mine if in the future I have to go up a tire size or several to get snow tires I’d appreciate having a relatively easy vehicle to lift.
So… how safe is going rock-crawling with a skateboard-platform EV? If you high-center your ICE car on a sharp rock and puncture the fuel tank, worst case scenario you end up in a puddle of gasoline – which, admittedly, is not great. What if you bonk this thing’s underbelly too hard though? What are the chances you’re going to end up sitting on a couple hundred pounds of suddenly very rapidly oxidizing lithium?
Steel skids have been keeping fluids in on sharp rocks for a while now, I have no doubts that a boron. steel skid or something similar would keep out the rocks.
I can’t figure out what this thing looks like… Like an amalgamation of most non-Wrangler Jeeps from the last 20 years? Most of those associations are less than positive, tbh…
It looks like a Ford Bronco with a Jeep face.
H3.
Also not a positive association.
Magna eBeam live axles would be the trick. Honestly I am surprised it is not used already in electric pickup trucks.
I think manufactures are turned off by their bulk. You’ll notice their test vehicles are all 3/4 ton trucks. Thats a vehicle that doesn’t mind a monster axle and its unsprung mass. I think there is a place for an E-axle for sure, but I think it needs some efficiency and size work first.
Looks like the Ford Bronco – am I the only one getting that vibe?
Yeah, quite a bit. Overall proportions and tyre-to-body ratio and boxyness and apparent purposefulness. I think it looks great but the Bronco looks even better.
I am relieved to see that off-roading SUV options are increasing. For a few years I thought every body on frame model would ultimately Pathfinderize into a soft and bloated crossover. We might be seeing the opposite. Great stuff.
Nope. Pure Bronco Sport/first gen Escape.
Looks like a Bronco with a seven slot grill.
My current expectation is that air suspension is significantly more expensive than traditional coils, and as such has always been a red flag for me when looking at used cars. I wonder if increased ubiquity would translate to decreased cost and increased reliability/longevity, or if this is just one more way cars are going to keep getting more expensive and disposable
Air suspensions are super common in heavy-duty trucks like tractor-trailers and dump trucks. It’s 100% possible to make then as durable as anyone could wish, it’s just that historically the engineers designing air suspensions for passenger cars have often done a bad job of it.
First impression: Looks like a smaller version of the new Wagoneer
I see a lot of the electric Hummer in there also.
Aren’t they going to have to seriously mess around with torque converters to make this work? (I’m spitballing here, but..) Electric motors usually have one speed, instant on, full speed rotation. That’s why the launch speed of EVs is insanely fast. But if you’re crawling over rocks you want lots of grunt at the low end. So you’ve got to convert that high spinning speed to low-end torque. Annnd, that’s where my physics fails me. Is that going to be a problem they need to solve, or is it fixed already?
The motor controller can spin the motor as quickly or as slowly as you want.
Yeah not sure what the original comment means to imply? That the very expensive, carefully designed inverters that control every EV on the market are just on-off switches? (Well they are, but not like *that*).
There is an issue with stall torque on EV’s that no one talks about – which is why EV’s all give their 0-60 time after a short rollout (usually a foot). It seems like it’s mostly solved enough for off-roading but a very small amount of slip in a coupling seems like it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. Nothing as sloppy as a torque converter, but maybe like hillard clutch or something.
All EVs do 0-60 like that? Source? The only one I’ve seen that done with is the Tesla Plaid so they could claim under 2 seconds.
Digging the look of the Recon
No news on a Gladiator 4XE??
I do wonder if some of the issues discussed here could be resolved with a hydrogen electric powertrain? Hydrogen fuel isn’t as heavy as batteries are so it doesn’t need to be stored in the car’s floor, potentially allowing space for the solid rear axle.
Of course there are downsides to hydrogen, mostly related to needing to build all new infrastructure, but I’m starting to feel it will have a place in long-haul large load and off-road applications – much like diesel has a significant presence in that market today.
Meh. Making pure hydrogen takes more energy that it contains. Liquified hydrogen has less than 1/4 the energy density of gasoline, and sucks to transport. And by the time you factor in the insulation, safety features and pressurized tank weight of that system, it will weight nearly as much as a battery.
All of our current “green energy” solutions take more fossil fuels to set up and maintain than they could ever replace, except nuclear. Greenwashing bad solutions is going to make climate change worse, not better.
Hydrogen does start to make sense when you have green energy like solar and wind in remote locations away from any transmission lines, you could set up a hydrogen generator and truck it out instead of dealing with the massive cost and permitting of transmission lines. Green energy also has the problem is it’s not synchronized to actual usage, (since electricity has to be used literally seconds before or after its generated), so green energy is being throttled, using a hydrogen generator would be a good way to stabilize the grid instead of throttling green energy. If we ever get to cold fusion it will probably be economical to make hydrogen instead of forcing people to drive heavy battery powered cars, since hydrogen solves fill up problems, global warming, and disposal problems associated with alternatives, that would be my pipe dream. Then you could have fuel cell electric cars, and still have some ICE cars as well running on the same stuff.
I’ve said before that the only way hydrogen becomes viable is if we go all-in on nuclear and/or crack fusion power (which is always 30 years away). We can’t even replace our current fossil fuel-based power generation with renewable options, and people think we’re going to scale it out enough to support the massively inefficient process of hydrogen generation? And that’s on top of the huge infrastructure problem you have with hydrogen.
There’s no way hydrogen is viable at scale in a timeframe measured in anything less than decades, and we can’t wait that long to clean up emissions. It will likely have niche uses, but for passenger cars? No way.
All good points, like I said hydrogen is my pipe dream.
By “clean up emissions” do you mean CO2? Your first paragraph just reinforces the need for fossil fuels but then you say we can’t wait to clean up emissions, I’m not sure what you propose. We know electric cars don’t solve the problem for a number of reasons. There are a few evil dictators with aspirations of world domination that will happily take us out if we decide to sabotage are economy to “clean up emissions”. Putin already has leverage over Europe because they are reliant on Russia for fossil fuels, as it gets colder Putin will put pressure on Europe to force Ukraine to give up, or Europeans will freeze.
I think the only viable short to mid-term solution is EVs. Battery chemistries can be improved, either in terms of energy density, charging times, or less reliance on scarce minerals (or all three, although that’s probably too optimistic).
I agree that existing battery tech likely doesn’t scale sufficiently either, but at least those problems are theoretically solvable. There’s no clever chemistry that can make hydrogen work better, at least not without more nuclear plants. I did read something about generating hydrogen as sort of a byproduct of nuclear power plants which was promising, but given the general move away from nuclear power I don’t see that happening. That’s why I qualified my post by saying we would need to go all-in on nuclear for it to be viable.
You got it the wrong way round.
Hydrogen is only viable for solar and wind power. It is a great storage medium for excess power at a unwanted time. (high noon, and wind a night).
Is there a great loss? Sure, but try to factor in everything from drilling, pumping multiple times, transporting multiple times, the whole process of going from crude to gas etc, plus the 60% loss in your car, and suddenly the loss is not that great.
Regarding infrastructure. Do you have electricity? Do you have water? Well, then you have hydrogen. No need to haul it around when you have the raw materials.
As a storage medium for the electrical grid where you can have a handful of centralized storage tanks and don’t need to transport it anywhere, it’s entirely possible hydrogen is viable. After all, efficiency doesn’t matter if the power was going to be wasted anyway (assuming you don’t have any better method available to you, of course). I do not think hydrogen generated from excess power generation is going to power cars though, I think it will get fed back into the grid to help out with peak electrical generation times. That’s a perfectly sensible use of it.
Also, I never said we should stay on gas, I just said hydrogen was not a viable replacement, which it is not.
“Do you have electricity? Do you have water? Well, then you have hydrogen.”
That is a drastic oversimplification and exemplary of the blind spots people have about hydrogen. Just because the process of getting hydrogen is simple, that doesn’t make it easy. Much like moving a mountain is conceptually simple, but practically almost impossible.
The hydrogen parts (fuel cell, tank + insulation) in a Mirai, weighs a little under 140 kg.
That is 640 km EPA, for 140 kg. The rest is the same as any other BEV.
(there is also a 1.2 kWh drive battery, do not know the weight of that)
Where you to double the range, the weight would go up by 30 kg = 170 kg for 1280 km EPA.
The larger tank is simply impractical to fit in the current models as they share the platform with ICE cars.
Why would you transport the hydrogen? You can make it everywhere you have electricity.
“All of our current “green energy” solutions take more fossil fuels to set up and maintain than they could ever replace, except nuclear.” Do you honestly believe that?
“Unsprung mass is the enemy of good ride and handling”
If anyone looking at a Wrangler was truly concerned about these things, they would go buy something else.
+1 death wobble
Death wobble is a symptom of another problem. My ’67 CJ5 will drive at 65 mph with no wobble. It’s terrifying to go that fast but there are no wobbles. I had a ’99 XJ that had horrible death wobble issues. Replacing some bad tie rod ends and unevenly worn tires completely fixed it.
I once flat towed my 1970 Jeepster with my 2020 Wrangler. Every little odd bump in the road threatened to set up a never ending bobble. I think my 1970 was actually the more stable of the two….although I later found out there was a TSB to replace my JLURD steering box, so I maybe just had a bad apple.
If they could just get the Wrangler 4xe a bit more efficient, EV range up to 35-40miles, and a better hybrid mode mpg, I still think that’s a better overall solution.
Then again, the 4xe is already pretty expensive and they’re selling a ton of them, so what the hell do I knw.
I do like this Recon though!
“I could probably dig up some ABC coefficients from the EPA and roughly calculate how big of a battery, approximately, one might need in order to score 250 miles of range on a modern Jeep Wrangler”
One could probably extrapolate from the Hummer, which is about the size of a Gladiator apart from width. A 213 kWh battery gives under 300 real world miles of range.
I don’t know if it makes sense to extrapolate from a Hummer, which is over 9000(!) pounds. Even if you remove the batteries, it would still weight almost 1000 lbs more than a current Jeep Wrangler Unlimited 4xe with both the gas engine and small battery.
Given the 4xe wrangler is rated at 49 mpge (1.45 miles/kwh) you’d be lookig at around 175 kwh battery. Maybe drop that down to 150 kwh or so given the higher efficiency of a pure Ev drivetrain vs the hybrid.
I like the looks of the recon, any info on dimensions? It looks big, but it’s hard to tell
They could triple sales if they’d release a EV with the Wrangler frame and body and call it the “EJ”.
Subaru might have some words about that name.
Do companies actually trademark engine codes? Or chassis codes for that matter?
Well, it wouldn’t have to worry about head gaskets
I like it…and even if it’s unlikely to match the all-world off-road prowess of the Wrangler, it’s still going to have more capability than 95% of buyers will ever need. Unfortunately I assume it’s going to have the same high price of admission that other EVs do, somewhere in that 40-60 range…which will put it out of reach of quite a few people.
But, the rich are doing better than ever, Jeep has one of the strongest brands in the entire industry, and this is absolutely going to be a highly sought after status piece, like a lot of EVs are. I’ll bet every single one they make for 2024 will be spoken for before it even hits the lot, and we’ll be better off for it at the end of the day.
The average transaction price has been nudging ever closer to $50k.
That said, this likely will be eligible for the $7500 US federal tax credit plus whatever state incentives are out there. Since the credit will be able to be taken at point of sale when this comes out, it’ll be effectively the same price as a similar gas SUV. Minus the expensive upkeep the gasser needs.
This will be the Jeep that 90% of current Wrangler owners should drive. Fixed roof for daily requirements, and removable doors for 4th of July at the beach.
You absolutely nailed it with your comment. I have a JK and my wife has been wanting a 4xE, but costs and availability have been the issue. Sent her the link to this article and got a flurry of excited texts back, how she loves it. Honestly, the features it has (doors off, glass down, etc) gives us the features we use the most at the beach and gives her what she wants while not at the beach.
This is what most Wrangler drivers should actually own. Not the off-road crowd, but the occasional off-road crowd.
Batteries aren’t there yet. A PHEV like the Wrangler 4XE is a better choice. Maybe when the world has enough grid capacity, and we have better energy density in batteries, you will be able to forgo the ability to use onboard charging for range. The world on the trail is simply too unpredictable.
the 4Xe is superior to this in all off road maneuvers. I am surprised David messed up the clickbait title. The real issue is the full electric version would be even more price prohibitive and hard to come by. Everything that David said about why the live axles are good and the electric stuff is bad is true, this article does nothing to persuade me to believe electric is the save all end all.
it looks like a Liberty and a Bronco had an illegitimate child and it came out handicapped(AKA Full Electric).
The 4XE is “electrified,” not electric. The headline is accurate.
Jeep: Makes an electric Defender before Land Rover
Ahem…launches an electric ‘Defender’ before Land Rover. Which one makes it first is still very much up for grabs. As is which one catches fire first…
That’ll be quite the competition given Jeep and Land Rover’s….colorful reputations for reliability
I like the way you said that…