Jeep Joins BEV Battle With 2024 Wagoneer S

NEW YORK – Stellantis will roll out its 2024 Jeep Wagoneer S in this year’s third quarter, the first all-electric model to come from Jeep, but certainly not the last.

The premium BEV SUV will launch with a price of $71,995 (including destination) and qualify for Inflation Reduction Act Retail and Lease EV credits.

A 5-seater with no third-row option, the Wagoneer is built on Stellantis’s STLA large EV platform, and will be assembled at the automaker’s Toluca, Mexico plant.

The Wagoneer S carries a 400V, 100-kWh battery pack that allows owners to charge the vehicle from 20%-80% in 23 minutes (with a DC fast charger). The powertrain produces 600 hp and 617 lb.-ft. (836 Nm) of torque, with more than 300 miles (483 km) of range on a charge.

Stellantis is revamping the Jeep brand, thought to be the most profitable in the automaker’s stable. The internal-combustion-engine Renegade and Cherokee have been canceled. Stellantis says it will introduce a new midsize volume SUV next year that will come in multiple electrified powertrains. That vehicle will likely be priced starting below $40,000. Currently the entry-level-priced Jeep is the Compass, which starts under $27,000.

Already, however, Jeep had the two best-selling plug-in hybrids last year, the Wrangler 4xe and the Grand Cherokee 4xe. Stellantis is benefiting from having decided to hang back in commitments to BEV models, and executives say it is committed to offering a lot of electrified consumer choice over the next decade – ICE vehicles, as well as hybrids, plug-in hybrids and BEVs, and its new global platforms allowing for a good deal of production flexibility.

The new midsize SUV launching next year, for example, won’t initially offer a BEV, but the automaker says it could be in production within six months of deciding when to put a BEV version in showrooms.

“The launch of the all-electric Jeep Wagoneer S marks a new chapter in the storied history of the Jeep brand,” says Antonio Filosa, Jeep brand CEO. “Building upon nearly a century of innovation and design, this first global EV will introduce a whole new generation of owners to an experience that is distinctly Jeep and 100% electric in every way. With new energy in the Jeep vehicle lineup, ranging from EV to V-8, customers have never had more freedom to choose their own adventure.”

Filosa says he expects every Jeep in the brand’s lineup will have a BEV variant by 2030, but “production of different electrified variants will depend on consumer demand.”

The design of the Wagoneer S, led by chief design officer Ralph Gilles, is clean and modern. The team that worked on it included young designers from multiple countries in their 20s and early 30s in an effort to achieve staying power of the shape. Gilles notes there is no wood or piano black in the Wagoneer S, and chrome, because of its toxic impact on the environment, is also being phased out of Stellantis’s vehicles. There are granite veneers inside the cabin, “which seems very appropriate for a brand known for going anywhere,” says Gilles.

The design team also did not opt for a tablet-style center screen, but rather a sweeping 45-in. (114-cm) horizonal layout with the infotainment screen transitioning to the driver-info screen behind the steering wheel.

While there is no functional need for Jeep’s iconic 7-slot grille, designers reimagined the grille with lighting that Gilles says makes the Wagoneer S recognizable from more than 100 ft. (30.5 m) away.

There will be no tow package with the launch vehicle this year, but buyers will have the usual selection of driving modes. The Stellantis-designed electric drive modules  independently power the front and rear wheels for instant torque response, while the Jeep brand’s Selec-Terrain traction management system features five distinct driving modes: Auto, Sport, Eco, Snow, Sand. The Launch Edition also comes with 20-in. wheels and a standard dual-pane panoramic sunroof.

Wagoneer S’s 0.29 drag coefficient makes it the most aerodynamic Jeep ever produced. Helping create the 300-mile-plus range is a sloping roofline that cascades to the rear beneath a cantilevered rear spoiler.

While BEV sales have slowed this year, Jeep is hoping the Wagoneer S, and the as-yet unnamed midsize SUV with multiple propulsion systems launching next year, will revive sales to pre-pandemic levels. Jeep sales were 643,000 last year, per Wards Intelligence. That is a 44% decline from 2018 and the lowest since 2012.