On January 8, 2026, Stellantis announced that it was cancelling all its North American plug-in hybrid models, which consist of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Wrangler 4xe as well as the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV. After spending a week with a Grand Cherokee 4xe, I believe this was the right move.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I get a healthy discount on rental cars through my work. When my wife and I planned a trip to visit friends in Virginia and Tennessee, which would be roughly 1,800 miles round trip, there was no question we’d leverage this perk to keep the miles off our own cars. The discount is good only for certain classes of cars. Whereas last time I did pretty well with the Premium Special class, my wife would be miserable in those cars. Therefore, I decided on the Premium class, which advertised a Nissan Maxima or similar. That’s one of the good things about being a car guy – I knew that there was no Nissan Maxima nor any similar. Today, the only car in that class that’s still available – probably for a limited time – is the Toyota Crown, and I doubt you’d find many of those in rental lots.
When I got out of my Uber at the local Enterprise (a little annoyed that the “We’ll pick you up!” company WON’T if they’re short staffed), I didn’t see any Premium-class cars. When I got to the desk, the branch manager was understandably perplexed and even commented that National/Enterprise should just get rid of that class. “We have a Sentra?” Right. I reminded him that this is not anywhere near the class of car I reserved, fully ready to pull a Seinfeld on him. He then mentioned that he had a Jeep Grand Cherokee. “I’ll take it!”
Of course, it wasn’t just any Jeep Grand Cherokee, but the $59,865 4xe plug-in hybrid. Introduced for the 2022 model year, the 4xe combines a 270-horsepower, 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine with a 173-horsepower electric motor running off a 17.3-kWh battery pack plus a 44-horsepower motor-generator that replaces the starter for a combined 375 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque. Power is controlled not by the CVT found in most hybrids but an 8-speed automatic.
In the chunky 5,325lb Grand Cherokee, this trio (or quartet if you include the motor-generator) results in a very quick sprint to sixty in the 5- to 6-second range. Unfortunately, its maximum range on the battery alone is only 26 miles.
“Does it come with the charging cable?”
“No. Just drive it like a regular hybrid.”
Well, that takes some of the fun out of it.
Luckily, the Jeep was just detailed, the climate control was on, and the inside was nice and cool when I got inside. I was immediately impressed by the upscale interior. High-quality imitation wood inserts and soft-touch materials abound. This base 4xe includes a giant moon roof over the front seats and glass panel over the rear seats with a power-retractable shade, heated dual power front seats with two memory settings, heated steering wheel, power liftgate, keyless entry with remote start, dual-zone climate control, speed-sensing cruise control, and a nine-speaker Alpine audio system with navigation as part of the excellent 10.1-inch Uconnect system.
Facing the driver is a 10.25-inch configurable instrument panel. After some fiddling, I found my preferred instrument panel home screen.
I then discovered a trick button on the steering wheel that switches it to a five-panel display, with each panel being customizable. Very cool.
I easily paired my phone and got Android Auto working in no time. I adjusted the seats and mirrors and pulled away. It took less than ten seconds for me to start wondering how well thought out this drivetrain was. The first few MPH is almost always in EV mode, but if you’re accelerating even moderately away from a stop, the turbocharged four comes alive with a loud HAAAAAAAARRRRRRR that may sound cool in a Wrangler but is completely out of place in a Grand Cherokee (one owner likened the sound to a “mad bumblebee”). My wife actually asked if there was something wrong with it. At highway speeds, the transition between power sources is seamless, but in low-speed, around-town driving, the transition is less than smooth, and the sometimes-jerky shifts of the automatic don’t help, either.
The next thing I noticed was the Distance to Empty, which was 369 miles. I took the highway home to ensure that there was no vibration at highway speeds. With 41k miles on a two-year-old rental car of course there was, but it wasn’t bad. After about 10 miles of driving in a combination of highway and local roads, it was still pegged at 369 miles. I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with it. So, I stopped at a gas station, but it wouldn’t take much gas.
It’s also entirely possible that the previous renter(s) drove the 4xe in eSave mode, which runs the engine exclusively to charge the battery, then switches to electric-only mode until the battery is drained. From my understanding on the forums, this is far less efficient than running in hybrid mode. I’m glad I didn’t know about it until after the fact.
I parked the Jeep in my garage, then went back out after I finished with work to get more acclimated. It turns out that when you get in this Grand Cherokee after a few hours in a hot, humid garage, you can clearly smell the result from the asshole who ignored the “no smoking” rule, which is something we’ve encountered frequently in local rentals. The common reply from Enterprise is “There’s nothing we can do!” as smokers either are more than willing to pay the nominal fee or claim they didn’t smoke in the vehicle while both they and the vehicle reek of smoke. There are lots of things Enterprise can do – they just choose not to, supposedly to keep their survey scores high. A few charcoal filters and some other tricks we learned on Reddit at least made it bearable. I offered to return it and just take one of our Mazda CX-5s, but my wife wanted the extra space for a project she was working on while I was driving.
On the road, I was relieved to see the distance-to-empty slowly moving: First up a bit, then down. The ride was decent, not great but not bad. The vibration that I noticed earlier, which I thought was just a tire-balance issue, would come and go. I can’t quite figure that one out. Since I’m a heavy user of cruise control, I’m constantly driving at a steady speed, so it’s not a case of vibration at certain speeds. I was just happy when it disappeared for a while.
What was surprising was the gas mileage. According to the EPA, the 4xe should get 24 City / 25 Highway, but I consistently saw over 25. The trip computer optimistically showed 28 to 29 MPG, and I didn’t do the calculations, but range was consistently over 500 miles. Unlike in some hybrids, Jeep didn’t shrink the gas tank significantly (19 gallons vs. 23). So, range is excellent with either model, but I was surprised at how I consistently beat the estimate of 456 highway miles. I must have been doing something right.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Stellantis review without some kind of annoying bug. In this case, it was the keyless ignition. I had no trouble with the keyless entry, but when I pushed the ignition button, the message “Key fob not in vehicle” would appear. I’d take the key fob out of my pocket, hold it against the ignition, and it would start. My first thought was the key-fob battery, but the keyless entry worked fine, and I could lock and unlock the car from a block away.
However, the problem didn’t stop there. If I started the Grand Cherokee before my wife was in the car, as soon as she would open the door – or even if she was in the car and closed the door after I started the car – it would flash “Key fob has left vehicle” with no way to get rid of the message until I turned it off and restarted.
Another peeve was how Uconnect handled text messages. While my current fleet with that capability would overlay the top part of the active screen with the text message, Uconnect, while still putting the text on the top part of the screen, would completely black out everything else until you acknowledged the message. Very annoying and borderline dangerous if you’re trying to navigate a tricky multi-off-ramp situation at the exact moment you receive a text while using navigation. The built-in navigation, however, is excellent.
I set the brakes to maximum regeneration, which isn’t quite one-pedal driving, but does slow the car somewhat aggressively while still requiring the use of the overly-touchy brakes to fully stop. In heavy traffic with frequent slowdowns, but not full stops, it’s nice not to switch back and forth between the accelerator and brake. There’s also that satisfaction of knowing you’re charging the battery to boot.
Unfortunately, none of our destinations had a convenient Level 2 charging station. So, I never had the opportunity to test the 4xe with a full charge. It is telling that while our charging infrastructure is far larger than a decade ago, we still have a long way to go before I would feel comfortable taking an EV on a long trip to many destinations along I-81.
When I returned the Jeep the following Monday, the branch manager used it to drive me to work. During our discussion about it, he mentioned that he hates the 4xe and can’t wait until the last one is gone from the fleet. Apparently, they’re out of commission every couple of weeks for one repair or another; mainly battery-related issues.
Which brings us back to Stellantis’ cancellation announcement. First off, how did anybody who test-drove this vehicle pull the trigger? It’s clearly a poorly engineered solution that feels like it was rushed to production to take advantage of the $7,500 tax credit. While the Pacifica PHEV had been around much longer, it used the 3.6-liter V6 “Pentastar” engine and an e-CVT transmission which wouldn’t work in the Jeep’s longitudinal-engined, rear-drive-based layout.
With the 4xe commanding a $10,000 premium over a similarly trimmed Pentastar-equipped Grand Cherokee Limited 4WD, any profit Jeep may have made on the initial sales were more than likely lost in warranty claims and overall customer dissatisfaction. Over at Edmunds, nearly half of the reviews for the 2024 model are of the one-star variety with only 14% of reviews achieving five stars. Review titles include “Worst car to buy”, “Worst vehicle purchase ever”, and “Egads! Wonder why value is plummeting?”. Other forums are about the same. Some people love it while most hate it primarily due to quality issues and the poor engineering.
According to the announcement, the cancellation was not because of reliability problems but because of shifting customer demand since the end of the federal incentive program. They did say that additional standard hybrids (beyond the new Cherokee) and range-extender electric vehicles were still being planned. At first, I thought it was odd that Stellantis would cancel their nascent PHEV program with any successors still at least several years away, but after living with the 4xe, I think it just wasn’t ready for prime time.
“Pulling the plug” was the right call.
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One of our neighbors has one and has been without it weeks at a time for repairs and recalls.
I feel Chrysler has an incoherent hybrid and electrification strategy. On the Wrangler alone you could get “stop start”, then “e-assist stop start”, then 4xe. They are all plagued by issues, such as the secondary battery draining, rough starts, and in the 4xe the same gremlins outlined by Adam.
Across the rest of the range they then have completely different hybrid systems, such as the Pacifica’s powertrain. What gives? Hybrids and plug in hybrids aren’t exactly new. They developed 2 or 3 hybrid systems far more complicated than need be.
I drove a family member’s rental 4xe Wrangler and it seemed pretty normal. Admittedly it was the first and only real Jeep (CJ, Wrangler, Gladiator etc) I’ve driven, so I had no reference. But the reliability has gotten very bad marks in the online 4WD world. And most Jeep owners are pretty tolerant. In addition, I think that in that world, many 4xe Wranglers were bought by “overlanding” folks rather than rock crawlers. And the Wrangler hybrid has a much smaller fuel tank than the gasoline-only version so off-road range is less. In fact the fuel tank on the short-lived EcoDiesel (VM 3.0 V6) Wrangler was also a few gallons smaller than the Pentastar or 2.0 Turbo models. That can be a big deal in the western US.
I suspect the idea of the Wrangler 4xe was one where owners could save their battery until they arrived at their off-road venue, then switch to 100% EV motivation, thereby being environmentally conscious.
Trouble was, most Wrangler owners rarely, if ever, make the off-road trek or, worse, don’t particularly care about any damage the fumes their ICE-powered vehicle might do.
Just more outdoor lifestyle marketing, which Jeep is quite adept at.
Take this Jeep and shove it. Off a cliff.
Google says that I-81 is 885 miles long and has between 15 and 20 Tesla Supercharging lots (with likely 8-12 stalls per lot) either on or immediately adjacent (so on average about every 50 miles which is in line with what we see out here), I don’t think there’d be any concern with an EV, at least one that can use the Superchargers although I’d expect there are a number of the other kind there now as well, especially if there are Walmarts nearby. Any decent modern EV will show the stations on its nav screen and route you the best way to use them, a non EV-er will for the most part not even see them. For a PlugInHybrid you of course want just an overnight charger but for the vast majority of them even a level 1 plug WILL fully charge the small battery at a rate of about 3-4 miles of ranger per hour it stays plugged it, most people with PlugIn Hybrids and a number of full EV people don’t ever use or need more than an level 1 (i.e. normal 110V outlet) in their garage or driveway. You just need the cable that has the electronic brain box incorporated into it. Stellantis does itself no favors selling these cars to rental outfits that obviously can’t manage the cables, thus depriving a potential buyer from actually sampling the whole tech, I think rentals in general play a somewhat larger role in people yes or no buying decisions than manufacturers give them credit for, a good or bad rental experience can open someone’s eyes, both for and against a particular vehicle.
That being said, yes, Stellantis has a very poor (at least anecdotally) record with the whole plug-in hybrid thing across their lineup. It didn’t help overall sales the last few years when they decreed that any of the CARB state dealers would ONLY be stocked with 4xE variants of their Jeeps, requiring a verified custom order to circumvent that.
25mpg is quite good for something with the weight of this especially if just using it like a regular hybrid intead of plugging it in. Reviewing rental cars is always a bit of a gamble as you never really know if the observed foibles of the vehicles have anything to do with the prior 45,000 miles of use on it but it probably does represent one of the worst-case scenarios for anyone considering a used example. If there are no issues to be found it’s likely to be a pretty good vehicle, if there are issues that aren’t obviously explained away by three brands of tires with mixed rates of wear or a key that’s held together by tape or whatever else then it is definitely buyer beware….
I think I’d be avoiding anything 4Xe myself most likely, the old 3.6l V6 isn’t as efficient and certainly has a few mostly known issues but in general has proven to be a pretty good engine overall. The latter years of the prior generation GC is probably a quite good vehicle (or at least a quite good used buy having been in production for many years with very few significant changes but still saddled with whatever real or imagined Stellantis baggage the internet has heaped upon it), this generation leaves me a little colder in general.
Up here in the Northeast, many places, including parking garages and hotels, have one or more EV chargers. As this was a PHEV, I wasn’t going out of my way to charge it. My point was that neither the hotel in Winchester, VA, where we spent the first night, the parking garage where we parked for dinner, our hotel in Maryville, TN, the parking garage in Gatlinburg, nor our hotel in Harrisburg, PA, had an EV charger or one within walking distance. Therefore, traveling with an EV along this route basically forces you to go out of your way unless you’re going to where the chargers are located. Since we spent a good deal of our time on this trip on the road, I wasn’t willing to do that. I didn’t even have time to stop at a Buc-ee’s, which I really wanted to do!
No I understand that, and for a PHEV that’s completely accurate. With a regular EV you’d charge it at home before going on your trip, and then you’d stop enroute a couple of times wherever it tells you will be the most convenient location and quickest amount of charge. I guess my point was that there DO seem to be plenty of chargers on the interstate you referenced (but none make sense for a PHEV), it is not an EV charger dead zone. When you arrive at your destination you’ll likely have some charge left (or tell the car that you want to arrive with a minimum of X charge and it’ll figure it out for you.). Then when you depart eventually you stop at a convenient charger (like you would at a convenient gas station) and charge up for the next leg. The point is though you almost never let it get very low and then stop to make it very full, it’s far quicker to stop somewhat more often and do partial charges while in the charging “sweet spot” where it charges the fastest. Does it take longer than getting gas? Absolutely. Is it really a big bother? No, not really, assuming you don’t have a Bladder Of Steel and if one isn’t solo someone will want to stop anyway…If solo and going a long distance where making time is the main requirement I’m the first guy to pick the gasoline car in the driveway over one of the EVs, I understand that completely.
But yeah, a PHEV with the minimal battery is not really worthwhile to go more than a minute distance out of ones way to charge it up on any kind of road trip, the main reason to have one is to charge it at home (on a 110V or a level 2 if you have one installed, bit of a waste of money for a PHEV) and use it on the normal commute.
We have a Bucee’s nearby as well now, it has multiple Tesla chargers apparently (and presumably the other kind as well), though I haven’t stopped there yet myself. The more time you spend in the store while charging, the better for them I suppose.
On-the-road PHEV charging is a real conundrum. The only way PHEV charging is practical is if the station being used is very cheap (i.e., home charging) or a free public station, like at a motel or restaurant ‘value added’ situation.
For starters, the vast majority of PHEVs are not capable of DCFC, so they’re limited to slow Level 2 or, worse, super-slow Level 1.
But if the Level 2 station is a pay station, they’re invariably priced higher (sometimes ‘much’ higher) than the price of gas. So it becomes an expensive proposition not worth the effort in either time or money.
The rapidly changing (vacillating) regulatory issues in the US have created a lot of havoc and some manufacturers have navigated it better than others. Stellantis has clearly been in the latter category with hybrids, plug in hybrids and EVs, although the Pacifica seems to be pretty well sorted out.
It’s been fascinating to see how the Big 3 (and major import brands) have been whipsawed, or just made questionable decisions regarding these technologies in the last 10 years or so. A very chaotic time.
I was a Mopar service advisor when the Grand Cherokee WJ was just coming out of warranty. The cars suffered all kinds of maladies, but especially the brakes were completely inadequate for a car that heavy. We used to joke that Jeep meant, “Just empty every pocket” or that every time a Grand Cherokee came into our shop the owner spent a grand trying to fix all the leaks soiling their driveway.
It seems this generation of Grand Cherokee is even worse than the WJ and that is saying something!
A Jeep PHEV that had even ‘more’ problems, and at a premium of an extra $10K? Sheesh, no wonder it bombed.
For an owner who would be eligible for the $3750 federal rebate or $7500 if leased, stacked on top of some states’ rebates and then even some counties and utility rebates, it likely made good financial sense vs the standard model. Add in the apparent fuel savings and I expect that’s why many were sold.
For Stellantis, every unit sold counted towards its CAFE goals and allowed more big truck sales with smaller penalties (that ultimately the buyer of those vehicle of course pays for, it gets baked into the price). Someone like Enterprise rentacar wouldn’t get the rebates as far as I am aware but Stellantis would surely get credit for selling a more fuel efficient version rather than a standard version. It’s very possible they were discounted beyond the (on paper) lower price of the standard model as the rental company isn’t the one paying for the gas.
Like it or not, in the minds of many consumers, Jeep is a bit of premium name. The author here seemed happy when he received it, and perhaps perceived it as more “premium” than for example a Chevrolet Traverse or Dodge Durango, either of which can be equipped to be as nice.
For the Grand Cherokee, that is true. The 4xe falls in the “Hybrid SUV” class, which is above the Premium Special class and just below Premium Crossover. Also, I’ve mentioned in previous reviews how the Grand Cherokee (and now Grand Wagoneer) is a status symbol amongst my wife’s family.
Now, if we’re talking about the Renegade that I was stuck with last year while my son’s car was at the body shop, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Two years ago, I had one for a week in Panama City FL on a work trip. And I loved it – I had zero issues, and enjoyed driving it. When we looked at trading in my wife’s XTS for a SUV, I had her sit in one at the auto show – one close of the drivers door and she vetoed it. She wasn’t a fan of how cheap it sounded, so we went with a XT5.
Glad we did!
I have the 2025 GC 4xE Anniversary editions. While the battery problems when I first bought it plagued me, they have been resolved and I absolutely love this vehicle. I live in the city so the 25 or so range on the battery is perfect. Hell I went months without using gas, Labor Day weekend it said time to use this tank up it’s getting stale. I’ve driven it cross country twice without issues as I just used gas.
I think Stellantis gave up too soon on something that was the perfect balance between electric and gas.
I also had the 2022 Rubicon 4xE and it was bad ass. Plagued with battery issues as well but in the end no problems. I took that four wheel through the Georgia mountains with no issues.
It puzzled me how the Grand Cherokee and Wrangler 4xe versions could have so many issues when the Pacific Hybrid had been in production since 2017 and, seemingly, all the bugs had been worked out by the time the Jeep PHEVs were put into production years later.
Were the Jeep PHEV systems that much different? Couldn’t Stellantis have used previous Pacifica Hybrid experience to avoid the same problems, regardless?
Like I mentioned in the article, The Jeep used a different engine and transmission due to the Pacifica being transverse engine/front drive and the Jeeps having a longitudinal engine and are rear-drive based.