TURIN -- Stellantis will unveil the Jeep Avenger, a small SUV that will be the brand’s first full-electric model, at the Paris auto show on Oct. 17.
The Avenger, which will also have combustion-engine variants, will be Jeep’s second entrant in the segment, joining the slightly larger Renegade.
The Avenger will be aimed at younger customers, especially young families, while the Renegade, with its larger cargo space and more rear-seat room, targets families with older children, Antonella Bruno, the head of the Jeep brand for Stellantis’ Europe region, said at a media event on Wednesday.
The Avenger will be the first of four full-electric models that Jeep will launch in Europe by 2025. The others are a boxy, Land Rover Defender-sized large SUV called the Recon; the large Wagoneer S; and a fourth, as-yet-unnamed model.
The Avenger will compete in the small SUV/crossover segment, Europe’s largest with 1,132,489 sales in the first seven months of 2022. The now 8-year-old Renegade saw its sales decrease by 38 percent to 30,222 in the period, slipping to 16th position in the segment, which was led by the VW T-Roc, according to figures from Dataforce.
The Avenger will be built in Stellantis’ factory in Tychy, Poland, on the second generation of Stellantis’ eCMP platform. Jeep CEO Christian Meunier said that Tychy will become the 10th plant producing Jeep models globally.
In addition to a full-electric version, which Jeep said would have a range of about 400 km, a mild-hybrid powertrain will be available, as will four-wheel drive.
Stellantis’ current small full-electric SUVs – the Peugeot e-2008, Opel/Vauxhall Mokka-e and DS 3 Crossback E-Tense -- offer about 330 km of range from a 50-kilowatt-hour battery pack that powers a 100 kW motor.
Bruno said that even in the base front-wheel-drive version the Avenger will have better off-road capability than four-wheel-drive versions of the Renegade, which use an electric motor to power the rear wheels. The Avenger would be the first four-wheel-drive model on the eCMP platform.
Prices and technical specifications will be revealed in Paris on Oct. 17, when orders will open for a launch edition. Deliveries will begin in the first quarter of 2023, starting with Europe, followed by Japan and South Korea.