Jeep® Compass Could Be The Fifth STLA Medium Vehicle At Melfi

I was impressed with the number of Jeeps on my recent visit to Italy. The Compass is popular, the Renegade even more so as Jeep clearly has gotten a foothold in Europe. I have little doubt that a Jeep at Malfi is definite, as the Renegade and Avenger secure the small car segment. It should be obvious that Stellantis is getting its ducks in order as to product and manufacturing. Their improved quality numbers are not insignificant as they put their investments into long term and fundamental build quality as well as union negotiations to take a big step forward for its brands.
As to North America, things seem to be moving slowly and folks here are getting anxious about what the long term plans are for our traditional brands. I believe Stellantis is dealing with the erosion of the electrification policy globally and of the pushback on these policies clearly in the North American market. Jeeps, Chrysler’s, Dodges and Rams without a robust gas option is dead on arrival and hopefully any product without such an option like the Recon, Wagoneer S or anything with a Ram, Dodge or Chrysler nameplate is a certainty since the green agenda is dying an agonizing death before the forces of reality globally. It never was viable from day one, time to call that pipe dream a bust and let market forces call the shots.

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Stellantis did something surprisingly intelligent with the rollout of the STLA: Medium, STLA: Large and STLA: Frame platforms by making them modular and, by their terms, "Future Proof." In somewhat of an Iron Condor type move, they made their platforms able to be used with full battery electric powertrains, hybrid electric powertrains and full Ice powertrains, which means if the future does turn out to go full electric within the next few years, the brand is covered. If not, the brand is still covered. While I think electrification it key to the success of any brand now days, offering complete lineups of BEVs would be asinine on the part of Stellantis, North America. Beyond infrastructure reasons, "We, the people...." aren't really interested in switching over to full electric vehicles and that's not just the older generation or the enthusiast crowd. many of the middle age and even younger generation aren't 100% sold on this full EV switch. The thing is though, Dodge, Jeep and Ram are brands that are full of enthusiasts so it does make it challenging to come up with compliance vehicles for a brand that is all about Rebellion and Freedom for the working class people. Where the jeep brand has a balance of vehicles some for the general population and some for the on and off road enthusiasts, Dodge doesn't really have that. As a whole, the Stellantis, North America branch is missing out in alot of segments that they could actually do very well in. Honestly they wouldn't even really have to worry about finding new names or anything because they could easily utilize the names they've already had including "Heritage" names and pay homage to their past while continuing on with their "Future proof" plans to continue being profitable for generations to come.
The Mopar brand is actually responsible for alot of vehicle types we have on the road today. From the Pony car (because the Barracuda beat the mustang to market by two weeks being release on April 1, 1964), the Crossover (the 1980 AMC Eagle), the Minivan (1984 Dodge Caravan) and let's not forget the Mopar Brand's muscle car presence. Even in the 80's and '90's the brand did well with alot of FWD cars, including the FWD Chrysler 300M (one of my personal favorite cars). The STLA: Medium platform could easily consist of modern day K-Car type vehicles, like the ones that helped save the brands in the late 80's and early '90's from the onslaught of import vehicles. Cars like the Dodge Spirit which included the Spirit R/T which was the fastest sedan of its time and of course there was the Shadow Shelby CSX, another hopped up K-Car. But there were also cars like the FWD Daytona coupes, Avengers, and of course the car in the early 2000s that started the SRT craze, the SRT4 Neon. Not to mention full size sedans like the Intrepid. Dodge truly has the opportunity to have alot of mainstream vehicles on the STLA: Medium platform that would appeal to the general public and make the brand extremely profitable. Yes alot of people buy crossovers but alot of people still want cars as well. I think Toyota has a great idea with the Crown crossover car thing, which would be a great rival to a reintroduced Jeep Eagle. A car-like crossover for the Jeep Brand on the STLA: Medium platform with the powertrains from the Dodge Hornet and a few BEV trim levels as well. A Jeep with all-season prowess, performance sedan sportiness and crossover ground clearance would actually be a really cool vehicle, especially with trim levels like a Jeep Eagle Talon, Jeep Eagle Premier Jeep Eagle Vision and Jeep Eagle Summit models with the Premier and Summit models being full EV while the Vision and Talon models would be the regular and sport models. The Vision sporting the Hornet GT powertrain while the Jeep Eagle Talon TSi would sport the Hornet R/T powertrain. It would play in a different slot than the Compass and Cherokee, two other vehicles that really need a redo on the STLA Medium Platform. The Cherokee has such a rich history with jeep and could definitely use a Cherokee Chief model with a design styling that hearkens back to the SJ Cherokees of the late '70s. Yes it should be trail rated and yes it should be a direct competitor to the Bronco Sport, it absolutely should 100%. Another thing, the Jeep Recon should have been named the Renegade and no I'm not talking about that last little weird thing they called the Renegade, I mean something cool and aggressive like the Renegades of old or even the Liberty Renegade. With the Recon (Should be Renegade) on the STLA: Large platform and introduced as a complete BEV, Jeep could easily keep the electrified aspect of it and offer the vehicle with a 4Xe optional powertrain that still give the 375hp/470tq power rating which is more than enough power for just about anything. That sets it apart from the Grand Cherokee on the STLA: Large platform. Honestly, I'm kind of confused with the Grand Cherokee and the Wagoneer S concept. Those two vehicles really overlap each other and to me, the Wagoneer S should be a Grand Cherokee trim just because of shape and size and market position. Another thing is these car companies need to stop with this whole family and sub-brand of vehicles kick they are on. Most of these ideas are terrible and used very wrong. If you can make sub-brands then you should bring back the vehicle lines that were lost, for example Plymouth for Mopar and Pontiac for GM. While I do give the Wagoneer S Concept an A for Styling, Speed and Sexiness, it's a vehicle that should be a top tier trim of the Grand Cherokee. Actually the Grand Cherokee (to me) is a better looking vehicle, I just like the Rear spoiler idea on the Wagoneer S concept. While a 600hp Trackhawk beating EV variant sounds great, I think most people would still go for something with a Hurricane-6 or even the 4Xe powertrain, which should be the base powertrain of all STLA:Large vehicles. I've mentioned in other articles a hybrid variant of the Hurricane HO would definitely push any vehicle it's place in into Hellcat territory all while being way more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly because it can be driven in full electric mode from time to time. And also why wouldn't a vehicle that is compared to the Trackhawk not have an 800V Banshee powertrain option? I don't get it. The Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer are already amazing enough as is. The only thing now is to drop the 5.7L and 6.4L completely from the lineups and make a 400V 440Kw power option, an 800V tri-motor banshee setup and a 3.0L HO Hybrid 4Xe option. While I could go on and on about what STLA could potentially do with the North American Mopar brands and the new STLA Platforms and powertrains. to sum it all up, there is a lot of potential for what they can do and if they play their cards correctly, the North American Stellantis brands can really do well in the future no matter which way it goes. There's nothing wrong with electrification if it's used right and if there is still a balance between ICE, Hybrid and full BEV.

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