Jeep sales have plummeted in recent years, so how would you reverse that trend?
- Jeep sales have dropped 34% in recent years as the brand has made a series of missteps.
- A fixation on premium pricing and the elimination of the Cherokee appear to have backfired.
- The brand is working to right the wrongs as an assortment of new and redesigned models are on the horizon.
Stellantis has managed to do the unthinkable. They’ve turned Jeep, a brand that virtually printed money, into a wounded shell of its former self.
The once popular Cherokee is dead as is the not so popular Renegade, at least in America. This has left the brand with a single model under $30,000 and that’s the Compass, which is nearly a decade old.
More: Jeep Confirms New Compass, Updated Grand Cherokee And Wagoneer
Thanks to these moves and other missteps, Jeep sales have plummeted. While the company sold as many as 973,227 vehicles in the United States as recently as 2018, that number fell to 641,166 units last year.
2024 is shaping up to be even worse as the brand has only sold 304,186 vehicles in the first six months of the year. That puts them on track to sell 608,372 trucks and SUVs, which would make for the sixth consecutive year of declines.
That brings us to our question of the day, how would you save Jeep? The most obvious answer is to bring back the Cherokee and that’s expected to happen in late 2025. It’s slated to be joined by a redesigned Compass and Renegade, which will fill sizable gaps in a key part of their lineup.
Jeep is also planning an assortment of EVs including the Recon and Wagoneer S. The latter is slated to arrive at dealerships this fall, although it costs an eye-watering $71,995.
That’s pretty steep considering the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT starts at $54,995 and offers a $995 performance upgrade that makes the crossover even faster than its rival. Of course, Jeep is targeting a different type of consumer as the Wagoneer S is essentially an American take on the Range Rover Sport.
Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room is pricing. Jeep got greedy and sales unsurprisingly tanked. As we noted not long ago, the price tag on the Cherokee skyrocketed from $28,135 to $37,695 in two years.
Even worse, the tiny Renegade carried a base price of $30,490 in 2023, making it even more expensive than the Compass. This helps to explain why dealers still have hundreds of new Renegades in stock.
#Save #Jeep
More Stories
Michigan Democratic Senate Candidate Campaigns Against EVs
Koenigsegg, Rimac, And Hennessey Bosses Drive Each Other’s Hypercars
Mercedes Teases Future Electric Vans With VAN.EA Prototypes