It’s true the government is pushing EVs – even harder than it did the “vaccines.” And it’s true the car companies have – with a couple of notable exceptions – joined the push, much the same as corporations helped push the so-called “vaccines.” But much of the blame for the enabling of this can be laid at the feet of the car press – such as it has become – via the not explaining of this.
A good example of this being a piece (you add the rest) just published by Jalopnik, one of the guiltiest purveyors of misinformation about “electrification” – regarding the news that the Jeep Wrangler will become a battery powered device beginning in 2027.
Not a hybrid, like the currently available 4xe versions of the current Wrangler and other Jeep models, including the Grand Cherokee.
The latter suffer from none of the debilities that plague battery-powered devices because they are predominantly powered by an engine that provides power-as-you-go to the hybrid side of the system, which can also power the vehicle when the engine’s power isn’t needed.
Yin and yang.
But the critical point as regards hybrids like the current 4Xe hybrid versions of the Wrangler and Grand Cherokee – both of which can be plugged in for power – is that they don’t have to be.
These Jeeps can go about 25 miles as an EV – but they can also keep going for hundreds of miles farther than that, when the “EV” side runs empty. Which isn’t accurate, really – because in a hybrid system – unlike an EV system – the battery’s charge is never fully depleted, no matter how far you go, because it is constantly being recharged as you drive.
By the engine.
This is a critically important – because critically relevant – point not only left unexplained by the Jalopnik Enabler but deliberately obfuscated by him.
He writes:
“Jeep purists and fans, we’re going to have to sit you down for a moment. You might not be entirely prepared for this news. But it’s happening. The age of six cylinders pumping pure gasoline to power your off-roading stallion, is coming to an end. Jeep CEO Christian Meunier confirmed to UK’s Auto Express that the next generation Wrangler will be an off-roading EV.” 
Which is true. But then:
“Ok, it’s not that much of a surprise. Jeep has been playing with going electric for awhile now and the Wrangler 4xe was part of that toe-dipping experiment. But aside from a number of concepts we’ve seen from the brand, Meunier thinks Jeep customers are ready to embrace electrification because of how good the 4xe has been selling.”
Italics added.
After which point no edifying the reader about the fact that the 4Xe is a hybrid, goddamn it – not an EV.
Yes, of course it’s selling well. Precisely because it isn’t an EV. The 25 miles it can go as an EV is a perk but the sell is that it goes hundred of miles and doesn’t make you wait – or leave you stranded. This latter being a particular concern for people who might want to . . . go off road.
Where there is no place to plug in.
(Cue Sam Kinison’s brilliant suggestion to the starving Ethiopians that they might try going where the food is.)
This will matter when you have maybe 60 percent of the real-world range of a non-electric Jeep. Maybe enough to get there. But what about back from there?
The Jalopnik Enabler quotes Jeep’s Honcho some more:
“In quarter one, 38 percent of all Wranglers we sold were [electrified] 4xe models and by the end of this year, I bet it’s going to be more like 50 or 60 per cent. That’s not because people are forced; when they test drive it, they understand they can drive 20 to 25 miles on electric power and go to the gas station less.”
Yes. And the “fast” charger, never – if they prefer not to.
More to the point, because they don’t have to.
This is a massively important consideration for an off-road vehicle.
It is also as important a distinction as that which exists between a vaccine that immunizes you against a sickness and prevents you from spreading it to others – and a drug that “reduces symptoms.” People have to be lied to (and forced to) in order to get them to take those drugs.
Just as they are being lied to and forced to as regards EVs.
The Jalopnik Enabler goes on quoting Meunier about the advantages – off-road – of electric motors, which are torquier sooner than engines (which have to rev to make torque) and the fact that with the EV layout, it is possible to fine-tune power delivery to pairs of wheels and even individual wheels more . . . finely.
All of which is true. And none of which matters if the goddamn wheels don’t turn because the power’s run down and there’s no way to power them back up.
I have driven 4Xe Jeeps. I like them and recommend them because you can drive them anywhere – including places where there is no gas and places that are very far from where there are places to plug in. Other people like (and buy) them, too – because they are an improvement over the gas-engine-only versions of the same thing, which don’t go as far – and can’t go anywhere without using at least some gas.
But an electric-only Jeep will not be an improvement – except perhaps temporarily. Like the much-touted EV quickness which if you use it, you lose it.
Yes, the electric motors will perhaps allow for nimbler off-roading. But the problem is getting to the off-roading.
And back from there.
When people find out they might not – and how long it might take – it is probable they’ll be a lot less interested in buying a battery-powered device than a Wrangler.
The tragedy is that they might not be facing that take-it-or-leave it “choice” come 2027 were it not for the journalistic enablers of this EV shuck-and-jive.
They are the same tools who sold the public on “safe and effective,” too.
. . .
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I own a JL Wrangler with the 3.6L gas and recently bought a Gladiator with the 3.0 L diesel. The former is heavily modified for off road use and the latter is mostly stock but is slowly being upgraded. Here’s what I can best figure.
The 4xe is not being purchased by anyone who takes their Jeep off-road very much. They are significantly heavier and harder to modify for off-road use since the battery and electric motor and cabling all take up a lot of space and add a lot of weight (and EVs will be nearly impossible to upgrade for more extreme off-road use). Like most 4×4 vehicles, the majority of Wrangler owners want the image but never use the capability. The biggest appeals are the winter driving ability and the convertible aspects. This is why they are popular in places where Subaru is popular. The biggest drawback is the poor gas mileage. When something is brick-shaped, it’s hard to get it to get good mpg. The hybridization of it offsets its biggest drawback, plus it actually makes it faster 0-60 mph than a non-hybrid (only the 392 hemi version is faster).
The biggest 4xe problem is that it was made as an afterthought. The hybrid system is very much a patchwork setup doomed to be both unreliable and fragile. That’s less of a problem when it’s never taken off-road, as most aren’t. It’s a big problem if you’re 100 miles deep into the middle of nowhere off-road. It’s also a good set of training wheels for the EV model to teach a new generation of customers to not stray far from civilization.
I can’t begrudge Jeep too much for doing this since government regulations are forcing all manufacturers in this direction, and the low mpg inherent in the Wrangler platform, their best selling model, is an albatross around their necks. For the past several years at Easter Jeep Safari, there have been EV models of the Wrangler on the current platform on display and driving. They have garnered less than zero interest among the true Jeep community. Yet everyone knows this generation is the last hurrah for non-electrified Jeeps. If the V8 is dying, the Jeep Wrangler powered by internal combustion has one foot in the grave, not because of lack of interest. The current Jeep is the best selling version of all time. No, it is being killed by Uncle Sam.
Just like the Mach E is not a Mustang, an EV Wrangler will not be a Jeep. These two models, along with, perhaps, the Corvette, are the most iconic American badges still alive, and that doesn’t fit in with the plans our ersatz rulers have for a fossil fuel free future. Cars must be a punishment to drive and own.
“None shall pass,” quoth the Black Knight.
Now comes the Seedy of El Lay, a.k.a. (Total) Los(s) Angeles, which aspires to block off federal Interstate highways, and send its own goons to steal from motorists who wish only to pass through, not stop in, their location.
https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-05-19/new-york-city-is-moving-on-congestion-pricing-los-angeles-should-be-next
>The agency is working on a study analyzing three potential locations for pilot projects: on roads and freeways into downtown; on Interstate 10 between downtown and Santa Monica; and on freeways and canyon roads that cross the Santa Monica Mountains between the San Fernando Valley and the L.A. Basin.
Time for a new map.
Here there be dragons?
Nope. Here there be thieves.
Spotted on the RSS feed yesterday, as featured on 9 News:
https://coloradoteardrops.com/ev/
The Boulder™ – Our EV Camper Trailer
The Boulder™ is a 4-person teardrop camper for owners of electric vehicles (EVs)
THERE IS NOW BACKUP POWER FOR YOUR ELECTRIC VEHICLE AND YOUR HOME
Don’t worry! Your tiny sleeping quarters doubles as a charger pack. After a day on the slick rock come back to camp and drain your house battery. But not to worry you can recharge using solar power. Using a typical 200 Watt array used in camping applications, Your 75 kWh battery will recharge in… 375 hours. OK. So better have a month’s worth of food. For reference, my home solar array is 18 panels rated for a peak of 6 kW, and it takes up almost an entire side of my roof.
So now in addition to setting up camp, you have to build your solar charging array, which for any practical charging will be absolutely enormous. Better plan on reserving two campsites, and I’m sure the National Park Service is going to be thrilled with you dragging cables all over the place.
Of course the real use case is to treat it like a cell phone booster pack for your car. Good enough for the weekend warrior or in a pinch, but will probably never be a long term solution. And if you’re pulling the trailer up hills the boost will probably be chewed up in lost range.
There are alternatives.
This one weighs 250 lb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knobB0-uky8&t=70s
Eh, you’ll use an F250 with a 460 big block to tow your e-Jeep to the trailhead, then you can go e-wheelin’! Set up your tent which has a solar array roof. After a week or so, your tent can charge your e-Jeep, just so you can get back to your gas truck in order to go home
Must be some cash floating around to pay car journalists to sing praises of EVs. There’s literally nothing good about them. Except virtue signaling, which isn’t very good all by itself.
Hi John,
I can speak to this a little – having some “inside baseball” knowledge of the way the system works. I can write forthrightly because you guys pay me to do that. (It’s also how I want to write – but that is peripheral.) The “mainstream” people are paid by their owners – the publishers – who pay them to write about some things (and not others) and to write with a certain slant. This latter is rarely openly stated, but it is a fact everyone who works for a publisher is well aware of.
Ask Tucker!
So cash floating around in the form of a paycheck. Got it. In other words, whores.
Exactly!
Well, not quite. At least, shouldn’t.
At one time, the business of journalists was to get the facts and report/analyze them. To give people the straight dope. Good papers and magazines and so on attracted readers for that reason – and so, advertisers. That paid the bills – without any whoring. It was a good deal all around.
What happened was a handful of big corporations bought up most of the media – and then they got what they paid for.
Not to mention the 1000+ pounds of extra weight. Which is why small pickups, like older 4WD Tacomas and Frontiers, do extremely well off road. Because they DON’T have extra weight, and ride over what full size trucks sink into. Much less what a 1000+ pound heavier Wrangler will sink into.
I’ve occasionally gotten my 97 4WD Tacoma hung up with a load of firewood on it, and had to go get the tractor to help get it out. NEVER hung up empty, despite putting it into ridiculous positions. If you had a notion to go somewhere off road with your 4WD would you load 1000+ pounds in it before you took off?
Reminds me of a friend who once went on an unguided Moose hunt in Alaska. Stopped at a general store and asked the proprietor “where is a good place to hunt moose?” To which he replied, “close to the road”. Because you are likely to be hauling out 1000+ pounds of Moose if you succeed.
Lying by omission. Lack of context. Comparing, or even better, conflating, apples and oranges. Appeal to inevitability. Some of the best ways to fool the received knowledge crowd.
Now, an electric-dominant hybrid 4×4 would be an incredibly useful, versatile and powerful vehicle for going beyond civilization. But the chances of such a vehicle being built before the heat death of the world are slim to none.
‘Cause like I say, these EVs aren’t about controlling the weather—they’re about controlling YOU.
I could see one of these used as a tow-behind vehicle for someone’s big disel pusher RV. Might even be able to recharge the battery while rolling down the road, although it probably won’t do the tires (or the RV’s fuel economy) any good.
Rube Goldberg’s finest hybrid arrangement! Though a 12mpg diesel RV probably wont drop a whole lot charging the EeeVee…
Regenerative braking will usually stop a car without requiring any use of the hydraulic brake system. One of the more interesting “who cares?” features of EVs is the incredible lifespan of brake pads. Sure, great that the pads last forever, but “only” 75,000+ miles out of traditional pads isn’t exactly a hardship.
Putting a two-behind into “full regen” mode while towing it would be like a locked up brake.
Indeed, RK –
A set of new pads for a typical car costs about $50. Almost anyone can install these themselves. So – $50 once every four or five years. . . . vs. $50,000 for the EV…
The 4xe still has the suspect Fiat engine. We’ll see if those are still around in 2027 except for a few garage queen examples.
As of late, the US automakers don’t seem interested in making much beyond EVs and garage queens for the well-off.
Electric Jeep lol. Are they something like this:
https://ridefirstdrive.com/products/sha_rotc_2st_nl_jeep3_black
I would bet that a large number of people that bought the hybrid version were hedging their bets against being forced to buy an EV down the road. After a couple/few people get stranded in the middle of fuck-nowhere and are unable to bring a “can of electricity” with them and where no tow truck can go, that will be the end of this pretend fantasy of EV off-roading.
Which I’m also convinced is seen as a net positive by the lunatics putting on the climate hoax show. They don’t want people out there, making tire tracks, building fires, leaving trash, making noise, etc.
They want to keep people in the fucken 15-minute open air prison. I’d bet my last dollar that there is no chapter or section on “EV off-roading” or even “outdoorsmanship” in the book of Global Reset.
Quite the opposite in fact. More like, “fuck you, eat the bugs, stay in the city, put on VR goggles and pretend you’re going out.”
Just like the corona hoax, they’ll keep the pretend game, until it has all blown up in every direction. And they’ll likely get away with that much as they did with the poison gene therapy. People are so fucken stupid anymore.
But eventually, when the house is burned down, there’s no amount of pretend that makes that go away or even makes it OK. That shit is coming. Watch.
‘Using Jeep’s Trail Rating system it uses for its models, [Jeep CEO Christian] Meunier explained that the next Wrangler will be rated a 12 on a scale of one to 10.’ — Jalopnik
This is as fake as ‘Secretary’ Pete Buttigieg, in a Wired interview, lauding the cool vroom-vroom noises his Mustang Mach-e makes in Untamed mode.
What will desperate, deluded clowns like Meunier and Buttigieg do when their fantasy world vaporizes like the Hindenburg? Tart up their vehicles in bright colors, like Ford just did with its Rainbow Raptor?
https://tinyurl.com/ypd74vwn
As in the 1960s, a riot of colors (think Peter Max) coincides with the end of a long boom, not the start of one.
It’s a hard world to get a break in
All the good things have been taken
But girl there are ways to make certain things pay
Though I’m dressed in these rags, I’ll wear sable some day
— Eric Burden and the Animals, It’s My Life
Yeah, like Jeep is going to downgrade their product. Right.
Looks like they drank the same kool-aid as the manufacturers, and it will eventually have the same effect as at Jonestown. The Chevy Volt was the best of both worlds so GM canceled it, anything using that evil gasoline is verboten.
Jeeps are based on the concept that you “CAN” go off roading with them. Based on how much the fancy ones cost now I’m pretty sure most of them never go off road when new and under warranty but when their older and out of warranty a lot of people will discover what it costs when your Jeep is stuck 80 miles from nowhere with a dead battery. I’m curious who you call then and I’m pretty sure it’s not Triple A….
Also if they write off new EVs after minor accidents what happens if you bang up your E-Jeep rock climbing or something?
Oh man, wait until some fucker starts a major conflagration because their lithium battery spontaneously combusts in Yosemite or something like that!
There are a lot more reasons NOT to take an EV into the bush than there are for doing so. In fact I can’t think of any of the latter. Catalytic converters are bad enough about starting fires, But they don’t burn at high temperature for several hours, or days, like 1000+ pound batteries, since there’s no way to put one out in the bush.
Simple. It catches fire and burns up.
The kids can roast marshmallows while waiting for Matt’s Offroad Recovery to take them home.
In memory of jalopniks old series “Nice Price Or Crack Pipe” which got renamed as to not offend crackheads… An electric Jeep is crack pipe at any price.
Imagine spending god knows how many American pesos just to have some jerk start singing the pow pow power wheels jingle as you negotiate the off-road terrain of your potholed suburban public roads.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NADftDUn458
Possession of crack, along with heroin and meth, in small quantities is now legal in Oregon.
Offending crackheads is going to be a serious concern moving forward.
Yeah, because meth heads don’t live that long.
A meth head was almost elected Governor of Florida in 2018. Offending that demographic might be even more of a problem than crackheads before too long.
Search “Andrew Gillum meth” if you are unfamiliar with the story.