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Video: 2024 Jeep Wagoneer S Review: The First All-Electric American Jeep SUV Is Here

15:20 min
By Cars.com Editors
January 27, 2025

About the video

Cars.com Detroit Bureau Chief Aaron Bragman recently got to drive the new Jeep Wagoneer S around San Diego to experience just what the first-ever all-electric Jeep SUV to be sold in the U.S. is like, and he came away pretty impressed.

Transcript

This is a Jeep Wagoneer S. It's the first-ever all-electric SUV from Jeep sold in North America.
Now, what does a fully electric Jeep SUV really look like, and what can it do, and why should you care? Well, let me take you through the new Jeep Wagoneer S. Well, first of all, what exactly is a Wagoneer? Now, the two that you're familiar with are the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. Those are enormous, body-on-frame, full-sized SUVs built off of Ram pickup truck platforms. This is not that. The Wagoneer S is built off of something called the STLA Large electric vehicle platform, but it can accommodate gas engines, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fully electric platforms as well. So this thing is built off of the same platform that the new Dodge Charger is built off of, except that this is obviously a higher-riding SUV. But what makes this thing specifically a Jeep? Well, in terms of its styling, it's that seven-slot grille up front. But it's not a grille. There's nothing to cool. It doesn't have a gas engine yet. So instead, you've got that seven-element light bar instead, and when you turn it on at night, it does actually have some really Jeep-looking elements to it. You come down the side, and you've got the trapezoidal wheel arches, like all Jeeps have, as well. So those are the two big styling elements that really kind of make it a Jeep SUV? It's not necessarily an off-road version, however. Think of this more like the old Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. It's a performance vehicle. It's meant to be driven on-road more than off-road. It doesn't have any kind of height-adjustable suspension. It doesn't have any underbody protection. It is really more of an on-road performance vehicle, and that's why, in this initial launch edition anyway, you have 20-inch wheels running Falken all-season low-rolling-resistance tires. You come down the side, and the more interesting part is back here because this is not really the roofline. This is more of an SUV coupe than an actual SUV. The overall size is maybe a little bit around the size of a Honda CR-V. It's not a big vehicle, but the roofline itself actually comes to right here. This part of the glass, this panel, and this wing are all just add-ons to make the whole thing look a lot more boxy and square, but it has a very slippery roofline. It has a coefficient of drag of under 0.30 for aerodynamic efficiency and electrical efficiency as well. That definitely helps its range and it helps with interior quietness as well, but it is a little bit deceptive. But given that this Wagoneer S is very different from the larger Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer Jeeps, the big difference is gonna be in how this thing drives. Now, driving the Wagoneer S is an interesting experience. It is an electric powertrain, and in this one, this is the launch edition basically, and it's the only one you can get right now. There'll be lesser trims coming later that have less power, different powertrains, potentially even an internal combustion engine version as well. But this being the launch edition, it's got a twin motor setup and a total of 600 horsepower and 617 pounds-feet of torque. There's no transmission, obviously, given that it's an electric car. But what's most interesting about this is that all of it is absolutely silent. The attention to aerodynamics in designing the Wagoneer S has resulted in a less than 0.30 coefficient of drag. And, you know, the more aerodynamic you are, the less wind noise you're going to get, theoretically, as you're driving down the road and the wind's passing over the vehicle. There is no wind noise in this car whatsoever. Even at highway speeds, it is absolutely completely silent. There's no powertrain noise as well. You get a little bit of artificial noise below a certain speed because you have to by federal law, but there's very little tire noise. The launch edition here is using these 20-inch Falken all-season low-rolling-resistance tires, which have a surprising amount of grip but don't make any tire noise at all. So the result is you could be cruising along at 50 miles an hour, and you can speak in whispers to the passenger sitting next to you without a problem. This is one of the quietest, most luxurious-feeling vehicles I've driven in quite some time. The driving experience, however, is a little interesting. The steering feel is numb. It's almost video game numb. There's very little in the way of feedback like you get in, say, a Rivian R1S or even a Tesla Model Y, which does provide a bit more feedback. It's precise and it's accurate, and it does get a little bit quicker when you put it in sport mode in terms of the steering ratio, but it doesn't provide much in the way of feedback, and so it's not entirely all that entertaining. But then, you know, you're in an SUV, so entertainment is not necessarily the main goal. Now, that 600-horsepower powertrain will get you from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds, which is ridiculously quick. And there's a couple of different modes in here in order to do that. The normal auto mode drives perfectly fine. You also have a choice of different regen functions, one-pedal driving, even a creep control if you want to actually have the vehicle creep forward from a standstill like a normal internal combustion engine vehicle typically does. You can set that, you can change that in the settings. But the normal auto mode is perfectly adequate for around town and even spirited driving because when you put it in a sport mode, well, like this, well, it remaps your throttle and gets very touchy. (laughs) You have to be very careful in applying that right foot pressure because it is very, very sensitive. Especially if you have the maximum regen on, it really gets touchy. So the overall driving experience is, you know, decently entertaining, I suppose. It's quick, probably quicker than it actually needs to be. The ride quality is exceptional, even with these large 20-inch wheels. It does feel a little bit heavy, especially for the size of vehicle that it is. But then it does have a 100-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, which is a good size for this vehicle. What that means for range is an EPA-certified 303 miles of range, which for a vehicle with this amount of power and speed is not bad, and anything above 300 is generally considered to be pretty good. Now, you can get a lot more than that in some competitor vehicles, but I think for most people, 300 miles of range is gonna be more than adequate, especially since it can fast charge fairly rapidly. It's a 400-volt system, so it can go from about 20% to 80% charge in somewhere around 25 minutes or so. The two different regen modes do feel different depending on how you've set it. The minimum regen barely feels like anything at all, whereas maximum regen will actually throw your passengers' heads forward when you lift off the throttle. So it really depends on which one you're more comfortable with. I generally prefer to keep it in max regen and keep it out of sport mode because I think that does have a little bit nicer throttle mapping, and it's still more than sufficiently quick for pretty much any kind of use, especially on these canyon roads here around San Diego. So the Wagoneer S may share its name with the larger Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer body-on-frame SUVs, but that's pretty much all it shares. (chuckling) Some of this interior design also looks a little similar. They took their cues from the larger Wagoneers in making this much smaller version in the Wagoneer S. But one thing that they did keep is its feeling of premium product luxury, and I have to say they really did step up their game for making this a super nice interior. The more interesting thing about it, though, is that despite the premium-looking materials and premium feel to a lot of this, there's no actual leather in here at all. This is all vinyl and artificial leather, including the steering wheel, which has this new antimicrobial vinyl covering, which feels just like leather. The seats themselves are also not actually leather, but the stitching in here, the piping, the attention to color, the materials themselves are fantastic. The center console is ceramic-coated aluminum that you can actually see through the pattern, and it feels and looks fantastic and should be pretty durable as well. All of this metal trim on the dash is also actually aluminum. So you do have some genuine materials in here, but they've also had something of an ecological nod as well. All of the carpet is 100% recycled materials; all the interior fabric is too. So they've taken some steps to really kind of modernize this, especially in its interiors for, you know, the newer generation of buyers that really do care about where their materials come from and where the vehicle goes and what its materials become after they're done using it. There are some quirks to this interior, however. First of all, is the heads-up display, which I cannot see, mostly because it's in a position that it's too high. Even in its lowest setting, and me sitting as low as possible, I can't see the heads-up display because it is too high up in the windshield. Not only that, it uses a polarized filter. So if I have these on, it disappears almost entirely unless I tilt my head, and no one wants to drive like that. But it's also very small. It's supposedly a 10-inch screen in front of me for that heads-up display. But again, it's pretty much useless. If that's an option in the vehicle you're considering, make sure you try it out before you actually pay that kind of money for it. You also have a lot of screens in here, 45 inches of screen acreage in total, according to Jeep. You had a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster in front of you. You have another 12.3-inch digital display touchscreen as part of the center console that's running the latest Uconnect 5 system. So the latest and greatest multimedia system from Jeep and its parent company, Stellantis. Below it, you have a 10.25-inch touchscreen, and that's where the majority of your climate control stuff is and some things like controlling the heated, cooling, and massaging front seats. And finally, you have another 10.25-inch display that's in the passenger side dashboard. Jeep has put these things in a number of vehicles, so has Ram, and we've yet to really kind of see the purpose of it. Nobody's really playing with that screen. If anything, your passenger is using their phone and not whatever's being displayed on the screen. You can't see it from the driver's seat. It's got a polarizing filter on it so that you can't be distracted by it. But we'd rather they put that money into, you know, developing perhaps more steering feel than having another display screen in the car that's already got a lot of display screens. The thing about the interior design, and something that the Wagoneer S's chief engineer said, is that she wanted it to be familiar, which is a very refreshing thing to hear from any chief engineer. There's nothing in here that's weird in terms of how it's controlled. Like the air vents in here, they're manual air vents; you just control them with your fingers instead of having to look through a touchscreen like on a Rivian or a Tesla. The climate control is all touch-sensitive, which is not the greatest thing, but there are also knobs for volume and tuning. There are specific places to touch for the seat heater control or cooling, or massage. So there's no real learning curve for getting into this fully updated and modern electric vehicle and figuring out how to drive it. So that familiarity is really kind of a welcome feature, but it doesn't mean that there isn't some technological progress in here, as well. Like the navigation system can tie into the Jeep app on your phone, and it allows you to actually do some route planning with charging stops so you can figure out where you need to go before you leave home and where you're going to need to charge and how long you'll need to charge based on the actual status of your vehicle using the Jeep app. So, you know, fantastic. You've also got a lot of other interesting technological things in here, like a 19-speaker McIntosh premium sound system with a 1200-watt amplifier and a 12-inch subwoofer, which in a vehicle this size (chuckles) is actually quite a lot of wattage for audio power. And they've even put some of the neat little meters in the multimedia system as well. Kind of a throwback to how McIntosh home consoles used to look like as well. Still might even. And despite the vehicle's size, which is smaller than you might think, it's got a decent amount of room up front. There's plenty of headroom despite the fact you've got this standard dual-pane, actually opening moonroof instead of a fixed glass panel like you have in some competitor vehicles. The width is a little bit tight, but then I'm also a little bit wider than normal. The seats themselves are surprisingly flat; they're not bolstered at all, which is interesting for a vehicle that purports itself to be, you know, quite sporty and can do zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds and has, you know, modes that help for handling. They're very flat, both on the seat backs and seat bottoms, and so your passengers are gonna get tossed around. The back seat is a little short on headroom thanks to that steeply sloping roofline that's hidden very well by some of the styling of the vehicle. And legroom in the back is about adequate for a vehicle in this size segment, but it's not overly spacious, and so it's, again, a little bit tighter than you might expect. It's not as big as a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but it is bigger than something like a Jeep Compass. So kind of in the middle. That smaller size and that steeply raked roofline also do impact you in terms of cargo room. It is adequate. You have enough for two large suitcases, and there is a very small frunk up front where you could put a couple of extra things but not much. And in terms of height, there really isn't a whole lot because, again, of that very steeply sloping rear glass. There isn't a rear window washer or wiper because, again, the angle of that glass is almost like a sedan. So Jeep says that as you're driving along, it clears itself just from the airflow over the glass itself. We'll have to see if we ever find any kind of rain or snow conditions and we happen to be driving a Wagoneer S. So it drives really quite nicely. It is a premium product in pretty much every sense of the word, and it also comes with some premium pricing. Jeep says that this is a premium product, and so it has a premium price. Right now, the Wagoneer S can only be had one way, that's the launch edition, and it comes fully loaded. The only thing you really choose is what color you want both inside and out. And the sticker price is gonna be a few dollars shy of $72,000. Now, again, there will be less expensive, lesser versions of the Wagoneer S coming later this year. We're expecting to hear something about that probably about a month from now, including potentially a Trailhawk version, an off-road version that they've already shown us a concept of, and maybe even gas versions as well because we know the platform that underpins this, being the same one that's in the Dodge Charger, can accommodate gas engines. So there will be more versions of the Wagoneer S coming, and we expect to hear about them very soon. But they're on sale right now, and if you'd like to grab one or if you'd like to actually learn more about the new Wagoneer S, you can look everything up at Cars.com.

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