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Jeep has unveiled a brand new all-electric model of its iconic Wrangler SUV, however customers will doubtless have to attend at the very least just a few years to buy one.
The model on Monday debuted the Wrangler “Magneto” as an idea car, that means it is a customized product usually constructed by automakers to gauge buyer curiosity or present the longer term route of a car or model.
“It is a sustainable, stealthy, rock-climbing drive,” Jim Morrison, vp of the Jeep model in North America, stated throughout a media occasion. “It is a zero-emissions idea car with Jeep 4×4 functionality taken to the subsequent stage.”
Jeep executives have stated each Jeep will supply some type of electrification going ahead, however it has not confirmed an all-electric model of the Wrangler. The corporate just lately began promoting a plug-in hybrid electrical model of the Wrangler below a brand new “4xe” moniker, a play on the model’s off-road status mixed with electrification. Plug-in hybrid electrical fashions have batteries like EVs but in addition nonetheless have a standard inside combustion engine.
The Jeep Wrangler Magneto idea relies off a two-door 2020 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. To make it an EV, engineers swapped out its inside combustion engine and a few supporting components for electrical elements similar to 4 batteries and an e-motor.
The car is able to as much as 273 foot-pounds of torque and 285 horsepower. The Magneto runs 0-60 mph in 6.8 seconds. The corporate didn’t launch the electrical vary of the car.
Essentially the most distinctive factor concerning the Magneto is it has a six-speed handbook transmission, which electrical autos do not require due to their motors. Mark Allen, head of Jeep design, stated the car “has the perfect traits” of an automated transmission however the “direct-drive really feel” of a handbook transmission, which is a key draw for off-road lovers.
The Magneto was unveiled alongside a number of different customized or idea autos for the Jeep Easter Safari, an annual off-road occasion for the model in Moab, Utah. Jeep usually makes use of the off-road occasion as a testing floor for the capabilities of its autos in addition to a technique to gauge buyer curiosity in new merchandise.
“The Moab Easter Jeep Safari has been a terrific custom for greater than half a century,” Morrison stated. “It is a spot the place we get to attach with our most die-hard off-road lovers and those who’re most loyal to our model.”