Next-Gen Jeep Grand Cherokee To Use Alfa SUV Platform
Three-row Jeep Grand Cherokee may debut in 2022, according to FCA’s latest roadmap.
FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne dropped a lot of product plans for the next five years during his swansong investor conference in Italy last week. One of those plans is an update to the platform the Cherokee rides upon.
Marchionne told Motor Authority about those plans during the conference. “It started originally off the Alfa architecture, which has now been modified and extended to reach both a two-row and a three-row Grand Cherokee,” said Marchionne.
Since 2011, the Grand Cherokee and corporate sibling Dodge Durango have used Daimler’s “premium” SUV platform to pull it all together. Per Marchionne, the next Grand Cherokee will trade its Teutonic heritage for Italian blood, via the Alfa Romeo Stelvio’s underpinning, the Giorgio platform.
Marchionne added the work on the mods to the Stelvio’s platform for the Grand Cherokee is already complete, which could mean the new Jeep could arrive as soon as 2019. When it does, it will be among the first of FCA’s models to offer Level 2 autonomous driving technology on par with Cadillac’s Super Cruise system. Thus, your new Grand Cherokee will be able to brake, accelerate, steer and change lanes with little driver intervention. A Level 3 system is expected at the end of 2021.
As for that three-row Grand Cherokee, the 2022 Jeep roadmap suggests such a beast will appear to do battle with similar E-segment SUVs. Other Jeep product plans include a new Renegade and Cherokee, a refreshed Compass, and the return of the famed Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer nameplates. The two names last graced a Jeep in 1993, when the Grand Wagoneer name was a one-year only special luxury package for the Grand Cherokee; the Wagoneer name was discontinued with its namesake SUV in 1991.
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