Jeep is planning to introduce a new vehicle for the Indian market as per the brand’s plans to strengthen its presence in the Indian market. The upcoming Jeep SUV will position itself in the highly-contested compact SUV segment and come with a four-wheel-drive as an option. The new Jeep compact SUV will become the brand’s smallest product in the brand’s global portfolio.
With the merger of Groupe PSA and FCA which are now under the Stellantis umbrella, Jeep has access to Groupe PSA’s CMP (Common Modular Platform) but CMP does not support four-wheel-drivelines and according to Jeep a complete soft-roader is out of the question. The brand is likely to bring an all-wheel-drive version of the compact SUV with its front wheels powered by the internal combustion engine and the rear wheels could have an e-axle (Electric Drive). This will solve the all-wheel-drive problem as well as give the brand some brownie points in terms of future emission regulations which may require some sort of electrification on cars in the near future. Speculations in the past suggested that the Jeep compact SUV may use the Fiat Panda 4×4 architecture.
The compact Jeep SUV is likely to use the Jeep Renegade’s Euro-spec 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol motor but the brand could also use Citroen’s 1.2-litre turbo-petrol engine which the French manufacturer is likely to employ on the upcoming Citroen C21 (Codenamed) and is reported to have benchmarked the motor with Maruti Suzuki’s 1.2-litre four-cylinder powertrain. The use of a front-wheel driven architecture for the ICE motor and an electric rear-wheel-drive also gives Jeep the advantage of not having a physically connecting prop shaft which translates to more space inside the cabin.
The Jeep compact SUV, known internally as the ‘Jeep Junior’, will compete with the likes of the Kia Sonet, Hyundai Venue, Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, Toyota Urban Cruiser, Mahindra XUV300, Tata Nexon, Ford EcoSport, Nissan Magnite and the Renault Kiger.