Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe 2024 Tow Test

The new 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee is available in eight different variants: four in standard short-wheelbase five-seat configuration and four in long-wheelbase seven-seat ‘L' guise.

The range begins with the five-seat Night Eagle at $77,950 plus on-road costs, the Limited ($83,950), the Overland ($98,450) and the only plug-in hybrid in the range, the previously reviewed Summit Reserve 4xe ($129,950).

Meanwhile, the petrol V6-only Grand Cherokee L seven-seat range starts at $82,750 for the Night Eagle and reaches out to $119,450 for the Summit Reserve (all prices are plus on-road costs).

Bright White exterior paint is standard, while premium paint adds $1750.

Genuine Jeep accessories for towing include the five-seat Towing Package for $1642 plus 3.75 hours fitting cost and the Trailer Brake Package at $992 plus two hours fitting cost.

The vehicle we tested, in Bright White and with the above towing options and the Advanced Technology Group option (head-up display, wireless phone charging, night vision and a front passenger display), brought the total to $138,084 – plus ORCs and accessory fitting costs.

But despite its astronomical price, the single-variant Summit Reserve PHEV does not have the 3500kg capacity of the previous Grand Cherokee. In fact, at 2722kg, it has 91kg less to play with than the petrol V6.

As the premium model in the range, the 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe comes with a bunch of gear as standard. There’s the 21-inch wheels and auto-on LED headlights, panoramic sunroof, power-adjustable quilted leather-trimmed front seats (with massage function), heated and ventilated front and rear seats and four-zone climate control.

Jeep offers a five-year/100,000km warranty, though the battery is covered for eight years/160,000km, and servicing will cost you $399 a pop for the first five visits, required every 12 months or 12,000km.

Each time you complete a scheduled service at an authorised dealer, Jeep will extend your free roadside assistance for another 12 months for the life of the vehicle.

The 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe has eight airbags (twin front, front-side, side curtain and front knee airbags), autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian and cyclist detection, driver monitoring, intersection collision assist, cross traffic alert, speed assist, adaptive cruise control with traffic assist, lane keep assist and blind spot detection.

The big Jeep also has a parking assistance feature, as well as a 360-degree surround-view camera and parking sensors both front and rear.

The 4xe is the only five-seat Jeep Grand Cherokee to score a five-star ANCAP safety rating; the petrol five-seaters received a ‘poor’ level of chest protection for second-row occupants, resulting in these models achieving just four stars. All seven-seat Grand Cherokees have a five-star rating.

The 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe has a nine-speaker Alpine audio system, a 10.1-inch infotainment touch-screen running the Uconnect 5 operating system, wireless smartphone mirroring (Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), embedded TomTom sat-nav, digital radio and voice control.

Meanwhile, a display in front of the front passenger allows operation of the navigation, audio or video, via HDMI input.

Jeep Connected Services, free for the first three years of ownership, is also part of the deal, which permits the owner remote vehicle status viewing, remote climate control setting, remote navigation presetting, security alerts, 24/7 customer assistance and other functions via the Jeep smartphone app.

Once the three-year period has expired, owners can pay for a Jeep Connected Services subscription, tailored to only specific features if desired.

Jeep’s Uconnect multimedia system is one of the better ones to use, as it doesn’t confound you with multiple rabbit-hole menus, as some systems do. Helpful buttons surround the screen for when you need to keep your eyes on the road and so need tactile buttons to reach for.

The old adage ‘there’s no replacement for displacement’ is out the window here; the petrol Grand Cherokee’s 210kW/344Nm Pentastar V6 sounds peppy enough, but the 4xe’s 200kW/400Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine is not only close to the V6 on power but nails it for torque.

Add the electric motor’s output to the equation, and you have beefy combined totals of 280kW/637Nm.

In practice, there is plenty of torque available when you are driving on electric power alone – more than enough for around-town driving. You don’t really find yourself having to take big lunges at the accelerator pedal as you do in the petrol V6 just to keep up with traffic.

Better still, when you want full power, the combined 280kW on tap will motivate the Jeep to move very quickly for a big, heavy thing. Not a supercar, sure, but it’s more than quick enough for a big SUV.

A little odd was when the battery-only range was depleted (with less than 1km of range showing), the Grand Cherokee didn’t know what to do in certain manoeuvring situations.

It would begin moving from standstill on electric power and the petrol engine would then fire up, but when reversing out of a steep driveway, for example, the set-up behaved like a badly adjusted dual-clutch auto-type transmission – grabbing and lurching backwards too quickly.

All this is very odd, given the Jeep uses the Torqueflite 8 transmission, a licensed version of the excellent torque-converter ZF 8HP transmission – which is not a twin-clutch auto.

With its hybrid powertrain, the 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe promises to be a big SUV that sips fuel like a small hatchback – it’s official combined fuel consumption figure is just 3.2L/100km.

Even though we did manage to travel almost 50km in electric-only mode around town (Jeep says the EV range is 52km NEDC), the battery took 12 hours to replenish on 10A domestic power.

The overall fuel economy result during our week-long test – with one and half charges of the battery pack and the rest of the around-town driving relying on whatever the combined hybrid system could rustle up – was 11.2L/100km.

When towing a single-axle off-road caravan weighing 2200kg, the Jeep averaged 18.4L/100km.

Jayco Sydney in St Marys (NSW) supplied the van for this tow test – a single-axle off-road van that, with tanks full, weighed about 2200kg and had a measured 150kg towball download weight.

The Jeep’s tow hitch receiver and trailer electrics plug is hidden behind a removable section of the rear bumper, something that has been done by various manufacturers over the years but never looks good when set up to tow.

It’s a small point, but it also means if you want your Jeep to look pretty when not towing, you need to store the tow tongue somewhere. Luckily there’s room next to the spare wheel under the cargo floor.

The Jeep’s reversing camera has good resolution and is accurate when positioning the towball tongue under the trailer coupling. And handily, the air suspension can be adjusted for height when hitching up.

As with the lower-spec Grand Cherokee V6 we tested previously, there isn’t any towing technology here as seen on other new SUVs and utes such as the Range Rover, Ford Everest and Ford Ranger.

An icon above the fuel gauge indicates a trailer is being towed, suggesting the Jeep is going to be drinking more fuel. That’s about it.

Even with less than 1km of electric range showing, the big Jeep would usually take off in electric-only mode, the petrol engine only firing up when underway, or if a quick launch off the line was required.

As mentioned above, despite the help of the electric motor when towing, and despite the petrol engine automatically shutting down for much of the slow or stationary photoshoot requirements, overall fuel consumption was quite high.

On the freeway the Jeep was very stable, only finding a series of undulations hard to swallow whole, with some pitching occurring. In short, this is a very good towing platform.

As for the powertrain, the Jeep did it easy up our tow test hill, maintaining 90km/h with barely half-throttle. However, its raspy four-cylinder petrol engine sounds as if it would be more at home in an Alfa Romeo than a Jeep SUV when it fires up.

It also sounds a touch coarse when revving, perhaps magnified by just how whisper-quiet this SUV is when driving in electric-only mode.

At first blush, the top-shelf 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe uses plenty of tricks to imbue a sense of luxury in its cabin; there’s the wood inserts on the dash, door trims and even the steering wheel, and the plush quilted leather and touches of piano black and silver finish trim all works well.

So does the incredibly large amount of space for five people – there will be few complaints about feeling cramped in here. Having said all that, when it comes to finish and presentation it’s not nearly as polished overall as many of its SUV competitors at this price.

The 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe is not quite heavy-duty enough for ‘heavy-duty’ towing with a capacity of just 2722kg.

And its fuel consumption is higher than what the previous 3500kg-capable Grand Cherokee diesel could achieve when towing much heavier trailers.

Towing performance and towing stability are right up there with this new Jeep, but for $130K-plus we’re left wondering if that’s enough.

2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe at a glance:
Price: $129,950 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Powertrain: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol/electric
Output: 200kW/400Nm
Combined output: 280kW/637Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Battery: 17.3kWh lithium-ion
Range: 52km (NEDC)
Energy consumption: 33kWh/100km (NEDC)
Fuel: 3.2L/100km (NEDC)
CO2: 74g/km (NEDC)
Safety rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2022)