⚡️ 2026 JEEP RECON Debut. 650 hp / 620 lb-ft, 0-60 in 3.6 sec, 250 miles range

[rubicon4wheeler]

Our jlur and jt only have 240 miles of range thanks to the lift and massive tires. I've never come close to needing to add fuel anywhere. Show me the trail where it's an issue. Tahoe is within 5 miles of 1 trailhead for the rubicon and placerville is maybe 20 miles from the other. Both cities have chargers. The trail is only 18 miles. You could run the trail from placerville both directions and make it back with 100 miles of range.

Since nobody else mentioned it because we got distracted with drag racing and politics, I thought I'd remind everyone that off-road miles consume an order of magnitude more battery capacity than road miles. As short as the Rubicon Trail is, I would not want to take an EV on it until battery technology advances to the point where it can store the energy equivalent of 10 gallons of gas. The recent Cybertruck trip along the Rubicon demonstrated that its battery capacity (EPA rated for 318 miles) is utterly insufficient for a trip through the Rubicon. And unlike your ability to buy a couple gallons of gas from just about every other vehicle on the Rubicon if you need it, nobody's carrying 1,000 pounds of lithium batteries to swap into your EV when you run out of electrons. This crew fully charged their battery at the closest charging station to the trailhead, and by mile 7.0 they had used pretty much the battery's entire capacity:



The other problem the Recon has is one shared by Rivians and the Cybertruck: their hardware is not up to snuff for medium-difficulty trails like the Rubicon. The Recon has 4-wheel car suspension just like the Rivian and Cybertruck. And I doubt its steering is any stronger, either. It's simply not designed to be an off-road vehicle; it's an image vehicle for soccer moms. Bring plenty of spare parts and tools if you're going to attempt any real trails. I'd recommend going on no harder trails than what you can safely do with the average Subaru.

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[Zachanadandy]

Since nobody else mentioned it because we got distracted with drag racing and politics, I thought I'd remind everyone that off-road miles consume an order of magnitude more battery capacity than road miles. As short as the Rubicon Trail is, I would not want to take an EV on it until battery technology advances to the point where it can store the energy equivalent of 10 gallons of gas. The recent Cybertruck trip along the Rubicon demonstrated that its battery capacity (EPA rated for 318 miles) is utterly insufficient for a trip through the Rubicon. And unlike your ability to buy a couple gallons of gas from just about every other vehicle on the Rubicon if you need it, nobody's carrying 1,000 pounds of lithium batteries to swap into your EV when you run out of electrons. This crew fully charged their battery at the closest charging station to the trailhead, and by mile 7.0 they had used pretty much the battery's entire capacity:



The other problem the Recon has is one shared by Rivians and the Cybertruck: their hardware is not up to snuff for medium-difficulty trails like the Rubicon. The Recon has 4-wheel car suspension just like the Rivian and Cybertruck. And I doubt its steering is any stronger, either. It's simply not designed to be an off-road vehicle; it's an image vehicle for soccer moms. Bring plenty of spare parts and tools if you're going to attempt any real trails. I'd recommend going on no harder trails than what you can safely do with the average Subaru.

It's the same suspension and tie rod setup that thousands of Toyotas have run through the Rubicon since 1987. I agree that solid axles are the better and stronger option, but pretending IFS can't run the Rubicon treks me you haven't spent much if any time out there. The cybertruck is a pos with fragile front and rear steer. The trail miles weren't eating up the battery, the terrible driving was. First of all there is no gatekeeper, it was demolished well over a decade ago and only a buffoon who never saw the real thing would call the area where it used to be a gatekeeper. Drive straight onto the biggest rock you can find, spend 3hr looking like Austin Powers turning around in a hallway, and then winch. If you were trying to use as much battery as humanly possible, that's exactly how to do it. I'm not doing the rubicon in an IFS rig, regardless of powertrain, but thousands do. Conversely even in the wife's old WJ with 3" lift and 31s we never had to winch at any point and ran the entire trail in 14 hours of driving. Give me one of the JL magneto concepts and I'll run it in 10 hours just like we do in the JLUR and use less than 100 miles of range easily. Aside from YouTubers that can't drive In sure you'll never see a recon on three rubicon.

 

[ecidiego]

and by mile 7.0

total bullshit. total crock of shit video.

EVs use near 0 power offroad. Offroad speeds are where EV range triples. EVs only lose efficiency at 70mph on the highway.

EVs CaN OnlY gO seVEN mIlEs OffRoad!!!!

JFC I hate the Internet.

 

[ecidiego]

Luddites kill my faith in humanity. At least @ShadowsPapa is an older guy who isn't a luddite. He was in IT tho.... so it tracks he is smart.

 

[ecidiego]

So much massive torque needed to conquer the Rubicon Trail. Those 3.6L Jeep V6's destroy those 1000hp Tesla tri-motors! lmfao.....

@Zachanadandy why even try.

 

[A 2]

Looks like a Jeep Cherokee that came off the assembly line too early.

 

[legacy_etu]

I wouldn't get in a BYD in a million years unless China meets US safety standards.

aw, come on , live a little.

lmfao dude get real. Drive a Rivian. The owners are enthusiasts like us.

Some of them are enthusiasts…..and many of them are pretentious, holier than thou, know it all douchebags. I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading their forums. What a turn off.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

total bullshit. total crock of shit video.

EVs use near 0 power offroad. Offroad speeds are where EV range triples. EVs only lose efficiency at 70mph on the highway.

EVs CaN OnlY gO seVEN mIlEs OffRoad!!!!

JFC I hate the Internet.

Something that proves the bit about efficiency at high speeds - is demonstrates "drag" on our bricks......
I can drive 60 on a fairly flat stretch of highway, no wind and see 8th gear quite a bit.
But if I bump up to 65 or 70, the drag, wind resistance and so on has increased so much, it has to stay in 7th to maintain the speed. MPG drops substantially as well.
It takes a whole lot of energy to overcome drag and wind resistance at higher speeds.
Loafing around town, my wife can indeed squeeze more miles out of the battery in her 4xe, but get it over about 55 and suddenly the 5 miles she had left - it disappears. You can see the power going out of the batteries increase substantially.

BTW - she's made a deal on a new 2026 JLU - in reign. The dealer was not able to order a 4xe. They've put a stop on sales until the new transmission is available, apparently, so that ALL 2026 model year 4xe's have the same transmission. She hasn't even got it yet and hates the loss of MPG and quiet, smoothness of the 4xe, but didn't want to miss out on reign.
She's quite unhappy about no longer getting 25-26 mpg with the power her current Jeep has but to her reign was the most important aspect (and more cargo area because of no battery bump behind the seats)

I'm going to miss the every 4 to 8 weeks topping off the fuel tank of that thing, back to filling every few days.


BTW - this is a PHEV, not an EV. The battery-only range on these is about 25 - TOPS, the most you might get when it's new is 27, warm weather, no AC (AC takes a lot away from the batteries)



And -it's a hybrid, not an EV, so it doesn't have full HP and torque with ICE alone or with battery alone. FULL HP and torque come in when they are combined

 

[GeekJT]

Why did they take the ecodiesel from the gladiator? Like that seems like it'd be the perfect engine for it.

 

[rubicon4wheeler]

total bullshit. total crock of shit video.

EVs use near 0 power offroad. Offroad speeds are where EV range triples. EVs only lose efficiency at 70mph on the highway.

EVs CaN OnlY gO seVEN mIlEs OffRoad!!!!

JFC I hate the Internet.

The "25 miles" of range that a Wrangler 4xe has is good for 2-3 miles of range off-road. So what I said earlier still stands. Range doesn't triple when offroad, even on an easy trail like this one; rather, it's an order of magnitude LESS than mixed on-road mileage. This aligns pretty much exactly with what the Rivian and Cybertruck teams found when they tried taking their EVs off-road.

 

[rubicon4wheeler]

Why did they take the ecodiesel from the gladiator? Like that seems like it'd be the perfect engine for it.

You're 100% correct. It's the perfect engine for the Gladiator.

 

[Stan H]

Why did they take the ecodiesel from the gladiator? Like that seems like it'd be the perfect engine for it.

EPA stuff screwing it up

 

[GeekJT]

EPA stuff screwing it up

Good grief can't we just defund the epa already. Didn't Trump neuter them already?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

EPA stuff screwing it up

And the fact ev sales are STILL growing, not slowing...........

 

[JonMN]

If I was still working and commuting, the idea of an EV would be kind of appealing. Retired and driving around the US, not so much. But hey, the Recon could tow a decent size generator along . . .

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