Gladiator Rubicon 4xe Hybrid Teased!

[jamief]

Back to the Gladiator...I haven't seen where exactly the battery is located. Does someone know? I also wonder if Chrysler is so far behind on battery tech that they have to just keep doing hybrids and pretend to be modern by calling them plug-ins?

wrangler is under the back seat. I'd expect the same in the gladiator.

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[Oilburner]

It's not like the government is saying "Oh, since we're getting $7,500 less in taxes, we must spend $7,500 less" X however many thousands of vehicles they are partially subsidizing.

 

[aldo98229]

I test drove a JL 4Xe yesterday: I was ready to be wowed; I wasn’t.

It felt heavy, stiff and unresponsive. Mating the 2.0T with the electric motor felt like a flat-footed couple trying to do the waltz.

I’ve been told since, that I should have test driven it in non-hybrid mode. Perhaps that’s true. But that would seem to defeat its purpose. In any event, there’s only so much one can try during a test drive.

The battery pack produces compromises inside. The rear seat is raised 2 inches, eating up rear headroom, and you end up with a theatre-like seating. There’s a huge 6-inch tall hump between the cargo floor and the folded seats, rendering sleeping inside impossible; and all storage space under the seat is gone. It will interesting to see how they pack that huge battery inside a Gladiator.

I really wanted to like it. 4Xe seems to be the only Wrangler that is relatively plentiful around here at the moment. And the $7,500 tax credit is a nice bonus.

If I hadn’t owned a Wrangler before I’d probably liked it.

Just saying it as I see it.

 

[ilmostro]

On a lighter note, what kind of oil will y'all be using in your JT 4XE?

 

[Sazabi19]

It still works well for me. I have free chargers to use here at work and it's only 15 miles here. I can take the highway or the roads to get here to use essentially no fuel. I'm really excited at the prospect

 

[SwampNut]

The back seat already sucked, so those compromises sound terrible. I really just keep feeling like this is a half-assed, "we got nothing else" attempt to go after some of the electric market.

On a lighter note, what kind of oil will y'all be using in your JT 4XE?

Crisco. If you use the butter-flavored version, the exhaust smells like popcorn and everyone on the trail behind you will have the munchies when you arrive at the destination. Particularly the people with the red eyes, if you know what I mean.

 

[aldo98229]

The back seat already sucked, so those compromises sound terrible. I really just keep feeling like this is a half-assed, "we got nothing else" attempt to go after some of the electric market.

Yes, that was the impression I got, too.

When you open the hood, there’s an orange loom routing the electrical wires from the plug-in receptacle, under the cowl, to somewhere under the engine bay.

It literally looks like someone went to Home Depot, bought a bunch of supplies, cut a hole on the side of the Jeep, and installed a battery charger.

Found this photo of it online —disregard the red circle

 

[jamief]

Orange wire/loom to indicate high voltage is common on EV's. Not sure if it's an official standard though.

 

[j.o.y.ride]

Imagine how strong a winch could be if you put a 400V motor into it.

 

[DAVECS1]

The battery tech is actually pretty advanced. I think it is a really decent design, if your integrating it into an existing package were styling, and performace is a brand Hallmark. I suppose performance is subjective, but the acceleration I feel is better than most of all non-modern V8 variants I have ridden in. I felt the extra weight settled down the chassis on the highway but that also could be the tunning of the HA model as I have never used one of those before. The electric compressor, and stop start/generator module, I think are novel deaigns and the system does a good job with cooling and self care.

 

[Matt84]

It's not like the government is saying "Oh, since we're getting $7,500 less in taxes, we must spend $7,500 less" X however many thousands of vehicles they are partially subsidizing.

That argument may be valid if the government spent less than they took in anyway, they don’t. They run a deficit every year. The country is $26 Trillion in debt. Them not stealing that $7500 from electric vehicle buyers isn’t going to make a bit of difference. If I paid $20k throughout the year, and buy a 4xe, they have still stolen $12,500 from me. Them budgeting money they don’t have doesn’t mean they are giving me money. That’s not a subsidy, the money they give to farmers, banks, tech companies, “clean” energy companies, those are subsidies. Maybe instead of y’all getting mad at people for getting a break on how much they are being robbed, start looking at all that. And that’s not even getting into how much the government gives to foreign nations.

 

[SwampNut]

Imagine how strong a winch could be if you put a 400V motor into it.

Huh, that would be interesting. I wonder how winches for EV trucks will be different?

Our Tesla has RIDICULOUSLY fast air conditioning cool-down. I figure it's because it's all running high voltage and it's designed to work without forced airflow from moving. If I remote start the Jeep and the Tesla at the same time, the Tesla will have gone from 150 inside to under 90 in six minutes, the Jeep is still hot as the AZ pavement.

EV changes so much, if you build around it.

 

[jamief]

I'm wondering how long a fridge will last before it draws down the main battery enough to be a concern.

 

[SwampNut]

I'm wondering how long a fridge will last before it draws down the main battery enough to be a concern.

That's just math mostly, but I can tell you from having had several cabin boats and RVs with battery-operated refrigerators, that a HUGE amount depends on the efficiency. I've replace a cheap fridge with another one of the same size but 1/4 of the power usage. An average one would use around less than half a kW per day in summer, in Arizona full sun. The Jeep battery is 17kW, so that's a lot. Our Tesla is 75kW. The Cyber Truck is expected to be double that.

Most small cabin boats have around 1.2-2kW of usable battery, to give you a comparison. (Meaning 24-32 feet in length, like an RV).

 

[jamief]

Oh I'm thinking something like a dometic which uses about 9 amps at 12V. Really rough that suggests 17KW would last about 6.5 days assuming it was running 100% of the time which it certainly won't. Realistically you'll never need a dual battery setup as it's already built in if they have some sort of DC/DC converter between the big pack and the standard 12V. Hmm now I'm wondering if the 4xe even uses a 12V or if it's just a converter

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