Jeep is having a miserable time of it recently in the UK. Sales are down a massive 69% in the first nine months of the year to just 2036 cars, according to figures from car lobby group the SMMT, as buyers are seemingly falling out of love with the Renegade and Compass, the SUV brand’s core models.
“Jeep sales in the UK are deeply disappointing,” an executive within the Stellantis-owned company admitted on condition of anonymity.
In fact, nowhere in Europe is the iconic American brand doing really well apart from Italy, which hosts the production of both the Renegade and the Compass and accounts for half of all Jeep’s sales in the region. Sales are down across Europe by 25% to the end of August, figures from automotive lobby organisation ACEA, more than the average industry amid the chip shortage.
“We had a lot of issues with powertrains not being adapted to the market, we had a lot of tax disadvantages and we ended up not getting the momentum we deserve,” Jeep CEO Christian Meunier told journalists at an event held in Poland on Thursday.
In the UK, Compass sales were hampered by the initial decision to build our right-hand-drive models in India, which saddled it with lower levels of tech than the market had come to expect, Meunier said. That has been rectified with the decision to move the facelifted version, which started filtering into the market earlier this year, to the Renegade factory in Italy.
Meanwhile, the high emissions of both the Renegade and Compass has partially rectified by the launch of plug-in hybrid '4xe' versions of both cars, with the effect that PHEVs accounted for 35% of all UK Jeep sales to the end of September. It wasn’t enough to halt the slide, however.
Executives are convinced the Jeep brand, defined by the heritage-freighted Wrangler off-roader, is sound. The ‘access premium’ or ‘premium to mainstream’ middle ground it occupies gives it appeal and pricing power, or so the theory goes. The fact sales numbers are slumping is down to product, Jeep contends.
And that's going to change from spring next year, they hope, when the first models of the new Avenger small electric SUV arrive.
Add your comment