Jeep ending right-hand drive Cherokee manufacturing, Australian inventory virtually gone

Jeep is placing the right-hand drive model of its ageing Cherokee out to pasture, thereby exiting the mid-sized SUV phase in Australia.

“Manufacturing of the Jeep Cherokee for foremost markets exterior of North America, together with proper hand drive fashions, is ending in a drive to focus advertising and marketing and gross sales assets into key quantity fashions,” mentioned a spokesperson for Jeep Australia.

“The Jeep Cherokee continues to be manufactured for Canada, the US and South Korea – the place a model with the same specification to North America is offered.”

Fewer than 40 examples are left in Australia.

Jeep had already pared down the native Cherokee vary, dropping the bottom four-cylinder Sport for 2022 and extra just lately axing the Restricted and Trailhawk fashions.

The defunct Sport’s Tigershark 2.4-litre engine was discontinued globally, leaving solely a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder not offered right here plus the naturally aspirated 3.2-litre V6.

With no electrified powertrains to supply, Jeep just lately discontinued the Cherokee in Europe, leaving us as one of many few export markets for the mid-sizer and one of many final remaining right-hand drive markets.

In one other discount to the Cherokee’s world footprint, Jeep can also be closing its GAC Jeep joint-venture in China, which produced the mid-sizer amongst different automobiles for the Chinese language market.

The axing of the Cherokee in Australia will go away Jeep with no mid-sized SUV, regardless of this being the second largest phase by quantity in Australia final yr – and the highest-volume SUV phase general.

The Jeep Compass occupies the identical value level as many mid-sized SUVs from rival manufacturers, however it’s a smaller car nearer in dimension to the likes of the Kia Seltos.

Jeep has a barely bigger Compass-based mannequin known as the Commander or Meridian, which it sells in markets like Brazil, India and Japan, however it isn’t provided right here.

The demise of the Cherokee additionally sees the tip of the final V6-powered mid-sized SUV in Australia from a mainstream model.

A alternative for the Cherokee is predicted to debut earlier than 2025 and supply an electrical powertrain. Whereas it hasn’t been formally confirmed for Australia, the model’s world CEO Christian Meunier mentioned the vast majority of future Jeeps might be engineered for right-hand drive.

Jeep has confirmed it should launch two electrical mid-sized SUVs in Australia: the rugged Recon and the extra luxurious Wagoneer S.

The corporate had acknowledged the present KL Cherokee, which first entered manufacturing in 2013 and which was final up to date in 2018, was in want of alternative.

“That retains me up at evening and that product clearly is… getting smaller and smaller in quantity, and we are saying that the present product is getting much less and fewer aggressive within the very aggressive phase,” Jeep CEO Christian Meunier advised CarExpert in September, noting the mid-sized SUV phase is the biggest on this planet.

Final yr, Jeep offered simply 382 Cherokees in Australia. The one mid-sized SUVs it outsold have been the Citroen C5 Aircross (58 gross sales), Peugeot 5008 (189) and SsangYong Korando (353).

That’s a far cry from the figures it posted earlier in its lifecycle.

In 2015, Jeep offered 6156 Cherokees, outselling the likes of the Ford Kuga, Holden Captiva 5 and Suzuki Grand Vitara, if not fairly posing a risk to stalwarts just like the Toyota RAV4.

Quantity then fell massively to 2079 gross sales in 2016, with gross sales sliding step by step thereafter.

Even in its house market of the US, Cherokee gross sales have been sliding. Per Carsalesbase, the present era reached a peak of 239,437 gross sales in 2018 however has step by step declined since then, reaching a low of 89,126 gross sales in 2021.

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