Adventures in Plug-In Hybriding

So this happened yesterday - picked up my wife's new vehicle.

2023 Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited 4xe.  Custom ordered for us - first time ordering a car.  Super fun process, took about 8 weeks from deposit to delivery.

Leather, cold weather package, safety and advanced safety, towing package.

Firecracker red, black interior, black roof, red fenders, and BFGs laces out as God intended.

Drove it to brunch and then home, exhausting about all of the 20 mile range on battery

Spent the rest of the day running a 40 amp outlet to the garage to charge it faster.  Charges in 2 hours vs 12.

Interested to hear your thoughts on it after you have a bit more drive time under your belt.  They seem like a good commuter fun solution.

What led you to the Rubicon over other models?

The 4xe is pretty interesting.  I'm down for hearing more!  

This is intended to be my wife's commuting vehicle and our fun vehicle.  Her commute is 8 miles each way, all city, so this should typically do the whole commute on battery.  

The reason for a Rubicon vs the Sahara or High Altitude model was twofold.  Firstly, the wife wanted the big wheels and tires.  Well sure you can put that on a regular Jeep, but they don't look as good.  Second, this will be a pavement princess, driven by a tiny woman, no smoking, no kids, no pets, super low miles - she did 50k in 6 years with her last car.  Gotta figure a top shelf Jeep kept in top shelf condition will bring a premium at trade-in time.  My buddy who we got this from said that based on current and historical market conditions, Rubicons maintain their price delta over lesser models throughout the years of ownership.  Will that be the case?  Who knows.  

Drove to Ikea, charged up for a buck (43 minutes), drove to Aldi, and back home.   Didn't use the gas engine at all.  

All on battery, cost me $1.00 plus the half-charge I need to put back in the batteries since I came home with half a charge.  15 miles give or take including some freeway.  Ran both heated seats, heated steering wheel, and regular heat (all resistance heating) which I am sure does not do great for the battery life. If a guy figures gas at $4 a gallon, I am about 1:3 the cost of operation of a gas engine.  

How is it on power? Push you back in the seat?

I’m curious. 

Neat. For those not familiar, what's the deal? How much power on electric, does the electric motor still drive both axles?

For those wondering about the powertrain layout, the blue stuff is PHEV specific:

There's some 'mild' hybrid accessory stuff on the engine, the transmission is a torque converter auto with an electric motor where a flex plate would be. So the electric power gets routed through the transmission, transfer case, etc

As someone considering a plug-in for the family hauler, I'll keep an eye on this thread.

Thanks for the inquiries.  Got questioned a bit at Ikea yesterday "I didnt even know Jeep made a hybrid".  They definitely fly under the radar.

To answer a few questions and provide a few more comments:

• With the hybrid powertrain and the 2.0 turbo both kicking, it has almost as much power as the Wrangler 392 - 100 less horsepower but same torque, and its that sweet sweet electric torque.  Its enough to move this little brick to 14.5 in the quarter on 33" all terrain tires, so not terrible. 
• It will do ~15-25 miles on just battery, of course depending on temperature, drive conditions, etc.  It has 3 modes.  EV, Hybrid, and E-Save.  EV and hybrid basically just move the switchover point where it kicks in the gas engine.  E-Save runs the gas engine all the time and will slowly recharge the internal battery.  
  • Even in "Hybrid" mode, we never got into gas engine territory on our drive from Ikea back to Aldi since it was all on surface streets
• All things that make it a Jeep work in all modes.  The electric motor is before the transmission and transfer case, so 4Hi and 4Low works as expected, it still has a proper "neutral" etc. 
• That big blue brick where the rear seats are is the battery.  Thats the pisser.  These things dont have great rear seat room to begin with, and the EV battery puts the rear seats up about another inch and eliminates the flat floor with the rear seats folded.  The rear seats still fold but there is a step where the rear seatbacks are because there is a battery where the backs would normally go.  Thats the only intrusion into the interior that a standard jeep doesn't have.  May be a concern if you have big kids or kids in car seats to haul every day.
• It rides awesome.  Between the Rubicon suspension and the big tires and the extra battery weight, its a smooth ride in crappy Milwaukee.
• The heated seats will cook you right out.  Not sure if thats a Jeep thing or a 4xe thing but even on Low they are very warm.  
• Insurance through Progressive with a $0 glass breakage deductible is $2/month more than my wife's 2016 Kia Optima.  Somewhat amazing considering this thing costs almost 3x what her Optima did.  

Big boy charger installed last night.  Now we can charge in 2 hours vs 12.  

Can not speak highly enough of this unit so far.  Selectable charge amperage (which means you dont need overkill wiring for vehicles that dont charge at 40A - Wrangler charges at 32A, needs a 40A outlet) aluminum case, aluminum mounts, real heavy plug with molded in reliefs.)  Super simple "dumb" charger with no app.  Didn't want an app.  Just want to plug in and go.  Made in Canada eh so thats a plus!

Also praise be to running wiring in conduit.  Good job, past me!

So, from the 32 amp figure you gave, it charge at ~7kW?

That's nice relative to my X5 PHEV, which has a big enough battery for a nominal 50 electric miles, but doesn't charge at more than 3.5 kw. As a result, it takes the better part of 6 hours to charge from depleted. 

The 4xe Wrangler charges at 7.7kw and will go from dead flat to full in 2 hours 15 minutes.  The high amp charging is one if the nicities.  If this rig had a 40 mile range it would be a total package.