- Jeep confirmed to media that the Cherokee has been discontinued
- Stellantis says the brand will not leave the midsize SUV segment
- Jeep says all vehicles will be available in an electrified variant by 2025, suggesting Cherokee could return as EV or hybrid
You might’ve seen it coming. Jeep cut its V6 Cherokee model along with multiple other trims of the midsize SUV earlier this year, a pretty clear sign of major change.
Sure enough, just months later Stellantis confirmed to The Drive (and others) that the Belvidere, Illinois plant where the Cherokee is made is currently idling and will eventually be shuttered completely. After nearly 50 years on the market, the Jeep Cherokee is no more.
The first Jeep Cherokees were produced in 1974, riding on a Wrangler chassis and bearing two doors. It would evolve over the years, eventually moving to a unibody, an SUV format that would prove revolutionary within the industry.
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2023 Jeep Cherokee
MSRP $46,995 to $51,495
However, there’s an approximately zero-per-cent chance that Jeep will leave the midsize SUV segment for good. It’s just a question of how and when they’ll fill it.
“We will make an announcement regarding the next generation Jeep Cherokee in due course,” the brand wrote in a statement to Motortrend. “All [existing] Jeep brand vehicles will offer an electrified variant by 2025, including four zero-emission vehicles in North America and in Europe.”
The statement doesn’t say definitively whether there will be some form of electrified Cherokee or not, but it certainly leaves the door open for the option.
The Cherokee name lives on temporarily and in part, at least, with the still-alive Grand Cherokee. The actual Cherokee Nation in the U.S., meanwhile, asked Jeep to stop using the name in 2021.
Keyword: Jeep Cherokee discontinued, Grand Cherokee remains in production