Jeep prepares to clean house on its assortment of trim levels as the brand prepares to jump start its plans for electrification.
Jeep is finally admitting that it has a problem with trim level complexity for some of its most popular models.
Jeep is preparing to enter the EV wars as a force to be reckoned with thanks to its upcoming arsenal of trail-ready EVs as well as the 4xe lineup of plug-in hybrid offerings. So far, things are going to plan with Jeep recently unveiling the all-electric Wagoneer S SUV.
But before the brand can focus on the long-term rewards, it has to contend with a number of immediate problems. The brand’s sales have been sliding the past few years and Jeep has now admitted that its vast assortment of trim levels is becoming too much for it to handle and that it will need to do a crash diet to help streamline its operations according to a new report.
Too much choice can be a bad thing
The Jeep Wrangler 4xe is now the best-selling PHEV in the U.S. but it has seven trim levels
Jeep’s admission on this issue came in the form of an interview that Jeep’s Senior VP Bill Peffer did with The Drive. “We are a mass-market brand. We do sell things in volume — much broader than, say, Maserati. Complexity reduction is something that happens constantly, and we probably could stand to do a little bit more of it.”
To get a broader perspective of how much of a problem complexity is at Jeep, one only has to go to the consumer page and fire up the configurator for the Jeep Wrangler. While the rugged SUV only has two models available, the iconic Jeep’s trim ladder is a vast jungle of choices with the base Wrangler offering eight different trim levels to choose from while the 4xe variant has six different trims at its disposal. When you also include body styles and other items, you end up with 19 different core configurations of Wrangler. The Grand Cherokee is no better, with the non-hybrid version offering nine trim levels with the choices ballooning if you add the 4xe’s seven trim levels.
This strong amount of choice may seem good at first glance, and some dealerships might even be pleased with this state of affairs. But look past the shiny wrapper and you’ll see that it also creates a mountain of confusion for customers with the brand increasing the risk for internal sales cannibalization if one of the trim levels is too similar to another one that’s already available. In addition to befuddling customers, the large pool of trim levels also raises production costs which eats into broader profits for a company as a whole.
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Jeep is already taking action
The all-electric Jeep Recon is expected to go into production around mid-year.
Jeep is already taking some baby steps to try and address this moving forward. The Wagoneer S will initially be available as a Launch Edition only with other trim levels gradually being rolled out as the Wagoneer S becomes entrenched in the mind of consumers. The ICE-powered version of the Wagoneer is also benefitting from these changes with Jeep confirming that it will no longer be a sub-brand but instead, it will be treated as a traditional nameplate and be marketed as a Jeep. That move ends a brief experiment that saw Jeep attempting to replicate rivals like Land Rover by offering Wagoneer buyers a bespoke buying experience and separation from mainstream Jeep models before ditching it due to lukewarm feedback from consumers and costs.
Slicing the trim ladder will also help the Jeep Recon when it makes its eventual debut. While it’s unknown how many trim levels the Recon will offer, the SUV will be Jeep’s first mainstream EV and Jeep needs to make sure that the Recon will have a trim ladder that not only gives customers a sensible amount of choice but does so in a way that’s not confusing or too complex.
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