Jeep Avenger Electric Review 2024

If you’re considering a small SUV, it’s likely that you’re wanting to combine eye-catching style with a little bit of everyday practicality. If the former is the more important factor for you, then the Avenger will probably be right up your street. If it’s the latter that takes preference, however, it probably won’t. Moreover, if you’re considering such a car with an all-electric drivetrain, you’re probably after affordable costs and a decent range, and on both those scores, you could do a lot worse than the Avenger.

There’s only one electric powertrain option for the Jeep Avenger. All versions get a 156PS electric motor and a 54kWh battery pack giving an official range of 244 miles, so there’s not much of a choice to be made there.

In terms of trim, there are three to choose from with the Jeep Avenger: Longitude, Altitude and Summit. The entry-level car is reasonably well-equipped as standard, but it does miss out on adaptive cruise control, a powered hands-free tailgate, a leather-effect steering wheel and a bigger driver display. These are all boxes checked by the mid-range Altitude car, so that’s probably the one you’ll want to go for. The range-topping Summit adds more goodies such as heated front seats and some extra safety kit, but it’s a good chunk more expensive.

Not many, really. Sure, there are plenty of other small SUVs and crossovers that happen to be electric, and most of them come from other Stellantis brands (the company that owns Jeep) These include the Peugeot e-2008, the Vauxhall Mokka Electric, the Fiat 600e and the DS-3 E-Tense. Other rivals include the Hyundai Kona Electric. However, none of these rivals have the same bluff, in-your-face style or rugged attitude of the Avenger, and while you probably wouldn’t want to go too far off-road in the Jeep, you won’t even want to try in any of the others.

The Jeep Avenger’s cabin is dominated by hard, scratchy, cheap-feeling plastics. Indeed, search around the cabin with prying fingertips and you’ll do well to find a single surface that’s in any way cushioned or tactile. However, while in many cars that leads to a dour and drab feel, nothing could be further from the truth in the Avenger, because things still manage to feel disproportionately cheery inside the car. That’s probably due to the combination of the large, tall windows letting plenty of light in, and the colourful piece of (usually body-coloured) trim running horizontally along the width of the dashboard, injecting a splash of much-needed colour. It can’t match the poshest-feeling small SUVs for quality, but it’s an entirely inoffensive place to sit.

All three trim levels come with the same 10.25-inch Uconnect central infotainment touchscreen. While infotainment has traditionally been an area of weakness for Jeep, this latest system is much easier to use than those that went before, with logical menus, sharp graphics and fast responses to your various prods and presses. The screen is also well positioned high up on the dashboard, so it’s easy to see and reach.

The system supports most of the functionality you'd expect, but it’s perhaps a little surprising that you have to pay extra for sat-nav on every model, and it comes as part of a relatively expensive option pack. We wouldn’t bother, because the system includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard, so you might as well just hook up your phone and let that take care of navigation duties. 

The entry-level Longitude version gets a 7.0-inch digital drivers display, but in Altitude trim and upwards, this is upgraded to a 10.25-inch display, which also offers a good level of configurability. You also get a USB-C port for the second row, while the Summit adds wireless phone charging.

The Jeep Avenger is not the SUV you buy if you're looking for ultimate practicality, because it’s extremely small, and although it’s reasonably well packaged, there’s only so much that can be done with such a small footprint. The front seats are fine, with enough space for tall adults, but in the back things feel a lot tighter. The limited legroom means that anyone approaching six feet in height will have their knees wedged against the seat in front, although the high roof means they’ll be fine for headroom. The narrow cabin also means that the three-seat rear bench is actually best for two people – if you try and squeeze a third in, then nobody will be particularly comfortable.

The 355-litre boot isn’t huge, either, although it does impress in other ways. The tall, wide opening means access is good, and with the moveable boot floor in its higher setting, there’s also barely any load lip. This also gives you enough underfloor storage for your charging cables  – handy when there’s no additional storage under the bonnet – and levels off the step in the load area when you fold the 60/40 split rear seats.

All versions of the Jeep Avenger get the latest version of the Stellantis group’s electric powertrain and this pairs a 54kWh battery pack (51kWh of which is useable capacity) with an electric motor developing a maximum 156PS and 260Nm of torque. We say ‘a maximum’, because the power level you actually get depends on which of the three main driving modes you select. Sport mode gives you the lot, allowing a 0-62mph sprint time of 9.6 seconds. However, stick with the car’s default Normal mode, and you only get served up 110PS, while selecting Eco mode limits the output to just 82PS to preserve charge and maximise range.

Things can feel a little pedestrian in Eco mode, but it’s fine for pottering gently around town, although you might want to switch modes when trying to nip into small gaps in city traffic. Normal mode feels fine for most sorts of driving, and you’ll easily keep pace with the ebb and flow of traffic, even on the motorway. Sport mode, meanwhile, doesn’t exactly turn the Avenger into some sort of rocketship, but it is nice to have the option of that little bit of extra punch when you need it. Once the initial extra hit of acceleration when you first put your foot down is done and dusted, however, acceleration feels much the same as in Normal mode.

Official figures put the Avenger’s maximum average battery range at 244 miles on a full charge, while Jeep claims the car will do more like 340 miles if confined to city use.

As always, these figures shouldn’t be taken as gospel, because they are arrived at by laboratory tests, and in the real world, the range you get will be affected by a variety of different variables. Drive your car at constant high speeds in cold temperatures, for example, and you’ll get far less range than you would pootling around city streets at the height of summer. Even in a best-case weather scenario, we reckon you’d do well to crack 200 miles in mixed driving conditions, and in the cold, we wouldn’t bank on much more than 150 miles.

You can reduce your car’s power usage by driving around in Eco mode as much as you can, and putting the transmission into B mode dials up the level of regenerative braking, harvesting kinetic energy during deceleration and feeding it back into the battery. Even when dialled up to the max, though, the level of regen is pretty light compared with electric cars that provide a more severe ‘one-pedal’ effect, so you’ll often still have to use the traditional friction brakes to slow down enough.

At low urban speeds, the Avenger is extremely quiet, pootling along with barely a whisper from any source. Things stay quiet up to and including middling speeds, but go a bit faster on A-roads and motorways and you’ll start to hear some rumble from the tyres. The upright shape of the car’s front end also results in some wind noise, especially around the windscreen. Even in those circumstances, though, you’ll barely hear a peep out of the electric motor.

The Jeep Avenger hasn’t yet been tested by the safety experts at Euro NCAP, so it’s unclear how well it’ll fare in an accident, but it is good news that the level of standard safety kit you get on the Avenger is mostly the same regardless of which of the three trim levels you choose. The standard roster includes six airbags, three sets of Isofix child seat mounting points (front passenger seat and outer rear seats), automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, intelligent speed assist and E-Call automatic emergency response.

The exception to that rule regards cruise control. The Longitude version gets a regular manual system, while Altitude gets an adaptive system, and Summit gets an upgraded system that also includes lane centring and traffic jam assist.

Neither Jeep, nor the Avenger, featured in the latest HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, so the reliability of the brand’s products is a little difficult to gauge at this stage. 

The Jeep Avenger’s status as an all-electric car should be a positive for reliability in theory, because EVs have far fewer moving parts than combustion-engined cars, so there’s less potential for something to go wrong. That’s also the reason why the Avenger only needs routine maintenance work every two years or 16,000 miles, which is a long time between services. Jeep’s three-year, 60,000-mile warranty is nothing special, but the electric drivetrain has more comprehensive cover of eight years or 100,000 miles.

All versions of the Jeep Avenger get exactly the same powertrain, so it’s no surprise that there’s not much variation in insurance groupings. The lower-spec models sit in group 24, while the top-of-the-range Summit version sits in group 25. Since the cheapest grouping is group 1 and group 50 is the most expensive, you don’t get much more middle-of-the-road than that when it comes to insurance.

One of the many benefits of the Avenger’s all-electric powertrain is that you don’t pay any Vehicle Excise Duty on it whatsoever (at least until the rules change in 2025). That means no big lump sum when you buy (although this is wrapped up in your car’s on-the-road price, so you usually don’t notice it), and no annual fee to tax your car. That saves you £180 per year compared with a conventional petrol or diesel car.

The biggest tax-savers will be company car drivers. Fleet drivers currently pay Benefit-In-Kind company car tax on just 2% of the value of an electric car, meaning truly enormous savings compared to running a conventional petrol or diesel car.

The Jeep Avenger is offered in three different trim levels. The first of them is Longitude, and this version comes with a decent amount of standard equipment including 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, heated and powered door mirrors, all-round electric windows, air-conditioning, automatic lights and wipers, keyless entry and start, rear parking sensors, cruise control and cloth seats.

Next up on the trim structure is Altitude trim, and this version gets a synthetic leather steering wheel,17-inch alloys, cloth and vinyl seats, a hands-free powered tailgate, adaptive cruise control and a reversing camera

Summit cars sit at the top of the range, and these have 18-inch alloys, heated front seats, front and side parking sensors, power folding door mirrors and automatic high beam headlights, along with an upgraded adaptive cruise control system that also supports lane centring and traffic jam assist.

The options list is short, but does include leather upholstery and a panoramic sunroof, both of which can be added to Altitude and Summit cars. A range of option packs are also available that bundle several features together.