The Jeep Avenger 4x4 concept is a pint-sized EV off-roader

If you’ve not seen it before, this is a Jeep Avenger, a brand-new and rather teensy little SUV that’s coming to European shores (and, most likely, plains, highlands, mountain regions and so on) somewhere around the start of 2023. 

And yes, Jeep is calling it the Avenger, a suitably overwrought name for what’s essentially an Americanised version of the Vauxhall Mokka and Peugeot 2008. But perhaps a fitting one: it’s the first Jeep we’ve seen that’s a true product of the combined might of the Stellantis hydra. This means the Avenger, like the Mokka and 2008, can run on electricity instead of earth-ruining liquids. Cue the avalanche of whataboutisms in the comments. 

The practical upshot, from a driving perspective, is a small EV SUV with 150bhp and front-wheel drive. Fine for something like a Mokka, but not exactly what Jeeping means to us, or indeed to faithful Jeepers. 

Which feels like as good a time as any to introduce the Avenger 4x4 concept, which appears to add Jeepishness (yep, that’s the word) to the Die Hard With a Vengeance until it earns its badge and grille. Which it probably won’t need. Because it’s electric. 

Anywho, after the obvious off-road bedrock of four driven wheels, the Avenged Sevenfold sticks to the Jeeping playbook: bigger, chunkier tyres, which also brings the ground clearance up above eight inches and improves the approach, breakover and departure angles – 21, 20 and 34 degrees respectively. There’s also ‘thicker cladding’ and ‘anti-scratch grille treatment’ to ensure that sticks and stones don’t break your lease agreement contract, as well as a ‘lightweight roof cargo system’ that looks an awful lot like four tie-down points and some ratchet straps, but we’ve been wrong about things before. 

Rounding out the treatment is a set of ‘built-in flood lights to improve visibility when driving at night’, which is some excellent use of the Feature-Advantage-Benefit framework. And, sure as night follows day, there’s an anti-reflective black bonnet sticker, a feature with advantages and benefits that Jeep leaves to us to figure out. How will we ever crack that code?

But as much as we can deride just the teensiest bit of mansplaining in Jeep’s official guff, we’re finding it extraordinarily hard to deride Jeep’s teensiest off-roader. Even if it is just a concept, it really does feel like the kind of EV you’d willingly take into the wilderness – y’know, somewhere you’ve never seen before.