Jeep have been very active on the market lately, introducing a new Cherokee and then a new Renegade, much to the satisfaction of their old-school fans, and it now looks like the company is planning to expand even further, bringing more to the market in order to compete with Land Rover. More specifically, they want to take on the Range Rover, and they are planning to build a direct competitor to it.
This came in a statement by FCA’s CEO Sergio Marchionne, who stated that the company recognizes the competition in the Range Rover, and they’re going to build a model to compete with it directly. We don’t know what that vehicle could be as of yet – there are various possibilities, and fans have been very active in speculating about the possible future releases for the company.
It’s already been revealed that the Grand Wagoneer is coming back at some point before 2018, but that will likely not be the model in question – according to Marchionne, the company’s engineers and designers are building a new model that will be placed above the SUV in the market, and will be in a different segment.
Currently, the biggest Jeep available on the market is the Grand Cherokee that starts at $40,000, but Marchionne expressed confidence that a luxury grade SUV will be a very hot seller and will likely prove successful on the overseas market just as well. He seems quite confident in his current position, so the company has likely done a lot of market research before heading in this direction, plus they have likely been keeping an eye on online discussions, which have certainly been quite active in this area lately.
Various experts and members of the press have already been discussing the new announcement quite actively, and it’s clear that Jeep have generated a lot of interest with the claim that they’ll be taking on the Range Rover. Some seem skeptical about what could come out of all this, but for the most part there is a lot of curiosity over the situation, and many people want to see Jeep coming out with an interesting model.
In the end, that would benefit everyone – it could even benefit Land Rover if they get some serious competition from Jeep’s side, as they will be forced to reevaluate their model and improve it more for the next release. Whether they’ll be able to compete with what Jeep release is a different story, but both companies have enough experience on the market to come up with creative ideas.