This week had both good and bad news for Mopar followers.
Jeep, with the USO, prepared nearly 10,000 care packages to troops for the holidays, in a volunteer event which has become a feel-good tradition. Unfortunately, the company also announced that a vendor had
allowed customer contacts to leak out; no financials are in the lost data, but customer names and addresses are.
The bad news came with the (expected)
loss of the forthcoming Gladiator 4xe, according to Automotive News, and
bad sales figures from Europe. Stellantis has continued to lose sales there, and the main problem was probably not Chinese EVs, which seem to have mostly eaten share from Tesla. Volkswagen gained share as Stellantis lost it, but Stellantis can remain secure in its #2 position for some time. Electric cars swelled to an 18% market share (EU+EFTA+UK), and hybrids displaced gasoline-only as the continent’s favorite power system.
Stellantis did claim an EV breakthrough, as an experimental Peugeot e-3008 was built with a battery that integrates the charger and inverter. They claim this brought more space and 10% greater power efficiency, but adapting it to factory cars may take a while.
The company had
two North American recalls, one for trim pieces coming off the exterior part of the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer doors; these can fly off and hit other vehicles. The recall covers nearly 164,000 Wagoneers sold in the United States (all but the 2026 models nobody has yet), as well as Wagoneers sold anywhere else. Coincidentally, Ford is recalling its 2016-19 Taurus for the same problem, which is not normally common.
A
small number of Ram 1500, 2500, and 3500 pickups’ side curtain airbag inflators may rupture, due to a supplier flaw. Only May 21-June 26 built 2018 Rams are affected.
Finally, Dodge had
some decent drag racing news, the
Wrangler and Gladiator will be painted in (purple) Reign for 2026, and Patrick Rall reported from
his test of the Chrysler Pacifica Pinnacle AWD (pictured above).
