Jeep eyes U.S. comeback following yearslong sales troubles

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Jeep is betting Americans still love a good comeback story.

It’s a mantra that’s reverberating through the quintessential SUV brand — from its CEO to a marketing campaign with LL Cool J — following yearslong sales and market share declines that have taken a toll on Jeep and its parent company, Stellantis.

“This isn’t just a comeback. This is the Jeep brand reclaiming a segment we invented and defined,” Jeep CEO Bob Broderdorf said during a recent media event.

Jeep has been in a rut this decade, despite the brand’s well-known off-road capabilities that have carried it for most of the past century. It has experienced six consecutive years of U.S. sales declines amid a leadership carousel, dearth of new products and a failed premium pricing strategy to boost profits.

But now, the coveted SUV brand has realigned pricing across its lineup, scored its best quarterly sales gain in more than two years and is in the midst of its largest mainstream product blitz this decade.

“We’re going to grow, grow and grow,” Broderdorf told CNBC sitting in a redesigned 2026 Jeep Grand Wagoneer at the company’s design dome in suburban Detroit. “That’s the mission. And do it in a healthy way.”

The redesigned Grand Wagoneer is symbolic of the brand’s troubles and comeback attempt. It was Jeep’s foray into luxury — topping $111,000 fully loaded in 2021 — that was relatively overpriced and overcomplicated compared with its peers and experienced several production and quality issues.

The redesigned model lineup is less expensive, simpler and better positioned against other large American SUVs rather than foreign competitors such as Land Rover. Its production issues also have eased.

“We confused our buyers. We confused our dealers,” Broderdorf said at the media event. “I’m here to tell you we got the message. We’re fixing it.”

But some things take longer than others to fix in the automotive world. The brand’s sales remain significantly lower than expectations, and Jeep’s overall quality problems remain a work in progress after the realignment of its vehicles and pricing strategy.

“This is one of the areas that needs to improve. We have been improving, but proof is in the pudding,” Broderdorf told CNBC.

Among 32 major automotive brands, Jeep ranked last in Consumer Reports’ annual grading last year that includes a combination of road-test scores, safety ratings and predicted reliability and owner satisfaction data.

Most recently, the brand announced a recall of more than 320,000 plug-in hybrid Wrangler and Jeep Grand Cherokee models due to a risk of fire. The company filed a recall late last month with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but no remedy has been released.

The company said a solution involving a software update to the high-voltage battery pack control module of the vehicles to improve diagnostic capability for early detection of internal battery damage is expected in December.

The recall comes at an inopportune time, as Jeep launches a Wrangler-inspired, all-electric SUV called the Recon. The vehicle will be revealed this week ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show after first debuting as a concept vehicle in 2021.

The Recon was initially hailed as key to the Jeep brand’s future, with executives saying it would help the company become a leader in all-electric vehicle sales, including a prior plan for the brand to achieve 50% EV sales in the U.S. by 2030.

But expectations have diminished as Stellantis appointed a new CEO and demand for EVs slowed amid regulatory changes, including the end of up to $7,500 in federal incentives in September to purchase a plug-in electric vehicle.

Broderdorf said the end of federal incentives are expected to impact sales across the industry, including with the Recon, but the new SUV functions as an EV “bookend” alongside the sportier Wagoneer S for the Jeep brand’s electric portfolio.

“I’m not going to just chase volume just to chase volume,” he said during a recent media call. “I want to sell cars in the right way. Everybody who wants a [battery-electric vehicle], Recon, I want to make sure that we’re there for them. After that, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

The Recon is being produced at Stellantis’ Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico alongside the Wagoneer S, Jeep Compass and the new Jeep Cherokee, which is being offered exclusively as a hybrid vehicle.

Broderdorf, who started leading the brand in February, said the plant can easily adjust to produce the higher-volume Compass and…