Jeep told us late last year that we’d see its midsize Cherokee SUV again in 2025. Well, it appears that then-Jeep-boss and newly named Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa was right on the money. This is the 2026 Cherokee in the metal, and Jeep officially announced Thursday that it will enter production before the year’s end.
To back that, Jeep shared two images of its intended replacement, and they’ve left me cautiously optimistic about the crossover’s new design. Granted, I have limited viewing angles to work with here, but the boxy front end and the taper of the rear greenhouse give off “baby Grand Cherokee” vibes. I dig it.
The previous Cherokee’s rounded-off nose and squatter proportions may have deftly blended the aesthetics of the old Jeep Compass and the last-gen Grand Cherokee, but if you ask me, it never really looked like a Jeep. This, on the other hand…
“The all-new Jeep Cherokee headlines our efforts to deliver more product, innovation, choice, and standard content to customers than ever before,” said Jeep CEO Bob Broderdorf. “Jeep Cherokee will boast competitive pricing that strikes at the core of the largest vehicle segment and sits perfectly between Jeep Compass and Jeep Grand Cherokee to bolster our winning mainstream lineup.”
While “innovation” and “choice” may seem like nebulous hype, we know from Filosa’s previous tease that the Cherokee will experience yet another metamorphosis on its way back to showrooms this fall: it’s going to be offered with an electrified powertrain.
The Cherokee formula remained essentially unchanged for the better part of its nearly 50-year production run (including its brief stint under the Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro nameplates), but the outgoing model (2014-2023) abandoned the hybrid body-on-frame/unibody construction of previous Cherokees in favor of a conventional, front-wheel-based platform. Jeep has kept the Cherokee’s former assembly facility (Belvidere Assembly in Illinois) idle since discontinuing it in 2023; whether production will return to that site remains to be seen.