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Can the math work out to justify a 4xe?

Rasselas

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I didn't consider getting a 4xe since most of my drives are far beyond its 30-mile range. For example, in a week I'll head off to Grand Canyon's North Rim, a roughly 1,800-mile round trip with virtually no place one could recharge a vehicle conveniently. Even "around town" most of my drives are far in excess of 30 miles.

So I'm wondering about the economics of having a 4xe. From what I read, the list price for the 4xe is about $14,000 higher than the list price for my JL. I live in San Diego, the home of stratospheric gas prices, so let's say a gallon will cost me $4.00. That means I can buy 3,500 gallons with the $14,000. I'm getting about 24 mpg, so those 3,500 gallons translate into 84,000 road miles.

There simply is no way I could rack up 84,000 miles in 30-mile electrified chunks around town. (That would be 2,800 short trips, such as commutes.) Even if I could reach that many local trips, most of my miles still would be long-distance miles powered by gas. I might have to drive the better part of a million miles to recapture the $14,000 via the battery, and that's not even worth imagining.

So, for me, the 4xe seems to make no sense, given the large price differential. Have you, as a driver of a 4xe, calculated that your style of driving will allow you to recapture the $14,000?
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CodyDog

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I didn't buy my 4XE based on economics as cited in your math and calculations. I'm not sure the majority of 4XE buyers make the purchase based on fuel cost justification. I just prefer the power and acceleration of the 4XE power plant over the V6.
 

Thill444

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Iā€™m not sure what your comparing but my somewhat loaded 4xe Rubicon (cold weather, safety group, proximity, premium top, and it comes with many other standard features over the regular Rubicon) works out to $43,600 after dealer discount and $8000 tax credit.

Thats cheaper than a similarly equipped ICE Rubicon after discounts.
 

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The prices I've seen using the spreadsheet, here, show that a similarly optioned JLUR 4xe is 3185 more than its 2.0L gas cousin. However, if you are fortunate enough to need to pay federal income tax, you can get a $7500 tax credit which means the 4xe is $4315 cheaper to purchase. There is no Sport 4xe, yet, to directly compare to your JL.

4xe operating costs will vary drastically on how often you charge up your batteries. If you drive 30miles/day, you can do about 20-25miles on electricity, then start burning dinosaurs. For most folks, the electricity for 20-25miles costs about $2 compared to your $4/gal gas. When you cannot charge, you will get reduced gas mileage due to the extra weight, but you also get the extra power of electric drive if/when you want it.
 

BillWorkbench

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I donā€™t know when math has ever worked out. it really come done to the monthly payment. If you can afford it and you want it get it.
 

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McQueen

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Your example assumes those 2800 short commutes are free. If you consider $0.27/kWh (estimated avg tier 1 price from SDG&E in 2020) and 2800 full recharges of the 17.3kWh capacity of the 4Xe. Youā€™re looking at a little over $13k in cost of electricity for those commutes.
I donā€™t think the 4Xe is very competitive in terms of cost of ownership. I think itā€™s more about the features and unique power plant for its class.

PS. I did a quick search on average electric prices in San Diego for 2020 and roughly $0.27/kWh is what I found from SDG&E.That was on the low end of the estimate. If Iā€™m way off, please correct me.
 

Bren

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I didn't consider getting a 4xe since most of my drives are far beyond its 30-mile range. For example, in a week I'll head off to Grand Canyon's North Rim, a roughly 1,800-mile round trip with virtually no place one could recharge a vehicle conveniently. Even "around town" most of my drives are far in excess of 30 miles.

So I'm wondering about the economics of having a 4xe. From what I read, the list price for the 4xe is about $14,000 higher than the list price for my JL. I live in San Diego, the home of stratospheric gas prices, so let's say a gallon will cost me $4.00. That means I can buy 3,500 gallons with the $14,000. I'm getting about 24 mpg, so those 3,500 gallons translate into 84,000 road miles.

There simply is no way I could rack up 84,000 miles in 30-mile electrified chunks around town. (That would be 2,800 short trips, such as commutes.) Even if I could reach that many local trips, most of my miles still would be long-distance miles powered by gas. I might have to drive the better part of a million miles to recapture the $14,000 via the battery, and that's not even worth imagining.

So, for me, the 4xe seems to make no sense, given the large price differential. Have you, as a driver of a 4xe, calculated that your style of driving will allow you to recapture the $14,000?
where are you getting $14,000? Are you comparing a sport to a Rubicon or Sahara? If so, itā€™s not the battery that costs $14,000 extra but all of the standard features that come with the higher model. After incentives, 4xe should come out around equivalent to the ICE version of the same model, and gas savings / additional state incentives (if applicable) are gravy from there.
 
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Rasselas

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Your example assumes those 2800 short commutes are free. If you consider $0.27/kWh (estimated avg tier 1 price from SDG&E in 2020) and 2800 full recharges of the 17.3kWh capacity of the 4Xe. Youā€™re looking at a little over $13k in cost of electricity for those commutes.
I donā€™t think the 4Xe is very competitive in terms of cost of ownership. I think itā€™s more about the features and unique power plant for its class.

PS. I did a quick search on average electric prices in San Diego for 2020 and roughly $0.27/kWh is what I found from SDG&E.That was on the low end of the estimate. If Iā€™m way off, please correct me.
I over-simplified, I suppose, not factoring in the price of electricity (another relatively expensive thing in California) or the tax credit. But the general principle holds, I think: the 4xe may make financial sense for someone making many short and few long drives but not for someone doing the reverse.
 
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Rasselas

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Iā€™m not sure what your comparing but my somewhat loaded 4xe Rubicon (cold weather, safety group, proximity, premium top, and it comes with many other standard features over the regular Rubicon) works out to $43,600 after dealer discount and $8000 tax credit.

Thats cheaper than a similarly equipped ICE Rubicon after discounts.

I hadn't taken into account the tax credit. Without it, your Rubicon would be about $14,000 more than my Sport S. On the other hand, I also didn't account for the cost of electricity, which, at some point, would match the tax credit, so I think my conclusion holds: the 4xe may make economic sense for those making, on average, short trips but not for those making long trips.

(Of course, this prescinds from other considerations, such as engine power, the pleasure of going "green" part of the time, and so on.)
 

Ratiogear

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4xe is definitely more for weekend warriors with short city/mostly city commutes. Can you plug in for cheaper than you can pay for gas? It really depends on that, and it also depends on factors you can't determine--the relative cost changes of your energy utility vs gas prices, if you want to do a pure cost savings analysis.

In all honesty though, the first thing you have to ask is if you care for what you are actually paying for in the 4xe. If you aren't comparing relatively similar options, I don't see why you'd try to justify the expense of the 4xe. If you are aiming to get a rubicon and want to have automatic drive, LED lights, premium audio, and the transfer case, the 4xe with tax credit will come far ahead and unless you are completely unable to charge it, come out very similar in terms of cost/mile in almost every situation besides long distance travel. I feel you are one of those situations, where you won't really get any mpg benefits compared to the weight. So do you want a unique and novel power plant?

Then you should consider the features. If you're happy with a v6 manual no feature sport? The 4xe will never get you the value back, unless you take advantage of the 36mo lease and get the 7500 in reduced capital costs up front and get a great value trading it in in 3 years.


If, however, you are looking at loading your rubicon or sahara edition JL, the 4xes make up their value from the tax credit in a lot of scenarios. As someone else has already pointed out (and I did as well in the price-increase thread), if you get the same options on your non-4xe that come standard on the 4xe, the price difference is around ~3k, which is more than made up for by the tax credit. And that 4k goes a long way to make up for the difference of the "unnecessary" options. You may not have normally bought the premium audio, but that's only a 1295$ option. You're still ahead by almost 3k. ETC.

Furthermore, states offer their own incentives. Sometimes it's a straight tax credit like TX (although funding for that is over unless something changes) or CA, sometimes it's additional rebates for installing your charger, sometimes it's special energy rates for charging your PHEV. You have to take that into account as well which makes it different by state.

If you're still on the fence at this point, this would be where you start the considerations about your kw/h cost vs gas cost, which again you can't really know the future of. Gas prices can double in a year. Energy prices can also fluctuate.

For me? I want the fancy audio and headlights, my daily commute is 30-40mi, I get free energy nights and weekends as part of my energy plan (have for 10 years and doubt I'll stop getting that), can charge at work for free, can make full use of the tax credit, and loved the drive feel of the 4xe. It's a great fit. I probably wouldn't have started trying to justify it if I was going to originally look at an unloaded 2door sport though.
 

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sentience

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Lower lifetime operational costs.

As part of my job, I manage GPS tracking on a fleet of vehicles. For newer vehicle purchases, we use Ford Ranger, Ford Escape, Subaru Crosstrek, Toyota RAV4, Toyota Prius, and Nissan Leaf. I frequently talk turkey with our fleet managers.

Over the course of five years, the vehicles we saw with the least maintenance and repairs were the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Toyota Prius and the Nissan Leaf. Specific to the hybrids - the electrical drive reduced wear and tear in the on board engine and transmission systems. the electrical drives have fewer parts, lower system complexity, and did not log any mechanical failures over that time period. All electrics were even better.

When I heard Jeep was coming out with a PHEV, I knew it was time to upgrade. I work from home, with a short five mile commute whenever needed to the office. Free EV charging at the office, multiple free public chargers in town. With the 7.5K tax credit and $800 instant tax rebate (MD)ā€¦ It was a no brainer.

Iā€™m currently averaging >90% driving in all electrical ā€œgo kartā€ mode. Expecting to change oil annually just to keep the warranty.
 

Ratiogear

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Lower lifetime operational costs.

As part of my job, I manage GPS tracking on a fleet of vehicles. For newer vehicle purchases, we use Ford Ranger, Ford Escape, Subaru Crosstrek, Toyota RAV4, Toyota Prius, and Nissan Leaf. I frequently talk turkey with our fleet managers.

Over the course of five years, the vehicles we saw with the least maintenance and repairs were the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Toyota Prius and the Nissan Leaf. Specific to the hybrids - the electrical drive reduced wear and tear in the on board engine and transmission systems. the electrical drives have fewer parts, lower system complexity, and did not log any mechanical failures over that time period. All electrics were even better.

When I heard Jeep was coming out with a PHEV, I knew it was time to upgrade. I work from home, with a short five mile commute whenever needed to the office. Free EV charging at the office, multiple free public chargers in town. With the 7.5K tax credit and $800 instant tax rebate (MD)ā€¦ It was a no brainer.

Iā€™m currently averaging >90% driving in all electrical ā€œgo kartā€ mode. Expecting to change oil annually just to keep the warranty.
This is certainly an interesting counterpoint to the numerous times people have brought up "first PHEV growing pains" and advising to sit out a year to avoid the kinks.
 

Jehovasfitness

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Lower lifetime operational costs.

As part of my job, I manage GPS tracking on a fleet of vehicles. For newer vehicle purchases, we use Ford Ranger, Ford Escape, Subaru Crosstrek, Toyota RAV4, Toyota Prius, and Nissan Leaf. I frequently talk turkey with our fleet managers.

Over the course of five years, the vehicles we saw with the least maintenance and repairs were the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Toyota Prius and the Nissan Leaf. Specific to the hybrids - the electrical drive reduced wear and tear in the on board engine and transmission systems. the electrical drives have fewer parts, lower system complexity, and did not log any mechanical failures over that time period. All electrics were even better.

When I heard Jeep was coming out with a PHEV, I knew it was time to upgrade. I work from home, with a short five mile commute whenever needed to the office. Free EV charging at the office, multiple free public chargers in town. With the 7.5K tax credit and $800 instant tax rebate (MD)ā€¦ It was a no brainer.

Iā€™m currently averaging >90% driving in all electrical ā€œgo kartā€ mode. Expecting to change oil annually just to keep the warranty.
what is this $800 tax rebate for MD? Only thing I see for MD is EVSE credit.
 

XJfanatic

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For me no it would not make sense, my commute is 45 miles most days.

Now if the wife was driving it yes. I was gone for a school for 50 days when average temps were in the teens for the most of the time. When got home she goes I filled up the Navigator yesterday. And jokingly asked how many times during my absence, her response was none and I only filled up because it was at a quarter tank. So in a 7000lb SUV with 15 minute warm to melt the frost she used maybe 20 gallons in 50 days šŸ˜‚
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