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HungryHound

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I'm in the same situation but am considering hard wiring. My understanding is anything above 40 amps requires hard-wiring so I'm considering that route, though I would prefer plug-in. The 4xe won't take advantage of anything over 40 right now but I'm considering future capabilities and don't want to pay for the electrical installation twice. I'm looking at the Chargepoint Home Flex charger which supports up to 50 amp charging. I'm new to all this so if anyone has better info on this it would be great to hear.
I just put in a Tesla gen 3 charger for my neighbor and it wanted a 60 amp circuit for max charging level. Your best vet would be 60 amps or more based on this latest unit if you want future flexibility.
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timn1984

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(UPDATES) I picked up my 4xe Rubicon on 4/10 and thought I’d post a few thoughts and (maybe useful?) info as I have completed a 750mi drive now. I’m hoping to answer some questions I know I still had and also happy to answer anything the great folks here might have also.

I have all factory options including the sky one-touch, with the only exception being the Advanced Safety Group.

A quick note since I think context is important in any discussion. I’ve owned 3 Jeeps, a TJ, early JK and late JKUR (AEV). I’ve driven the 2.0 and 3.6 JLUR’s many times at length in various conditions on and off-road. I have not driven the new 392 or the Diesel but do have a couple hundred miles of experience with AEV converted 5.7 and 6.4 JKUR’s.

I figured I’d break down each area and hopefully add/update specific info as more folks receive them and also provide feedback on experience.

Performance
TLDR;

It’s by no means slow, and it’s absolutely quicker than the 2.0 and 3.6. Can you smoke the tires, no. Can you beat a 392 off the line, maybe. Would you lose to a 392 after about 1.5-2s off the line, likely. Is it eerily quiet getting from 0-60, very.

Experience;
No one seems to be posting anything about this, anywhere. I was determined to figure out exactly how good or bad it was but instead I realized why exactly no one says anything about it. It’s power is oddly transparent, if that can even be a description? You just don’t think about it. No, it does not blow you away and throw you back into your seat. It’s still a box with knobby tires that weighs 5k+ lbs. All the hp/tq in the world can only overcome so much of physics so set your expectations accordingly. I think in many cases we perceive speed based on sound and the level of “roughness” or involvement going fast might require. The 4xe is eerily quiet. Even when you stand on it, you are just sort of going 80mph all of a sudden with no real fuss. You hear minimal noise from the 2.0 and in pure electric the instant torque is fantastic but it doesn’t give the perception of fast in any way. The lack of a launch control feature should be a dead giveaway, also. If you like to “feel” like you’re going fast, this isn’t it. I personally love it, it’s a fantastic mix of power and efficiency in a car that’s all about balancing functionality and capability.
- I'm confident in saying it's very quick after putting nearly 800mi on it so far. Especially from any kind of roll. From a dead stop the battery helps tremendously off the line but once the mass is rolling and turbo has spooled you can jump on it and it moves very swiftly.
- The power feels extremely linear. I’d be surprised to see the power and torque curves not just be straight lines honestly.
- I really want to try a few timed 0-60's, what are people using now to guage? I know it won't be 100% perfect compared to a track but would love to get an idea.


Exterior
- You need to like the color blue if you buy the Rubicon, less so on the Sahara’s.
- The “RUBICON” lettering blue appears to have some metallic in it, it changes depending on light. The tow hooks are definitely more of what I’d call Electric Baby Blue. The hood decal blue is essentially flat. One thing is for sure, they don’t “appear” to all match exactly but it has more to do with the material they are either printed on or applied to that influences it. It’s not significant by any means and after the first time many folks won’t think twice. OCD folks however, be warned.
- The gas tank only opens with the unlock button inside. I swear I saw a video where you could just push it in from the outside of the car to open but even the sales team was confused on this one. I’m a fan of this for security purposes but I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere yet. As mentioned by a few members, the dealer also confirmed it's pressurized and thus the button and delayed opening of the tank lid.


Interior
- You also need to like the color blue if you buy the Rubicon with black leather, less so on the Sahara, even less with cloth option and almost not at all with Saddle interior.
- I have the black leather option and got blue stitching on seats, door panels, dash, center console and shifters. We’ll call this the FULL blue option. The cloth variant appears to only have the blue on the seats and no where else. The saddle interior replaces all the blue with white, at least on the other one I saw at the dealer. Can likely make this list more precise as folks receive them, this is just my experience from the dealer and online.
- I can’t see a reason why the LED charging indicators on the dash are so huge. Yes, they are large as others have stated. It eats nearly any storage you have up there. However, it appears at first glance the 67 Designs stuff will work if you just use the driver/passenger side individual bases and not the full rail. I have the pieces to try and install tomorrow and will report back with photos. I only mention this as 67D is very popular already and I reached out to them about designing a new variant for the full rail option for the 4xe.
- ^^^ NOPE, the 67D stuff does not fit. It appears the opening up top has changed in depth as well as the addition of the LED's so the bases will not fit from front to back any longer.

Modes, Buttons, Random
- GVW is listed inside door as 6400lbs (Rubicon)
- Curb Weight is listed in specifications as 5100 (Sahara) or 5222 (Rubicon)

- There is no “Offroad +” button.
- Yes, it has 2H.
- The Max Regen button does NOT stay on after you restart the car. This appears contradictory to the documentation but likely a software thing they changed late and/or are still working on smoothing over with some politician. Not a big deal but I like others really like this feature. Once you get used to it, you can time it so you almost never have to actually depress the brake pedal to slow down.
- When Max Regen is on, letting off the gas fully will engage the brake lights automatically. Cool feature as it does slow you down fairly significantly and your back end wouldn’t last for long without it. I tested this in DC traffic, it works, well.
- The technician that did the PDI on mine said in their training they were told the 4xe can use the lower 87 octane fuel similar to the 3.6 even though the 2.0 requires Premium. Supposedly Jeep is using a different cam that allows the lower octane fuel to be used.
@bjm00se confirmed:
Fuel requirement on page 78 of the 4xe Owner's Manual Supplement:
Fuel Selection: 87 Octane (R+M)/2 Method, 0-15% Ethanol.
- I refueled with 93 octane (confirmed dealer put 87 in it) and it has a noticeable power increase in the higher RPM's of the motor. This makes sense, but the point being it definitely adjusts timing and I'm sure other parameter's based on fuel type.
- After looking into all the manuals provided with the car, it does indicate that “91 octane or higher is recommended for optimum fuel economy and performance.”



Real World Hybrid’ness
- I started on a full charge/full tank of gas when I picked up the car and got 27.8 miles of battery use in Hybrid mode over the course of ~150mi so far. I’m sure there are millions of variables here but this was mostly highway with max regen on. Will take time to get more numbers and data on this topic honestly. Just a starting point.
- It was completely down to 0% battery on the fuel gauge and <1% on the battery gauge when I stopped to plug in. I plugged into a L2 charger and it approximated 2h15m to fully charge. Not sure what variables there are with different types of L2, still learning.
- You get the craziest stares when you pull into an EV spot with a Jeep. Everything from “WTF is this DB doing in the Tesla parking” (just an anecdote, NO the Tesla charger does NOT work in the Jeep) to “This guy MUST be lost”. As soon as you plug it in, the look on peoples faces is easily worth every penny. :P
- The battery gauge never goes below <1%. Based on some responses it seems the battery has some type of reserve that's roughly ~15% of capacity. It allows the continued use of electric only when coasting or low speed on most occasions up to around 20mph in my experience thus far. It also seemed to never loose it’s full power potential. It appears I still have all 470lb’s of hamsters even when battery was dry (according to the gauges).


Donuts and 600 more miles coming soon <--- Done, Donut pics below! Hopefully this can be helpful, the forum and members have definitely helped me and I just wanted to contribute if possible.

Fire away with questions, post feedback and share your experiences as well!

Jeep:

3963E2C0-98A7-4D59-98DA-AFF0AF194A67.jpeg


Donuts:

Donuts.jpg
Great writeup, Love the doughnuts....... But who gets the gummy worm one?

This makes me want to get a 4Xe.... but I'm happy with my 2018 3.6.
 

HungryHound

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When you mention plugging into Tesla chargers, you do need the Tesla to J1772 adapter for that, right?
Yes. It's around $180 tho...

And it won't work on superchargers, just the lower current ones.
 

4x4PNW

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I just put in a Tesla gen 3 charger for my neighbor and it wanted a 60 amp circuit for max charging level. Your best vet would be 60 amps or more based on this latest unit if you want future flexibility.
That sounds good. Does something with that much amperage need hard-wiring the unit vs plug-in?
 

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HungryHound

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When you mention plugging into Tesla chargers, you do need the Tesla to J1772 adapter for that, right?
I just found out today that the Tesla charging station can be programmed to ONLY charge Teslas so the adapter might not be useful with public charging stations.
 

blueweb

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I just found out today that the Tesla charging station can be programmed to ONLY charge Teslas so the adapter might not be useful with public charging stations.
*drives up to a Tesla Supercharger in a Wrangler* "Why doesn't this not working with my Jeep?!? How do I turn this bloody thing on?"
 

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What level 2 ev charger are people buying and installing for the 4Xe? I am looking to have an outlet installed as I don't want it hard wired into my house, and I'm not sure if it makes more sense to have a Nema 14-50 plug or 6-50 plug installed. I have done searches on Google about their difference and there are as many opinions as you would expect but I am not finding a clear answer.
Before you purchase one you might check with your local electric utility. I don't have a 4XE on order yet, but have a Chevy Volt and when we got into our new house I checked with the utility and they had a program where I got a charger if I allowed them to cut charging during peak times if needed. It has been nice and the Volt is always ready to go by the next morning and I saved $500 for the charger.
 

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I'm in the same situation but am considering hard wiring. My understanding is anything above 40 amps requires hard-wiring so I'm considering that route, though I would prefer plug-in. The 4xe won't take advantage of anything over 40 right now but I'm considering future capabilities and don't want to pay for the electrical installation twice. I'm looking at the Chargepoint Home Flex charger which supports up to 50 amp charging. I'm new to all this so if anyone has better info on this it would be great to hear.
So my understanding with the Chargepoint Homeflex is you can select multiple amp setting inputs, so you could opt for the plug type so if you need to move the charger you have that option. Check with your electric provider before you pull the trigger as some have programs available where they provide chargers free of charge.
 

Stale

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So my understanding with the Chargepoint Homeflex is you can select multiple amp setting inputs, so you could opt for the plug type so if you need to move the charger you have that option. Check with your electric provider before you pull the trigger as some have programs available where they provide chargers free of charge.
I hardwired my ChargePoint, and pretty much maxed out the amperage on the install for this reason. Remember that you can only use 80% of the breaker rating, so a 40 amp circuit provides 32 amps to the car (the 4xe is limited to 32 amps which is pretty common, though Tesla’s can go to 48 amps; super chargers are different though)

If you do hardwire, you generally need a disconnect installed as well. Here’s what mine looks like, the cost difference to max out the circuit was probably only $150 in electrician costs (80 foot run):

Jeep Wrangler JL Driving the 4xe, thoughts, info and more! 70D8BEAF-E6BA-4E8D-A8F7-2BF7D382C27C
 

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bradschenck

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Before you purchase one you might check with your local electric utility. I don't have a 4XE on order yet, but have a Chevy Volt and when we got into our new house I checked with the utility and they had a program where I got a charger if I allowed them to cut charging during peak times if needed. It has been nice and the Volt is always ready to go by the next morning and I saved $500 for the charger.
This is great option from Home Depot. LA DWP gives $500 rebate
Fully charges 4XE in 2 1/2 hours

EA4CB35C-ADD5-49FE-80FD-E8B9C6482EBB.jpeg
 

Newbie 4xe

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Two week update.
I just returned from a few hours of a road trip where I couldn’t plug in. It gave me a good chance to drive in true hybrid mode instead of just on battery.

Stats as of today:
594 total miles
-421 battery miles
- 173 hybrid

Side question: is there an expert on this forum who can tell us the algorithm that is used to determine mpg? My current mpg is 30.9 mpg. Before the road trip today, it was 32.8 mpg. While running only on battery, my mpg was going up, but certainly not just based solely on gas usage and total miles. I’ve used 1/2 a tank of gas so far for all 594 miles. I used about 1/4 tank today.

The drive had a lot of hills and we went through several small towns on the drive. As a result, there was quite a bit of coasting/accelerating on hills with stop and go traffic in towns. I’m really liking the one-pedal driving when the regen option is on. I am becoming more used to always pressing that button as soon as I start her.

The worst part of the drive: it’s still too chilly to have the top off!!

It’s weird to say, but I’ve driven so much on the battery that the engine is noticeable at this point. I’m sure I’ll get used to that. :)

The automatic on-off is seamless. I had the opportunity to pass on an uphill section of road and she handled flawlessly with strong acceleration.

My wave hand got a workout. There are TONS of wranglers on the road in this area.

So far? I give this driving experience a 10/10!!
 
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halsjeep

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I just spent 4 hours in the dealership and 2 test drives in the Rubicon 4xe. I didn't sign the paperwork and more confused about fuel economy than when i got there. Its my understanding its 17.2 Gal tank. The range says 249 miles. At 20 MPG shouldn't I get 340 miles. Can anyone tell me what the real fuel costs look like?
 

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Something I discovered by accident (can't seem to spot this in the manual) there is a fuel door over ride pull string under the 12volt plug in the back. When you pull on the little plastic cover, it's attached to a string that will release the fuel door.

Jeep Wrangler JL Driving the 4xe, thoughts, info and more! 40460
Jeep Wrangler JL Driving the 4xe, thoughts, info and more! 40461
 

Thill444

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I just spent 4 hours in the dealership and 2 test drives in the Rubicon 4xe. I didn't sign the paperwork and more confused about fuel economy than when i got there. Its my understanding its 17.2 Gal tank. The range says 249 miles. At 20 MPG shouldn't I get 340 miles. Can anyone tell me what the real fuel costs look like?
The question is what kind of driving will you be doing ? if you have shorter trips with opportunities to charge the 4XE is a good choice. If your driving longer distances with few chances to charge it may not be.
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