Jeep is now part of Stellantis, a company that would be investing heavily in electrification. Yet, among all the four concepts for the 2021 Easter Jeep Safari, the only one to be electrified was the Jeep Magneto, the only electric car to present a manual transmission we have seen to date.
Jeep told us that the car has a 70 kWh battery pack composed of four modules that are not put together to balance the weight better. One of the modules is where the Wrangler’s mid-ship fuel tank would be, with another one mounted opposite to it. The third one is over the electric motor, under the hood, and the fourth is where the Wrangler would have a luggage compartment.
That shows the Magneto was an EV conversion made on a Wrangler by Jeep itself. Yet, it does not showcase that as much as the company keeping the six-speed manual transmission the Wrangler normally offers. The electric motor is said to emulate the driving experience of the 3.6-liter V6 Pentastar. It offers 273 pound-feet (370 Nm) of torque and 285 horsepower (213 kW). The question is why if it could be so much better than the V6.
Although Jeep told us the EV works at 800V, it did not mention how far the Magneto could travel, but it mentioned it could accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 6.8 seconds. We would prefer to know about range or smart grid capability, for example. Could the Magneto power stuff just like the Hyundai Ionioq 5 with its V2L (vehicle-to-load) system? We have no idea.
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Another curious element of the Magneto is that it presents two 12V systems: one for existing equipment, such as radio and lighting, and another one as an APU (auxiliary power unit) for things like the winch.
Apart from missing the 4xe plug-in hybrid system Jeep seems to be betting so much on in the other concepts, we missed a lot of important information on the EV conversion the Magneto represents, such as how long the clutch will resist in an electric car. It seems we will have to wait a lot more to see a real electric Wrangler.
Gallery: 2021 Jeep Magneto EV Concept
