I traded my '20 JTR in on a new '24 4xe Rubicon X in October and have had a chance to do a trip in the 4xe, so figured I'd post my experience so far. TLDR: really good experience overall so far, almost comical power, no compromises off road, and the power box makes it a great off grid tool.
The back story: I love my gladiator, to the point I was going to trade it on when I bought a d130 to haul the family and tow our camper (kids getting taller, my mom moving next door,and two dogs meant we just couldn't all fit comfortably anymore), but decided to keep it. If I could change anything about it it'd have been yellow (not available at the time), and get the front camera. The dealer asked me every time I took my gladiator in for service if I'd be interested in trading it in, and with the updates to the '24 4xe and the fact I bought a d130 to do towing duties, I no longer really needed the pickup bed and towing ability, so I said sure, find me a 4xe Rubicon in yellow with all the same options and I'll think about it. I had talked to my wife and she was into the electric part for running errands and the like, so it had to be a 4xe. After looking at a few that I didn't want (including a 392,I had to explain to the dealer that the whole point was the 4xe drivetrain), they found a yellow 4xe Rubicon X, which apparently is the only way to get the leather heated seats, and had everything else I wanted except it had the color matched hard top. I'm not a fan but now there's no way to get the other high end options without it as you have to get the X package. The gladiator had 72k miles but they gave me good trade in and a good enough deal on the 4xe, so I went for it.
I have to say, the drivetrain is excellent. It gets better mileage in hybrid mode than the pentastar in either the JTR or the JLUR I had before that, while having almost 90hp more and a whopping 200 lb ft more torque (same as the 392, 470lbs ft). It's almost comical having that much power in a Wrangler. It also now has a full time 4wd mode along with 4hi/low, which neither of my previous rubicons did. The '24s have improved max regen braking and the addition of a power box, which turns it into a 3.6kw generator, more on that later as I extensively tested that out. In terms of driving, I usually get 22-25 miles on electric only, which is more than the advertised 21, and gets 20mpg in hybrid mode (ie with the battery not charged). It has 3 drive modes, electric, hybrid and e-save. In electric it only uses the e motor unless you give it 2/3 throttle or more or have <1% battery, then the gas engine kicks in. In hybrid it's pretty much the same but the engine kicks in at less throttle, more like 50%. In e save it tries to maintain the current battery charge so drives exactly like hybrid at <1% battery charge. There's also an e-save charge mode, that instead of using the e-motor to help accelerate like it does in regular e-save or hybrid, uses all of the Regen to charge the battery and the gas motor to accelerate to try to top up the battery to ~95%. It will also use some engine power to charge while the gas motor is operating at steady state (ie highway) to top the battery up, the thought is you charge the battery at peak gas engine efficiency and with Regen braking and then use the battery in conditions that the gas engine is really inefficient at (like off road, stop and go, or generator mode). I purchased a level 2 charger that plugs into an existing 220 socket in my garage and it charges in about 2.5 hours. I can also charge for free at work, so on my 70 mile round trip commute which I do around 2x a week, I use about a gallon of gas. So 70mpg in a Jeep.
Every year a few friends and I take a trip to the endless mountains in PA where one of them has 300 acres of family land that used to be a working farm and rock quarry, so it has tons of trails, a mountain top camping spot and is off grid. I listed up the Jeep and set it in the 420 mile trip and nothing exciting there, just a normal Jeep (but with 370hp that would surprise my buddy a bit when I'd pass a tractor trailer). I had run it in e-save charge after the last fuel fill up to charge the battery, and also filled up again right off the highway not far from the property, so I started with around 90% battery charge and nearly a full tank of gas. I also have a rotopax with 3.5gallons on my spare tire just in case. I had no idea what the fuel consumption would be using the generator, off roading, etc.
First, off road is like any other JLUR, I couldn't tell the difference capability wise, except that you could pretty much do it all in electric mode. I mostly ran in 4 hi for two reasons, first being it was more efficient - if you watch tfl they burned the whole battery in like 6 miles running in 4lo the whole time - 2nd being in 4 low with all that electric torque it was a little touchy, so I only used 4lo if I needed the front locker and sway bar disconnected. There were two instances I did, including the dreaded slick downed tree that acts as a rail slide, and got through without issue. My buddy in his jtr slid down it a bit too much and dented his bed and popped a tail light off despite our best efforts with two winches to keep him off of it. He had falken mtrs vs my ko2s but neither of us were aired down, which in retrospect was a mistake. The other area I needed the front locker was in a rock garden area that tests everything these jeeps have, including the armor. I again made it through without issue but definitely dragged the bottom. My buddy had enough at that point and bailed, and it's even trickier in the gladiator due to the wheelbase, but I had taken my JLUR though there before with similar bottom scraping results. The rest was fairly light with just some mud in a couple of places, but not enough to cause any problems. My only regret is I totally forgot about the front camera which definitely would have helped on the rocks. Oh well, next time.
On to the camping. We have an alaknak outfitters tent with a wood stove we set up for the 4 days we're there, and I added a challenge that I was going to work remotely the first day up there. In the past just getting a cell signal required a signal booster, so I brought my starlink with rv plan and decided to rely on the power box to power it. I set up the starlink, plugged in the power box and...nothing. Hmmm. Checked the manual (still in plastic) and no mention of it at all. Couldn't find anything on forums either, I guess it's just too new of an accessory. I then managed to find a PDF manual that outlined it and it's fairly easy. Plug it in to the (turned off) Jeep, press the power button on the box, then go into the Jeep and start it. Don't touch anything and it's in electric mode (ie use the battery until it's dead and then it shuts off). Press the Regen button on the dash and it goes to hybrid mode, which will use the battery first and then run the gas engine at peak efficiency to charge it back up a bit and then repeat until it's out of gas and battery (ie this gives maximum generator longevity and efficiency). Press the Regen button twice and it goes to gas generator mode which both runs the power box off the engine and charges the battery if you have it set to e-save charge (which I found out a bit by accident). Once running, everything worked and I took meetings all day from the top of the mountain powered by the Jeep. Pretty cool. Only issue is if the power box does not detect a load, it shuts off, and the starlink often was not enough load to keep it awake. Turn on a few other things or when it got cold enough to activate the dish heater (ie at night when it got to freezing) and it would run indefinitely, kicking the engine on periodically to charge. At the end of the 4 days after running the generator probably half of the time and doing a bunch of off roading, I'd used less than half of the 17.5 gallon tank. I figured out that I could charge the battery while using the power box so would do that before going off road to make sure I had at least 30% battery which ended up being enough to do all of it in battery mode.
The back story: I love my gladiator, to the point I was going to trade it on when I bought a d130 to haul the family and tow our camper (kids getting taller, my mom moving next door,and two dogs meant we just couldn't all fit comfortably anymore), but decided to keep it. If I could change anything about it it'd have been yellow (not available at the time), and get the front camera. The dealer asked me every time I took my gladiator in for service if I'd be interested in trading it in, and with the updates to the '24 4xe and the fact I bought a d130 to do towing duties, I no longer really needed the pickup bed and towing ability, so I said sure, find me a 4xe Rubicon in yellow with all the same options and I'll think about it. I had talked to my wife and she was into the electric part for running errands and the like, so it had to be a 4xe. After looking at a few that I didn't want (including a 392,I had to explain to the dealer that the whole point was the 4xe drivetrain), they found a yellow 4xe Rubicon X, which apparently is the only way to get the leather heated seats, and had everything else I wanted except it had the color matched hard top. I'm not a fan but now there's no way to get the other high end options without it as you have to get the X package. The gladiator had 72k miles but they gave me good trade in and a good enough deal on the 4xe, so I went for it.
I have to say, the drivetrain is excellent. It gets better mileage in hybrid mode than the pentastar in either the JTR or the JLUR I had before that, while having almost 90hp more and a whopping 200 lb ft more torque (same as the 392, 470lbs ft). It's almost comical having that much power in a Wrangler. It also now has a full time 4wd mode along with 4hi/low, which neither of my previous rubicons did. The '24s have improved max regen braking and the addition of a power box, which turns it into a 3.6kw generator, more on that later as I extensively tested that out. In terms of driving, I usually get 22-25 miles on electric only, which is more than the advertised 21, and gets 20mpg in hybrid mode (ie with the battery not charged). It has 3 drive modes, electric, hybrid and e-save. In electric it only uses the e motor unless you give it 2/3 throttle or more or have <1% battery, then the gas engine kicks in. In hybrid it's pretty much the same but the engine kicks in at less throttle, more like 50%. In e save it tries to maintain the current battery charge so drives exactly like hybrid at <1% battery charge. There's also an e-save charge mode, that instead of using the e-motor to help accelerate like it does in regular e-save or hybrid, uses all of the Regen to charge the battery and the gas motor to accelerate to try to top up the battery to ~95%. It will also use some engine power to charge while the gas motor is operating at steady state (ie highway) to top the battery up, the thought is you charge the battery at peak gas engine efficiency and with Regen braking and then use the battery in conditions that the gas engine is really inefficient at (like off road, stop and go, or generator mode). I purchased a level 2 charger that plugs into an existing 220 socket in my garage and it charges in about 2.5 hours. I can also charge for free at work, so on my 70 mile round trip commute which I do around 2x a week, I use about a gallon of gas. So 70mpg in a Jeep.
Every year a few friends and I take a trip to the endless mountains in PA where one of them has 300 acres of family land that used to be a working farm and rock quarry, so it has tons of trails, a mountain top camping spot and is off grid. I listed up the Jeep and set it in the 420 mile trip and nothing exciting there, just a normal Jeep (but with 370hp that would surprise my buddy a bit when I'd pass a tractor trailer). I had run it in e-save charge after the last fuel fill up to charge the battery, and also filled up again right off the highway not far from the property, so I started with around 90% battery charge and nearly a full tank of gas. I also have a rotopax with 3.5gallons on my spare tire just in case. I had no idea what the fuel consumption would be using the generator, off roading, etc.
First, off road is like any other JLUR, I couldn't tell the difference capability wise, except that you could pretty much do it all in electric mode. I mostly ran in 4 hi for two reasons, first being it was more efficient - if you watch tfl they burned the whole battery in like 6 miles running in 4lo the whole time - 2nd being in 4 low with all that electric torque it was a little touchy, so I only used 4lo if I needed the front locker and sway bar disconnected. There were two instances I did, including the dreaded slick downed tree that acts as a rail slide, and got through without issue. My buddy in his jtr slid down it a bit too much and dented his bed and popped a tail light off despite our best efforts with two winches to keep him off of it. He had falken mtrs vs my ko2s but neither of us were aired down, which in retrospect was a mistake. The other area I needed the front locker was in a rock garden area that tests everything these jeeps have, including the armor. I again made it through without issue but definitely dragged the bottom. My buddy had enough at that point and bailed, and it's even trickier in the gladiator due to the wheelbase, but I had taken my JLUR though there before with similar bottom scraping results. The rest was fairly light with just some mud in a couple of places, but not enough to cause any problems. My only regret is I totally forgot about the front camera which definitely would have helped on the rocks. Oh well, next time.
On to the camping. We have an alaknak outfitters tent with a wood stove we set up for the 4 days we're there, and I added a challenge that I was going to work remotely the first day up there. In the past just getting a cell signal required a signal booster, so I brought my starlink with rv plan and decided to rely on the power box to power it. I set up the starlink, plugged in the power box and...nothing. Hmmm. Checked the manual (still in plastic) and no mention of it at all. Couldn't find anything on forums either, I guess it's just too new of an accessory. I then managed to find a PDF manual that outlined it and it's fairly easy. Plug it in to the (turned off) Jeep, press the power button on the box, then go into the Jeep and start it. Don't touch anything and it's in electric mode (ie use the battery until it's dead and then it shuts off). Press the Regen button on the dash and it goes to hybrid mode, which will use the battery first and then run the gas engine at peak efficiency to charge it back up a bit and then repeat until it's out of gas and battery (ie this gives maximum generator longevity and efficiency). Press the Regen button twice and it goes to gas generator mode which both runs the power box off the engine and charges the battery if you have it set to e-save charge (which I found out a bit by accident). Once running, everything worked and I took meetings all day from the top of the mountain powered by the Jeep. Pretty cool. Only issue is if the power box does not detect a load, it shuts off, and the starlink often was not enough load to keep it awake. Turn on a few other things or when it got cold enough to activate the dish heater (ie at night when it got to freezing) and it would run indefinitely, kicking the engine on periodically to charge. At the end of the 4 days after running the generator probably half of the time and doing a bunch of off roading, I'd used less than half of the 17.5 gallon tank. I figured out that I could charge the battery while using the power box so would do that before going off road to make sure I had at least 30% battery which ended up being enough to do all of it in battery mode.
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