Jeep Avenger e-Hybrid Review: ‘Car Of The Year’ Goes Hybrid

The Jeep Avenger is a car of many identities. Having unexpectedly taken last year's European Car of the Year gong, it impressed us in all-electric form, but that’s just one-third of the available powertrains. The entry point is a relative rarity these days – a pure internal combustion engine, linked exclusively to a six-speed manual gearbox. This, though, is the e-Hybrid version that’s supposed to bridge the gap between petrol and EV.

There are no charge ports to be found, though – it’s a hybrid of the old school, with the car determining when you’re running on petrol and when you’re on electric, sometimes quite seemingly at random. The engine is a familiar one – the 1.2-litre turbocharged three-cylinder found in lots of little Stellantis group cars, in 99bhp guise. With the electric motor working, peak output is 127bhp. The gearbox is a six-speed dual-clutch. Currently, all Avengers are front-wheel drive only regardless of powertrain, although a four-wheel drive hybrid named the 4xe is coming later in 2024.

The Avenger shares its platform with a whole lot of other cars, and this latest version underpins the Fiat 600 and the upcoming Alfa Romeo Milano. The Jeep has its butch yet cutesy baby off-roader looks to differentiate it, but Jeep’s engineers have also put in work to ensure it feels different – 60 per cent of its components are Avenger-specific.

Lots of these are intended to improve its off-road chops – despite remaining front-driven for now, Jeep is keen to ensure all its cars still have some level of adventure kudos.

As a result, it gets approach and breakover angles of 20 degrees, and a departure angle of 34 degrees, as well as 200mm of ground clearance. It’s even been given hill descent control, and sand, mud and snow drive modes in addition to the usual suite of eco, normal and sport. A quick run around part of the off-road course at Stellantis’s Balocco proving ground proves it can scrabble its way up and over some obstacles that you definitely wouldn’t subject other cars in this class to.

All well and good, but in real life, no Avenger is likely ever to see more than a gravel driveway. It’s very much being pitched as an urban car, although in these circumstances the hybrid feels like a slight compromise.

Thanks to an impressively low 1280kg kerb weight, 127bhp is mostly adequate, but the option of a more powerful engine wouldn’t go amiss – the little 1.2 goes as high as 155bhp in some applications, without electric assistance. Top speed is 114mph, and 0-62mph happens in a leisurely 10.9 seconds.

On the move, it’s much as we found in the electric Avenger. There’s a decent chassis underpinning those rugged looks, the car imbued with agility and accurate, well-weighted steering. It’s worth noting that our test cars were on winter tyres – despite it being bone dry and hovering around 18 degrees, it’s the law in this part of northern Italy until a few days before our drive. More suitable rubber would likely have shown the handling in a better light still.

You can adopt a good driving position in comfy seats, and the Avenger does a commendable job of soaking up the punishment of battered roads.

Of course, one big difference from the EV is the soundtrack. Naturally, you get some engine noise piped in, but when running around town or twisty roads, Jeep’s attempt to highlight the throaty thrum of the three-pot engine comes across as a little overdone. More noticeable though is the noise made by the electric motor, which whines away like a straight-cut gearbox. It’s hard to tell if this sound has been artificially enhanced by Jeep to highlight the car’s electric cred, but it’s far more intrusive than other hybrids. It’s better on the motorway, where everything fades into the background and it’s a refined, comfortable car.

The gearbox is as smooth as you’d expect a dual-clutch automatic to be, although left to its own devices it occasionally slurs changes or hangs on to gears longer than you’d like. You have the option of shifting yourself via some little paddles, which have a nice action and are covered in a strange but oddly pleasant-feeling grippy material. They’re probably a little token, but are a nice inclusion nonetheless.

The interior, too, is exactly as it is on the electric version: generally good quality with plenty of storage, a pleasingly chunky design and lots of cutesy little Easter eggs (you’ll easily spot the silhouette of a child staring in wonder through a telescope in the corner of the windscreen; look harder and you’ll find plenty of references to Jeep’s iconic seven-slot grille).

Prices for the e-Hybrid kick off at £25,300, pretty healthy for a small design-centric crossover like this. That’s a handy saving over the £34,800 entry point for the full EV, while the pure petrol version, which gets the same engine sans e-motor, starts at £23,600. The closeness in price comes because Jeep is essentially pitching this as an automatic gearbox version of the petrol car – one that just happens to be a hybrid.

Unless an automatic transmission is a must and the EV is incompatible with lifestyle or budget, then it’s hard to recommend the hybrid over the pure combustion version. You might eventually make up the extra cost in fuel savings – a quoted 57.6mpg in the hybrid plays 49.6 in the petrol – but it’s let down by some deficiencies in its drivetrain, and the manual ’box and lower still weight would likely allow you to get the best out of a slightly underpowered engine.

Regardless of powertrain, though, the Avenger is a very good little all-rounder; something that stands out stylistically amongst the sea of boredom that is the small crossover segment and backs that up with a decent drive. The e-Hybrid is probably the weakest of the three powertrains (something that has the potential to be solved by the upcoming four-wheel drive version), but it’ll undoubtedly fit some people’s lifestyles, and fit them well.