Jeep's Best-Seller Just Hit 290,000 Orders — and America Still Can't Buy It
Orders for Jeep's smallest SUV have passed 290,000 — and the brand is celebrating with a commercial in which AI-generated alpine animals refuse to believe the car is real.
Jeep says more than 290,000 customers have ordered an Avenger since the subcompact SUV debuted in late 2022, with electrified versions accounting for 60 percent of the mix. To mark the run, the brand has released a commercial that pokes fun at AI-generated content — using AI-generated animals to do it.
Order books for the refreshed Avenger opened in May, and Jeep claims the car now sits among the leaders of Europe's small-SUV segment in every major market. In Italy, the company says, it is the best-selling SUV of any size and the country's second best-selling vehicle overall so far this year.
The update brought revised styling, an upgraded cabin with better materials, standard Selec-Terrain drive modes on every trim, LED matrix headlights, and a front camera that stitches together a top-down view for tight maneuvers and rough ground. A new turbocharged gas engine joins the existing e-Hybrid, battery-electric, and all-wheel-drive 4xe powertrains.
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Fake marmots judge a real SUV
The new spot, titled "Incredibly Real," went live on September 7 across Jeep's websites and social channels. It follows the Avenger up Alpine trails while marmots, bears, mountain goats, and a river fish watch from the sidelines, increasingly convinced that what they're seeing must be another AI fabrication. The driver eventually settles the argument: the car and the terrain are real. The twist is that the skeptics aren't — the animals are AI-generated, voiced with accents borrowed from Alpine communities in Italy, France, and Germany.
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The best-selling Jeep America can't buy
The Avenger has been an unlikely hit from the start. Revealed at the 2022 Paris Motor Show as the brand's first battery-electric model, it went on to win European Car of the Year 2023 — the first Jeep to take the award in the contest's six-decade history. Every example is built at the Stellantis plant in Tychy, Poland, the model's sole production site.
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None of that success extends to the United States, where the Avenger has never been offered. Jeep pitches it as a car designed and built in Europe for European customers, and at 4.08 meters (about 161 inches) long, it is tiny by American standards — Top Gear has noted that the only smaller Jeep ever made was the original Willys. In Europe it fights the Ford Puma, Renault 4, and Toyota Yaris Cross, with Autocar expecting the refreshed lineup to start around £26,000 in the UK, slightly above the related Peugeot 2008.
The 4xe remains the range's off-road flagship. Its 145-hp hybrid system drives the front wheels through a dual-clutch transmission and adds a rear electric motor that, according to Jeep, puts up to 1,900 Nm (about 1,400 lb-ft) of torque to the rear wheels through its gearing. The company rates the car to climb a 40-percent grade on gravel and a 20-percent grade with no grip at the front axle at all.
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Jeep has given no indication the Avenger will ever cross the Atlantic. For now, it remains a Europe-only success story — and, at 290,000 orders and counting, one the brand has no reason to change.
