[Bren]

While I don’t expect Jeep to match Tesla on software sophistication, I’d like to see them step up because good software makes things SIMPLE and that’s what Jeeps should be. There are a few software head scratches here that I’ve noticed, and I’m sure there are more.

My biggest gripe with my Jeep: 3 honks when I get out and forget to switch ignition from “Run” to “off”. Coming from 3 years in a Tesla, I’m particularly bad at this. Here’s the logic I’d like to see. “If vehicle is in park, door is opened, and key fob leaves vehicle, than ignition switches to OFF”. No need for honks, the vehicle will take the action it’s otherwise asking the user to take. Both my Tesla and my BMW i3 behaved this way. This is especially weird considering if the vehicle is switched to drive while the door is open it‘ll freak out and stop. There’s some logic connecting door to drive selector already. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve blasted the horn in a quiet neighborhood because I forgot to turn the ignition off.

Why can I not run my heated seats in ACC mode? I can’t even run them in RUN mode unless I select RUN mode with the brake pedal depressed. Seems oddly restricting.

Why does my MPG go down when running in full EV mode but drawing power for a hill or an on-ramp? I’m not using any gas. Is it reflecting MPGe? Because that’s not what it says…

There should be a 4XE specific “Theme” in Uconnect. You’d think that the 4XE would prefer blue colored UI on the screen, but the only blue options show a race track background (definitely not 4XE) or some sort of red-background screaming eagle thing. We need a 4XE theme!

When setting a theme for Uconnect, the binnacle colors do not update, so then everything clashes. At a minimum, the primary color of the theme in Uconnect should transfer over to the binnacle gauges as well.

I actually like the system of “complications” used in the binnacle. Credit where it’s due on that.

left-front window: Auto up/down
right-front window: Auto down only
rear windows: no auto up or down
Why?! All should be auto up and down

Why is there no window up/down control with the fob or the app? This is one of my favorite features in the Tesla. Just tell me in the app if I left my window down, because I’m prone to that. (The tesla goes a step further and pushes a notification if I’ve left the vehicle for 15 minutes and the windows remain down or doors/trunks remain ajar, and I can close them right from the app). At an absolute minimum, most modern cars will allow me to put my windows down (and some up) with a long press of the lock/unlock on the fob. There isn’t even a “down” option on the Jeep.

Why are there two different sets of cruise controls? One for ACC and one for “regular” cruise? If I have ACC, why would I ever want use regular cruise?

Don’t get me started on the Uconnect phone app. That‘s a whole other (much longer) post.

Feel free to leave your own gripes, or credit where it’s due.

 

[Shaka]

Having owned 80+ vehicles, 12 of which were Tesla ... I agree with MANY of your points here. That said -- a few thoughts:

AUTO ON/OFF
Unlike the Tesla where the stalk to put the car into PRND is electric and always "returns to zero" -- the shifter on the Jeep 4XE is a conventional unit. Having the car "turn off" when you are in DRIVE would not be wise, especially if you were out of electrons and running in GAS mode. This behavior does not match other gas cars, which is MOST of the market share. I'd suspect 98% of 4XE owners this is their first plug-in vehicle, period. So for you/me coming from Tesla (etc) we want everything to be like that. I think you/I will eventually get what we want/expect in a future BEV version of the Wrangler, but for the PHEV version, we need to remember, they wanted to keep it "similar" to petrol cars. That said, my wife's Volvo XC40 P8 (aka Polestar 2) has the keyless on/off sequence just like a Tesla, and we LOVE that about it. My '21 Mini SE electric had a "start" button but did "shut off" the car when the door was opened, but again, was 100% electric, not PHEV.

"DOG MODE"
One of my favorite things about the Tesla was the HVAC "on after exit" feature set. Even the Mini (And my BMW i3 and i8, of which I had 3x of the latter) all had a "run AC for X minutes after exit" -- and when you'd turn the car off, an on screen prompt would ask if you wanted this "climate keeper" to function. As a minimum, then, I wish that was the feature set. When we turn off the 4XE, it'd be super nice for something to pop up saying "do you want me to run the HVAC for 15mins?" (you can obviously do this after you lock the car, but double tapping the circle remote start button, but it'd be so much easier if on the U-Connect screen. So, I'm right there with ya bud!

MPGe / COLORS
I've not really bothered looking at the MPG/MPGe ratings. I'd care FAR more about mi/kWh or wh/mi -- of which we get no visibility. So at this point my goal is 75% of my total miles are electric. and Beyond that, the other metrics are just rubbish. Jeep, and most cars for that matter, don't allow users the granular views we want, which sucks. Same goes for the colors, as you said, there could be some amazing custom settings here, if only the UX permitted it. Again, we're sandboxed. But to some degree, I'd prefer they spent time optimizing the car's driving features, not the infotainment, so I dont hate on them too hard.

COMPLICATIONS
Yes, they did a great job with what the center instrument cluster can show. Though I do wish for two things here: FIRST, the trip A/B are only visible there. Why can't they ALSO show that data in the center touch screen? I'd really love to be able to have that showing more easily, on a bigger screen. Secondly, I wish there was a BMW-esque (or even Tesla had this) "current drive" figures. One that resets automatically if you haven't driven the car in 2 hours is how VW/Audi handle it. BMW you could toggle the auto reset on/off if you wanted. I am aware that after I turn OFF the 4XE there is a quick visible screen that shows me how many miles I just completed on this "trip" and how many were EV vs gas, but.... that data then goes bye bye. On many other PHEV/BEV, you could access you "trip data" in the cloud/app. Meh... Jeep missed the mark there perhaps? But again I really dont see the PHEV 4XE buyer giving two sh~ts about their EV trips -- most of them this is their first PHEV and they just leave it in Hybrid mode 24/7 --- whereas, I tend to drive in EV mode whenever I can!

CRUISE / WINDOWS
I don't have ACC cruise just regular, so I cannot comment there. As for the windows, at $57k MSRP for my Sahara -- I'd really have anticipated auto up/down at all 4x corners. So I'm a bit miffed about this as well. As for the window opening feature, I rarely used my app for that in any of the few cars that had it. If anything I did like that some cars have "auto close windows/sunroof if the rain sensor detects rain" that has always been a cool feature. So if anything I wish we had that, but then, I also wish we had a rain sensor LOL -- so I guess it is what it is. But yes, pinch based windows for auto up/down at all 4x please Jeep ... c'mon now its almost 2022!

U CONNECT APP
Last but not least.... the app. Yeah, as you said, it has shortcomings for sure. But I can tell you that having had 2x Porsche Taycan, 1x Mini Cooper SE which shares the app that is similar to the 1x BMW i3 and 3x BMW i8 that I had, my wife's '21 Volvo XC40 ... my 12x Tesla (including a Roadster)... Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt, Audi eTron SUV, Audi eTron A3 .... let me just put it this way--- the app we have is truthfully not THAT bad. There have been worse. I'd put our app on par with what Ford and Chevy have been offering, though their apps have gotten better. Overall the German auto makers apps tend to be the best, but nothing is on par with Tesla. Even the Volvo app is less powerful than what we can do, TBH. It just looks cleaner.

This is Jeeps' FIRST plug in vehicle, so I give them props they did a lot of things right. They def missed the mark on some items, but I think they only will improve, and I look forward to v2.

 

[Bmeister]

My experienced suspicions are that the lawyers had a lot of say as to why some of these things are the way they are...other than the paint selections, of course.

 

[Bren]

Having owned 80+ vehicles, 12 of which were Tesla ... I agree with MANY of your points here. That said -- a few thoughts:

AUTO ON/OFF
Unlike the Tesla where the stalk to put the car into PRND is electric and always "returns to zero" -- the shifter on the Jeep 4XE is a conventional unit. Having the car "turn off" when you are in DRIVE would not be wise, especially if you were out of electrons and running in GAS mode. This behavior does not match other gas cars, which is MOST of the market share. I'd suspect 98% of 4XE owners this is their first plug-in vehicle, period. So for you/me coming from Tesla (etc) we want everything to be like that. I think you/I will eventually get what we want/expect in a future BEV version of the Wrangler, but for the PHEV version, we need to remember, they wanted to keep it "similar" to petrol cars. That said, my wife's Volvo XC40 P8 (aka Polestar 2) has the keyless on/off sequence just like a Tesla, and we LOVE that about it. My '21 Mini SE electric had a "start" button but did "shut off" the car when the door was opened, but again, was 100% electric, not PHEV.

"DOG MODE"
One of my favorite things about the Tesla was the HVAC "on after exit" feature set. Even the Mini (And my BMW i3 and i8, of which I had 3x of the latter) all had a "run AC for X minutes after exit" -- and when you'd turn the car off, an on screen prompt would ask if you wanted this "climate keeper" to function. As a minimum, then, I wish that was the feature set. When we turn off the 4XE, it'd be super nice for something to pop up saying "do you want me to run the HVAC for 15mins?" (you can obviously do this after you lock the car, but double tapping the circle remote start button, but it'd be so much easier if on the U-Connect screen. So, I'm right there with ya bud!

MPGe / COLORS
I've not really bothered looking at the MPG/MPGe ratings. I'd care FAR more about mi/kWh or wh/mi -- of which we get no visibility. So at this point my goal is 75% of my total miles are electric. and Beyond that, the other metrics are just rubbish. Jeep, and most cars for that matter, don't allow users the granular views we want, which sucks. Same goes for the colors, as you said, there could be some amazing custom settings here, if only the UX permitted it. Again, we're sandboxed. But to some degree, I'd prefer they spent time optimizing the car's driving features, not the infotainment, so I dont hate on them too hard.

COMPLICATIONS
Yes, they did a great job with what the center instrument cluster can show. Though I do wish for two things here: FIRST, the trip A/B are only visible there. Why can't they ALSO show that data in the center touch screen? I'd really love to be able to have that showing more easily, on a bigger screen. Secondly, I wish there was a BMW-esque (or even Tesla had this) "current drive" figures. One that resets automatically if you haven't driven the car in 2 hours is how VW/Audi handle it. BMW you could toggle the auto reset on/off if you wanted. I am aware that after I turn OFF the 4XE there is a quick visible screen that shows me how many miles I just completed on this "trip" and how many were EV vs gas, but.... that data then goes bye bye. On many other PHEV/BEV, you could access you "trip data" in the cloud/app. Meh... Jeep missed the mark there perhaps? But again I really dont see the PHEV 4XE buyer giving two sh~ts about their EV trips -- most of them this is their first PHEV and they just leave it in Hybrid mode 24/7 --- whereas, I tend to drive in EV mode whenever I can!

CRUISE / WINDOWS
I don't have ACC cruise just regular, so I cannot comment there. As for the windows, at $57k MSRP for my Sahara -- I'd really have anticipated auto up/down at all 4x corners. So I'm a bit miffed about this as well. As for the window opening feature, I rarely used my app for that in any of the few cars that had it. If anything I did like that some cars have "auto close windows/sunroof if the rain sensor detects rain" that has always been a cool feature. So if anything I wish we had that, but then, I also wish we had a rain sensor LOL -- so I guess it is what it is. But yes, pinch based windows for auto up/down at all 4x please Jeep ... c'mon now its almost 2022!

U CONNECT APP
Last but not least.... the app. Yeah, as you said, it has shortcomings for sure. But I can tell you that having had 2x Porsche Taycan, 1x Mini Cooper SE which shares the app that is similar to the 1x BMW i3 and 3x BMW i8 that I had, my wife's '21 Volvo XC40 ... my 12x Tesla (including a Roadster)... Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt, Audi eTron SUV, Audi eTron A3 .... let me just put it this way--- the app we have is truthfully not THAT bad. There have been worse. I'd put our app on par with what Ford and Chevy have been offering, though their apps have gotten better. Overall the German auto makers apps tend to be the best, but nothing is on par with Tesla. Even the Volvo app is less powerful than what we can do, TBH. It just looks cleaner.

This is Jeeps' FIRST plug in vehicle, so I give them props they did a lot of things right. They def missed the mark on some items, but I think they only will improve, and I look forward to v2.

I agree with most of what you said but want to clarify my first point. I’m not suggesting the vehicle switch the ignition off if the jeep is in drive. Logic would
be something like:

IF:

Drive selector = Park
And
Door = opened
And
Key fob = not present

THEN:

Turn vehicle ignition to OFF

Could go an extra mile here and add seat belt sensor into the mix (confirm no butt in seat) and then vehicle could be shut off upon the door closing again (rather than triggering the 3 honks when the door closes).

Seems like there’s no downside here. The vehicle isn’t moving because it’s in park. If the engine is running it just shuts off.

 

[michail]

My guess is compatibility with lower trims and manufacturing/supply chain costs.

I get burned up the center instrument cluster is a LCD panel that's mostly covered up. It could have been put to way better use. By two large physical guages trying to go for a classic look.

Agree on all the above. As far as basic Cruise Control Systems go, Mercedes Benz has a great system. Every other manufacturer overcomplicates it with more buttons than is needed by using a 1980s design.

 

[Shaka]

@Bren -- you just put together a really logical flow chart of "if this, then" -- and I am convinced that no programmer, engineer, or otherwise automotive person has ever actually used LOGIC to create anything LMAO -- but yes, I see what you mean more clearly now. If a set of criteria are met, shutting it off makes sense.

@michail -- this "analog" gauge style has bothered me for a long time. For some reason people seem hesitant to get away from them. Yet I remember in the 90s my brother's Chevy Beretta had this really cool digital tachometer and people loved it. Knight Rider style LOL

It seems like the best new vehicles from a "usefulness" have gone digital. I love what the Mustang Mach-E "behind steering wheel" cluster looks like. And I really like how the Volvo XC40/Polestar 2 have handled this space, too. Hopefully others catch on.

 

[Horse_Power]

Having owned 80+ vehicles, 12 of which were Tesla ... I agree with MANY of your points here. That said -- a few thoughts:

I'm 41 and this 4xe is my 39th vehicle, I thought I was on a record pace but sounds like you have me beat. Why so many Teslas though, you must be trading in every 10 months...?

 

[Shaka]

I'm 41 and this 4xe is my 39th vehicle, I thought I was on a record pace but sounds like you have me beat. Why so many Teslas though, you must be trading in every 10 months...?

First off to be fair a lot of my vehicles were cheap/cash cars (Mk2 VW GTIs, Air-cooled VW beetles, things like that). That said I've had a half dozen cars that tipped the $100k price (be it my purchase price, or at least MSRP, such as those 3x BMW i8). Some of my cars bought, some leased, some lease assumptions, etc.

I'll throw in a link below from my blog (which I really don't even post/add to anymore, as it has been over a year) but it shows my laundry list of Tesla vehicles. And if you read that article is explains the story behind why we changed so often. Basically it was RWD to AWD, AP2, and other features. And with showroom discounts, CPO prices, and resale value being so high (plus a few were leased vehicles people just assumed the lease) -- I changed Tesla vehicles with usually little-to-no financial loss... so it just made sense.

Other cars I've owned were for profit where possible (my Tesla Roadster for example) or for loss ... its just been a crap shoot LOL ... anyhow, read this article to grasp my crazy:

Our Tesla Model Y is our 11th Tesla! Here is the full story…

At the tail end of September 2020 we finally did it; we picked up a Model Y from Tesla. Now we can officially say we’ve owned all models ever produced by Tesla. Here is the story of how we go…

arijaycomet.com

 

[michail]

@michail -- this "analog" gauge style has bothered me for a long time. For some reason people seem hesitant to get away from them. Yet I remember in the 90s my brother's Chevy Beretta had this really cool digital tachometer and people loved it. Knight Rider style LOL

I figure manufacturers are holding on to digital display panels as a premium upgrade option. Then, in order to keep manufacturing costs down they jam it back into the same form and feature sets found in the other trims. Seems to me it would bring costs way down and offer the manufacturer and owners way more flexibility if it was just the panel. They could then charge more for software features/theme upgrades. It just simplifies manufacturing.

My '18 mustang had cut several inches out of each corner to put rounded bezels around the LCD panel. I suspect that was to save on having to manufacture a new dash trim. Could be the same for Jeep.

Tesla got a fresh start without having legacy baggage. Ford is doing an interesting reboot too.

I guess it doesn't both most people. I just get OCD about my own work on building software and systems.

 

[Bob]

My wife has a high end 2020 Toyota Highlander, with all the trimmings. I will say that UConnect as a whole is way more intuitive and simple to use than Toyota’s version. I am a first time Jeep owner myself and I‘m pretty impressed with Jeep’s electronics.

 

[michail]

There are some things about Uconnect that are good, even though it's still a dated/slow system.

• You can customize the bottom buttons
• The bottom buttons reflect status
• You can use OEM maps while AA or Carplay are running.
• My experience is the live map data is very accurate.

If you haven't used anything out of Germany, Tesla, or the newer version Ford Sync stuff, it can actually seem good. I'd say Uconnect is on par with what was coming out from German cars 10-15 years ago.

American manufacturers have been stiffing us on outdated tech as premium options. I've heard similar complaints on Toyota but not had any experience there.

 

[Nathan]

Man, that three honk thing is annoying. I want my car to never honk unless I hit the horn, to be honest - I wish it had the little beepy speaker that Toyota (I think?) uses for alerts.

There is no question that Tesla has some of the best car software, but I don't personally think of my Y as being "better in every way" than a normal car UX. I like the regular PRNDL, regular turn signals and manual(-ish) transfer case in the Wrangler - you can always tell what the car is doing since the levers are in that position, there's nice mechanical feedback. I have carplay/android auto and the ability to open the glove box without going in to a touch menu too, come on Elon...

I also love that you can turn the center screen off in the Jeep with a button. I'm a software engineer and stare at screens all day, sometimes I just want the screens to go away for a while.

 

[Shaka]

@Nathan you forgot the worst part of the TEsla UX = blind spot detection. Although it is a cost option on the Wrangler, at least when you do get it (I dont have it) the icon is in the mirror which is where it SHOULD be. Tesla really missed the mark there… blind spot warning visualizations should always be in the mirror or at least a-pillar IMO.

 

[michail]

Going by Tesla/Elon design, which isn't always correct, I can see why they may have done that.
Simplification and removing parts is one of the driving design factors.

In theory you don't even need to use the mirrors in a Tesla, but I wouldn't trust the tech that much.