Stellantis plans to invest $13 billion in US factories over the next four years. The next Ram mid-size car will be manufactured in Toledo, Ohio, and the Belvidere plant will be restarted to produce the Jeep Compass and Jeep Cherokee. In 2028, the Warren Truck Assembly Plant will make its first big SUV. In 2029, the next-generation Dodge Durango is expected to be introduced and manufactured in Detroit. Stellantis is currently experiencing a difficult time. After seeing sales drop for nine months, Carlos Tavares, the CEO, quit without warning in December 2024. Since then, many of Stellantis’ stable businesses have limited their product offerings to a few outdated, uncompetitive models. That will change, though, because the company wants to. Yesterday, it said that it would spend $13 billion over the next four years to build five new cars in the US. Jeep revived the Cherokee name after a brief hiatus and introduced the first hybrid SUV in August, bridging the gap between the Compass and the Grand Cherokee. Stellantis has announced that it will invest more than $600 million in the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois, enabling the production of additional new Cherokee and Compass models. Since February 2023, when production of the last Cherokee model ceased, the Belvidere plant has remained idle. The new Cherokee will be manufactured in Toluca, Mexico, prior to the reopening of the Belvidere plant in 2027. This will create about 3,300 new jobs. Early this year, Stellantis announced that a new mid-size Ram truck would be manufactured in Belvidere. The company is moving production of that truck to the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio as part of a $400 million investment. Along with the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator, the truck is being made. It will be the first mid-size model from Ram or Dodge since the Dakota died in 2011. People think it will be sold in 2028. Toledo will receive additional funding for “additional technologies and strong product actions” for both Jeep models. The new shift will also create 900 new jobs. Stellantis plans to invest approximately $100 million in the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan, enabling it to produce a new large SUV with both internal combustion engines and plug-in hybrid powertrains, which will enhance the vehicle’s range and efficiency. It’s unclear what this new SUV, set to be released in 2028, will be called. The Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer are currently manufactured at the Warren plant. By 2026, they will be joined to make the Grand Wagoneer. This SUV looks like a whole new car, as Jeep announced yesterday at the launch of the 2026 Grand Wagoneer that the full-size SUV will feature a PHEV system the following year, allowing it to travel farther on a single charge. Stellantis believes that this investment will create 900 new jobs at the Warren plant. Stellantis plans to release the next-generation Dodge Durango in 2029. It will be built at the Detroit Assembly Complex-Jefferson thanks to an investment of $130 million. Stellantis also plans to start making the GMET4 EVO, a new four-cylinder engine, in 2026. This will cost the company more than $100 million and add more than 100 jobs at its sites in Kokomo, Indiana. Strangely, these claims don’t mention the Chrysler name or any changes made to the Jeep Recon. The boxy, off-road-focused EV, called the Recon, was first shown in 2022 when Jeep announced that production would start in 2024. Since then, Jeep is said to have considered adding a combustion engine to the Recon to improve it. Early in 2025, the company shared more pictures of Recon and said that sales would start before the end of the year. However, no further details about the arrival of the Recon have been made public, despite spy tests having been conducted on prototypes. Chrysler, which primarily sells minivans these days, had planned to release a new electric SUV in 2024, but it changed its mind and announced it would come out in 2025. CEO Chris Feuell said earlier this year that these plans were still in the works. He stated that the SUV would not be a production version of the 2022 Airflow concept, but rather would be based on the architecture showcased in the 2024 Halcyon concept. But at the beginning of this year, it was thought that work on the electric SUV had stopped. There is no mention of the Recon or the Chrysler electric SUV, which makes me wonder if they will ever be released, given the challenges of transitioning to electric cars in the US. However, Stellantis claims this is the largest investment the company has ever made in the US. By the end of 2029, 19 improved goods and powertrains will be added to the new models.
