The Cherokee will be back for the 2026 model year with a hybrid engine after a three-year break. The inside is much more modern, featuring two larger screens, but the outside now looks more blocky than before. The hybrid powertrain is much more powerful and gets better gas mileage than the earlier base four-cylinder engine. Over the past few years, Jeep hasn’t had a Cherokee in its range. A lot has changed since then. The 2026 Jeep Cherokee comes with a standard hybrid engine, a more up-to-date interior, and redesigned body panels. This Cherokee is very different from the last one, which came out for the 2023 model year. This shows how far the Cherokee has come. When the fifth-generation Cherokee came out in 2014, its sleek styling caused a lot of disagreement. Small LED daytime running lights placed high up made the pointy front end stand out. Since then, the Cherokee’s design cue of putting the main headlights under an LED “eyebrow” has become popular as a way to make current SUVs look better. For the Cherokee’s rebirth, Jeep, on the other hand, turned down that style and went back to its roots with an upright, boxy body. The headlights and taillights are more boxy, and the car looks a lot like its bigger sibling, the Grand Cherokee. The Cherokee is now significantly larger than it used to be. Its total length has grown by five inches, to 188.1 inches, and its wheelbase has grown from 106.6 inches to 113 inches. The small SUV is also an inch higher and 1.5 inches wider than it was before. Jeep says the hybrid Cherokee weighs 4,295 pounds, which is more than 400 pounds more than the $2023 base Cherokee. The cabin also looks very different from the 2023 model, which had an old-fashioned look that was almost ten years old. The 8.4-inch tablet that was stuck between the air vents in the previous Cherokee is no longer there. The SUV now has a 12.3-inch navigation screen that is easy to see and can connect to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto wirelessly. All Cherokees have a 10.3-inch digital gauge panel, which is a big improvement over the 2023 model’s small screen that was stuck between real gauges. The dashboard is now laid out more horizontally than it was before, and the thin climate system vents that run along the top edge of the dashboard are drawn attention to by chrome trim. The driving wheel is also shaped like an octagon instead of a sphere. Jeep has put more emphasis on cargo space than passenger space, but the bigger dimensions make the inside feel more roomy. When the back seats are folded down, Jeep says there is 68 cubic feet of extra room for cargo, which is 30% more than before. The 2023 version provided 55 cubic feet, so this marks a notable upgrade. When it comes to back seat space, the new Cherokee is much better than the old Cherokee. It has 34 cubic feet of space instead of 26 cubic feet. The front seats of Cherokees without the panoramic sunroof have about an inch more headroom, but the glass panel takes away that advantage, and legroom only gets two-tenths of an inch better. The hip room expands by 0.6 inches, while the shoulder room remains virtually unchanged. There is a little more space in the second seat, but about two inches less legroom. People in the second row, on the other hand, have an extra 2.5 inches of arm space and a little more hip space. The 2023 Cherokee came with two four-cylinder engine options: the Altitude trim was equipped with a 2.4-liter inline-four generating 180 horsepower, while the Trailhawk version featured a 2.0-liter engine producing 270 horsepower. In the same year, Jeep also announced plans to replace the Trailhawk’s 271-hp V-6 with a four-cylinder engine. The 2026 Cherokee keeps its four-cylinder design but now adds a hybrid setup that integrates a turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four with two electric motors and a battery. This setup provides 210 horsepower and 230 pound-feet of torque. Replacing the previous nine-speed automatic, the hybrid model now uses a continuously variable transmission. The new Cherokee hybrid, rated at 37 mpg combined, is expected to be far more efficient than the current version, according to Jeep. The 2023 Cherokee achieves 22 mpg on the highway with its 2.0-liter engine and 24 mpg with the 2.4-liter version. Jeep also claims the hybrid model can travel over 500 miles on a full tank, a significant improvement over the previous engines, which managed 379 and 348 miles, respectively. The 2026 Cherokee is all-wheel drive. Before the 2023 model year, when Jeep significantly reduced its inventory, the previous generation had a base car with front-wheel drive. The model from 2026 has four drive modes, including one for sand and mud and another for snow. It also comes with a basic mechanism for disconnecting the rear axle. Because Jeep chose to make fewer of the 2023 Cherokee, it was only available in two trim levels: Trailhawk and Altitude Lux. From 2022 to 2023, the Cherokee came in five trim levels, including the regular Altitude and an “X” version. There will be four different trim options for the 2026 Jeep Cherokee: basic, Laredo, Limited, and Overland. We predict that Jeep will introduce an all-terrain Trailhawk model in the next few years, despite not having one currently. Prices for the 2026 Cherokee start at $36,995, and prices for the 2026 Laredo start at $39,995. It will cost $45,995 for the Overland trim and $42,495 for the Limited trim. At its launch, the 2023 Cherokee started at a price of $39,290. This was more expensive because Jeep only had two model options. The base model of the Cherokee Altitude will cost $31,590 in 2022, while the top-of-the-line Limited model will cost $40,940. The fifth-generation Cherokee was made in Toledo, Ohio, from 2013 to 2017 before moving to Belvidere, Illinois. The new 2026 Cherokee will be made in Toluca, Mexico.
