In its Q2 2021 press release issued on July 1, FCA/Stellantis had two statements that made me do a doubletake:
- Jeep Wrangler 4xe – No. 1 best-selling plug-in hybrid.
- Since the full launch of the Wrangler 4xe earlier this year, it quickly became the No. 1 best-selling plug-in hybrid in the marketplace.
Wow, I thought, after only a few months on the market the Wrangler 4xe PHEV — with only 21 miles of EPA range, but qualifying for the full $7,500 federal EV tax credit because of its 17 kWh battery pack — was already the number one-selling PHEV in the US.
Image source: StellantisNumbers or not, I knew intuitively that it would be quite impressive if the Wrangler 4xe outsold the Toyota Prius Prime in its first full quarter on the market. So to try and validate the claim from FCA/Stellantis, I dove into the numbers and reached out to its PR team.
While Toyota seems to be a punching bag recently among the EV crowd, I give the company credit for actually breaking out sales numbers for its hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fuel cell vehicles, something that almost no other OEM does with their US sales reports. That said, the numbers in the latest press release are only for the 1H and month of June, which then requires some Excel work and estimations to dig deeper.
Source: Toyota Motor North America
As you can see in the above screenshot of the Toyota table, the Prius Prime sold 18,862 units in the first half of 2021 and 3,087 in June. Since GM discontinued the Chevrolet Volt, the Prius Prime (AFAIK) has been the top-selling PHEV in the US. (The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, and now the RAV4 Prime, are the only plug-in hybrids with official public sales data being reported by the automakers.)
Image source: Toyota North America
So armed with this data and confidence that the Prius Prime was (at least until now), the top-selling PHEV in the US, I emailed several people on the FCA/Stellantis PR team. If the 4xe is indeed the #1-selling PHEV, that is actually quite an impressive milestone and I wanted to confirm the claim.
After three email exchanges with Rick Deneau at Stellantis, here is where I ended up. The estimate I shared with Denau was that “sales for the Prime were 11,867 for Q2 and 3,087 for June. So, can you confirm the 4xe exceeded ~7,500 for the combined May and June?”
Deneau responded: “In short, we show higher sales in May, June, and for the 2nd qu overall”
So while still not sharing actual numbers for the 4xe, Deneau was confirming that the new PHEV sold more units in Q2 and May and June than the Prius Prime. I have to trust that this is true, but unless Stellantis has access to data that no one else has, how did they know on June 30 when they wrote the press release and before Toyota released its 1H numbers, that the 4xe outsold the Prius Prime?
Source: Screenshots from the Jeep website
Image source: Lexus
