MAGNETO PERSONALITY Jeep’s original Magneto concept was a Wrangler EV designed to perform like a petrol one.
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hat is that sound? It seems like only yesterday if you wanted a Wrangler then you almost certainly wanted it with a 3.6L V6. It didn’t rumble quite like a V8 but it was still a growl to thrill the ears. But then Jeep launched the Magneto concept in 2021. And the sound was – silence. An all-electric Wrangler certainly silenced some of the diehards, who were reduced to shuffling their feet and scratching their heads under their baseball caps. And last year Jeep did it again, launching the Magneto 2.0 at Moab Jeep Safari in Utah earlier in 2022. Only this time the silence was a little deeper, caused in part by mouths opening and staying open. The clue is in the name. The 2.0 bit. Obvious really, as this is the revised, second version of the all-electric Wrangler. But there’s another angle to this. Guess how quickly this rig can accelerate from standstill to 60mph? Yes indeedy. Two seconds. T-w-o. That’s actually quicker than a Bugatti Chiron, a supercar with a price tag starting well north of £250,000. And that performance is in a 4x4 that can go crawling sedately and quietly up some of the toughest terrain that Utah has to offer, and that’s plenty tough. This second Magneto iteration doesn’t look that different to the first concept, so how, exactly how, have they achieved such a thing? It’s like Jeep started cautiously but has now just gone full chocks away, max throttle towards a fun horizon. The first concept was pretty good in that it managed to mimic the performance of a normal V6 Wrangler. The 70kWh powerplant equalled 285bhp and 273lb ft of torque, so it could canter to 60mph from standstill in a very creditable 6.8sec. You get the sense that this is what they wanted, to replicate the existing Jeep as much as possible, so that people weren’t too spooked by the electric powerplant. A year later Jeep clearly don’t care about spooking people and their careful walk now has a distinct swagger.
26 | FEBRUARY 2023
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4x4 14/01/2023 17:07
