2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee Adds New Hurricane 4 Turbo Engine Option
Stellantis’ best-selling vehicle gets an upgrade under the hood.
- Jeep has unveiled the next-generation Grand Cherokee, which features a slight redesign.
- Stellantis is also rolling out a brand new 324 horsepower four-cylinder engine called the Hurricane 4, and there are a lot of changes under the hood.
- The engine will be produced in Dundee, and factory staff expect further shifts to be added to meet demand.
Jeep is giving its best-selling SUV a slight facelift and a complete overhaul under the hood.
The 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee, announced by the company on Tuesday, October 28, was released with a slightly modernized boxer look and a ground-up turbocharged four-cylinder engine that Stellantis is calling the Hurricane 4.
Jeep CEO Bob Broderdorf unveiled the 2026 Grand Cherokee at a press event, saying, “We’re making so many changes to this brand so quickly,” noting that this will be the third revived or redesigned vehicle Jeep will launch in 2025.
But the Grand Cherokee is an important vehicle for the Jeep brand and Jeep’s parent company, Stellantis.
“(The Grand Cherokee) is the No. 1 sales driver, not just for the Jeep brand, but for Stellantis as a whole,” Broderdorf said.
For the 2026 model year, Jeep will offer several Grand Cherokee trim levels in two- and three-row configurations (with three rows reserved for the longer-wheelbase version, the Grand Cherokee L) and three different powertrains.
The Grand Cherokee’s entry-level trim levels, Laredo and Laredo
Jeep has not yet announced the release date for the new Grand Cherokee, nor has it released its price.
smaller than a penny
The new turbocharged Hurricane 4 engine incorporates fuel injection technology from Maserati’s F1 racing lineage to deliver 324 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque.
Inside the engine, on top of the cylinder, is a small piece of machined copper, smaller in diameter than a dime and as tall as a thimble. This device is part of the racing engine-adapted engine’s Turbulent Jet Ignition (TJI) system designed for Maserati.
This small piece of copper is a pre-chamber for the air-fuel mixture, which, when injected, is ignited by one or two spark plugs (at certain power levels, the Hurricane 4 operates with two spark plugs per chamber).
Mickey Bly, Stellantis’ head of global propulsion systems, said this technology allows the Hurricane 4 engine to balance high power with low fuel consumption. Small pieces allow fuel to be dispersed quickly, allowing for high efficiency.
Bly said he was involved in the development of the Hurricane 4 project, which began in 2021, and was reminded of how far automotive engineering has come by pulling 324 horsepower from a 2L engine. When he joined Stellantis in 1992, he said, “we were doing everything we could to get 300 horsepower out of a 5.7-liter (engine).”
Bligh is now rolling out a 2-liter engine that is one-third the displacement size of a V8 and produces more power while consuming significantly less fuel.
“Given that we’ve gone from a 5.7 liter to a slightly smaller 2 liter, the fact that we’re producing more power than just a few generations ago says a lot about where 2 liter technology is at,” Bligh said.
Bligh said the engine’s high performance is due in part to TJI technology, which is the auto industry’s first mass-produced, consumer-grade application of prechamber combustion technology. Asked whether racing engine technology would be reliable in civilian vehicles, Bligh said he was confident the Hurricane 4 would be reliable even with new equipment.
“I’m not worried about reliability at all. We beat the crap out of these engines (in testing),” Bligh said. “It’s really going to be a game changer.”
The engine will be manufactured in Dundee, Michigan.
The new Hurricane 4 engine will be produced at the Dundee Engine Plant, which also produces the EP6 engine that powers the hybrid Jeep Cherokee.
For Dundee Engine Plant Manager Lamarcus Keels, building engines for Stellantis’ best-selling SUV means stable headcount, faster production lines and more jobs at the Dundee manufacturing plant, which has been hit by layoffs and slow product supply.
“We were able to bring back everyone who was laid off at this plant from layoffs,” Keels said, adding that the plant plans to hire Stellantis employees who were laid off from other facilities as needed, per the union’s contract. “For the past three months, most of our employees have been coming back.”
The plan is to return the Dundee Engine Plant, represented by UAW Local 723, to three shifts if demand for the product is high enough. Currently, the plant is operating one and a half shifts.
Keels, who toured the engine shop floor, said the plant is learning how to make new engines and is slowly ramping up production with a goal of producing 111 engines per hour.
Dundee isn’t the only factory producing the new Hurricane 4 engine. Stellantis said in a news release that the engines will be manufactured “in the future” at the Stellantis Assembly Plant in Kokomo, Indiana.
The company previously announced a $13 billion investment in manufacturing facilities across the Midwest and indicated that Kokomo would begin manufacturing the Hurricane 4 in 2026, with the Kokomo plant listed as a beneficiary of $100 million.
Although engine production will take place in Dundee and Kokomo, the 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee will be built at both Stellantis’ Jefferson North and Mack assembly plants.
Liam Rapley covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.
