First Look! The Brand-New Jeep Grand Cherokee Is Packin’ Huge Power From a Small Engine

For decades, Jeep’s stalwart Grand Cherokee has been a volume model for the brand—a midsize SUV with style and civility for everyday life and enough off-road capability to go a little wild whenever the spirit moved you.

We're still a few years out from a complete overhaul, as the next-generation model built on the STLA Large platform isn’t expected until 2028. But that isn't stopping Jeep from giving its 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee a significant makeover, one highlighted by the launch of a new global engine for Stellantis: the 2.0-liter turbocharged Hurricane inline-four (read our deep dive here). The H4 becomes the little brother to the excellent Hurricane inline-six engine currently offered in standard and high-output tune in other models.

Despite its fresh new powertrain, the Grand Cherokee will continue to ride for now on the automaker’s well-worn WL platform. “We didn’t need to change it at this time because it does everything we want it to do,” says Micky Bly, Stellantis senior vice president and head of propulsion systems engineering. It will still be offered as a two-row, five-passenger SUV or as the three-row, seven-passenger Grand Cherokee L. And while the new Hurricane 4 engine should wow, consumers will still be able to get the Grand Cherokee with the current but aging 3.6-liter V-6 or opt for the 4xe plug-in hybrid, which still uses the legacy GME 2.0-liter turbo four.

Sprucing Up the Look

The 2026 Grand Cherokee has been freshened up some on the outside, thanks to LED lighting in a hockey stick shape, and an updated, seven-slot grille is similar to the 2026 Jeep Cherokee’s with a coarse mesh. The top tier Summit trim sports 21-inch black wheels and black lowers while the Trailhawk has red tow hooks and rock rails. Jeep has also doubled the number of colors to choose from with some new blues, a fiery red, and copper.

Inside, we checked out a Summit featuring a warm brown quilted interior, good use of wood trim, and a larger infotainment screen well integrated into the dash. Uconnect 5 now has a 12.3-inch primary display (up from 10.1) and a 10.3-inch passenger display. The Trailhawk on display had a black interior with red stitching, glossy trim, and no wood. Rear seats have air vents, controls, and USB outlets. There's also a 19-speaker McIntosh audio system on offer. The Grand Cherokee L has USB chargers for third-row passengers and an optional 60/40 second-row bench seat.

One thing we didn’t see: chrome. According to Vince Galante, vice president of Jeep design, the death of chrome is nigh for the automaker. Because the chrome plating process uses extremely hazardous chemicals, Jeep decided to make the switch to less chemically offensive satin metallics for the Wagoneer S, the revamped Jeep Cherokee, and now the 2026 Grand Cherokee and 2026 Grand Wagoneer. It's a shift that will continue to proliferate through the lineup.

See All 22 Photos22

Big News Under the Hood

While the changes inside and out are solid, without question the headline update for the 2026 Grand Cherokee is the availability of the all-new 2.0-liter Hurricane turbo-four that delivers a healthy 324 horsepower and 332 lb-ft of torque for the model. It also achieves an estimated 506 miles to a single tank of premium fuel and is capable of towing up to 6,200 pounds.

Stellantis used learnings from its Hurricane 6 during development of the new engine, but the cast-aluminum-block inline-four was created from a clean sheet of paper, according to Bly. At 162 hp/liter, it's more power dense than most of the competition, and 80 percent of peak torque is available at 2,300 rpm with peak torque on tap from 3,000 to 4,500 rpm.

So yeah, it’s powerful, but it also delivers what Jeep says is incredible real-world fuel economy, using 10 percent less fuel while generating 20 percent more power than the automaker’s current 2.0-liter four, Bly says. It also achieves better overall output than the Pentastar V-6.

See All 22 Photos22

The Secret to This Hurricane

With most engines, fuel is usually delivered into a combustion chamber through the use of port or direct injection. This engine uses both. At low speeds under light loads, it employs port injection, which puts less load on the engine and helps reduce parasitic loss as a result. At higher loads and speeds, it shifts to direct injection. It also uses Miller-cycle cam timing strategy for added efficiency.

But more than that, the Hurricane 4’s secret sauce is how it handles its business in the combustion chamber. Normally during a combustion event, the fuel vapor’s sprayed in, it’s ignited by a single spark plug, and you subsequently get one flame that burns throughout the chamber, often with a less than homogeneous and sometimes incomplete burn.

The Hurricane 4 solves for that issue through the use of what's known as Turbulent Jet Ignition, which begins by igniting a small amount of fuel into a cuplike pre-chamber device located on top of each cylinder. Fuel gets shoved into this prechamber during the compression stroke, then ignited by a spark plug inside. The combustion initiated then jets out of nine holes, quickly igniting the fuel in the rest of the chamber. These nine torches trigger a faster and more complete burn. Jeep says the end result is improved efficiency and a cleaner combustion process without sacrificing power.

Bly is confident in the reliability of the new engine as a whole, and the spark plug of each pre-chamber more specifically, which he says cleans itself naturally. Jeep engineers are said to have beaten the crap out of the engine and its novel Turbulent Jet Ignition in testing, and everything has held up well. He thinks it's a game charger for the industry, which has tried to get to a more homogeneous type of combustion. He likens it to a cylinder in an F1 race engine with a lot of exploding. This engine brings that concept to the mainstream. Note that at idle and under low-load conditions, port fuel injection and a secondary spark plug in the main chamber are used.

The engine will run on regular fuel, but the EPA rating will be based on premium fuel.

See All 22 Photos22

In the Works for a While

The propulsion team has been working on the smaller engine for a few years. “This has been a dream for the team to work on,” Bly says. It explains why Jeep hadn’t put the Hurricane I-6 into the Jeep Cherokee, knowing it had something new on the way.

The goal is to phase out the current 2.0-liter turbo-four over the next two to three years globally and replace it with the Hurricane 4. The current four-cylinder is built at the Kokomo, Indiana, facility and in Italy. Stellantis recently announced plans to spend $100 million to upgrade Kokomo to make a new four-cylinder engine in 2026. The Hurricane 4 will be assembled at the Dundee engine plant in Michigan.

Jeep CEO Bob Broderdorf thinks 60–65 percent of buyers will go for the I-4 because it's more powerful and efficient. But there will be those whose mental psyche demands a V-6, and Stellantis has the manufacturing flexibility at the Jefferson vehicle assembly plant in Detroit to meet demand however it shakes out.

See All 22 Photos22

Pentastar V-6 and 4xe Still Available

The entry level Grand Cherokee Laredo will continue to be offered with the 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 and will get more standard equipment, including the Selec-Terrain 4x4 system, which will be available for the first time in a Laredo trim. Customers can get a 4xe plug-in hybrid with the Limited, Summit, and Trailhawk models.

The stretched Grand Cherokee L will be offered with the same trims as the two-row. For both, the lineup has been simplified: Laredo, Limited, and Summit.

The Grand Cherokee is built in Detroit at the Jefferson/Mack complex. It will go on sale later this year, around the same time as the 2026 Jeep Grand Wagoneer three-row SUV. Jeep will start taking orders later this month, and the new Hurricane 4 will be available as an upgrade. Jeep says it will soon announce final pricing.

The 2026 Grand Cherokee is one of four new or refreshed Jeeps being introduced this year, starting with the revived 2026 Jeep Cherokee, which returns as a hybrid. The Cherokee and 2026 Grand Wagoneer are coming by year end, and Jeep will show the production version of the electric Jeep Recon soon, prior to it going on sale next spring.