An Avenger with character, grunt

It looks like a rough road ahead for some motor vehicle makers in 2025, caught between building old-style, combustion-engined cars or flash  electric machines.

Many are hedging bets – yet losing market share – as a tsunami of cheap and cheaper EVs floods out of China.

Pity, then, the likes of the legendary Jeep brand: a showroom stalwart since World War II and renowned for off-road abilities, trying to straddle new gullies. Part of Jeep’s answer now includes a front-drive, all-electric,  small SUV.

The European-built Avenger, already well-feted in the Northern Hemisphere, is the most compact of Jeeps, priced from $49,990 retail and a flagship for the next generation of battery electric Jeeps.

First up, the Avenger has some style, particularly in bold colours, that helps set it apart from rivals.

It’s compact (at a tick over four metres long), yet there’s a big-boy character with the likes of a little less hip in the profile, short front and rear body overhangs, ‘off-road’ black cladding for lower body edges, a cute rear end and seven blanked-off ‘slots’ (a traditional Jeep signature) for the grille. It’s a perky-looking machine.

That clean and functional character is carried through to a tidy interior with straight lines (with a deal of hard-plastic surfaces), informative and simple instrument panel with good graphics and a 10.25-inch touchscreen for infotainment (blessed with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto).

A tad different are the push-buttons, lower down on the centre dash, for selecting gears.

Front seats are supportive, the rear seat has room for an old six-footer to sit behind another old six-footer (if maybe only as far as Brisbane to the coast).

Allowing for the Jeep Avenger’s compact nature, there’s reasonable luggage space. No spare wheel, but there’s a tyre repair kit for the 18-inch rubber on the fancier Summit version.

Those big wheels allow for a little bump-thump through city potholes.

Yet, generally, the ride is good and quite composed.

It is a confident car to steer, and it sits well on the road. Driving’s  helped out by the usual array of aids from blind-spot monitoring to traffic-sign recognition.

Then there’s the 115kW and 260Nm of torque from a 54kWh battery which, with some judicious driving, should allow for 390km of driving range and a week’s to-ing and fro-ing around the town. Best of it, though, is the smart and silent acceleration of the 1.5-tonne Avenger, even in Eco mode.

(Here’s a perplexing issue with all electric cars: regenerative braking feeds power back to the battery as the vehicle slows. So, the more a driver brakes, the more charge is returned which may lead to more folk leaning on the brakes and baulking traffic … and there’s enough of them already, thank you.)

The Jeep runs a selection of drive modes plus hill-descent control, Selec-Terrain for different ground types and a claimed 200mm of ground clearance.

So, there’s some rough track ability here to go with the hatchback’s polite road manners.

Retail prices for the Jeep Avenger run from the $40,990 through to $60,990 for the top of the range.

This may not be the cheapest compact SUV, electric or otherwise, but it’s one with character and capabilities not always found in this niche.