Going nowhere fast
Silverstone, slowly. By Curtis Moldrich
Range anxiety hasn’t really been a thing with the Avenger; charging facilities at home and work mean I’ve rarely thought about it. But a trip to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix put it front and centre – and revealed some technical gremlins.
The plan was simple: shoot up the 90-ish miles from London to Milton Keynes on Friday morning, don’t point and squirt at the roundabouts and keep it smooth. One full charge should see me through the weekend, ideally at my nearby hotel. But the reality wasn’t so simple.
The first choice at my hotel was broken but the second was an InstaVolt near McDonald’s – perfect for charging both man and machine. However, this is where the gremlins began.
The Avenger didn’t charge on the first machine, and the second bricked the car completely. Next the Jeep threw up an error message: ‘Electric Traction System failure: see User Manual.’ The car wouldn’t move, the infotainment wasn’t responsive, and it wouldn’t even turn off. After a few minutes the car seemed to reset, and I was able to move it into a parking space. Was the car broken? How would I get home? I decided these questions were best answered after a large Big Mac meal, but before I ordered a Porsche Taycan arrived and successfully charged, showing that the problem wasn’t non-functioning chargers. He mentioned some Osprey ones further down the road.
Equipped with an apple pie, I headed straight for those alternative chargers, and the Avenger charged faultlessly. I used the same Osprey chargers a day later and there were no further hiccups, allowing me to see Lewis Hamilton take a historic ninth win at Silverstone.
So it wasn’t the car and it wasn’t the InstaVolt charger – but an unfortunate combination. I’ve since charged our Smart #1 there, in case youwere wondering if the problem was me doing something wrong. Not so!
Jeep Avenger Electric Longitude Month 6
The story so far
Characterful take on the small Stellantis EV, wrapped in a convincingly Jeep-style body ★ Decent looks; nippy in town - Deceptive range; fussy tech
Logbook
Price £39,600 (£42,125 as tested) Performance 50.8kWh battery, e-motor, 154bhp, 9.6sec 0-62mph, 93mph
E ciency 3.9-4.0 miles per kWh (ocial), 2.7 miles per kWh (tested), 0g/km CO2 Range
249 miles (ocial), 221 miles (tested) Energy cost 7.3p per mile Miles this month 693 Total miles 3935