By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Stellantis said Tuesday it is recalling 375,000 plug-in hybrid Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee SUVs worldwide over battery failure after 19 reports of fires, and urged owners to park outdoors until a fix is completed.
The recall covers some 2020 through 2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe and 2022-2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe SUVs.
The company said a recall remedy is imminent but, until then, owners should park away from structures and refrain from charging vehicles because of fire risks.
Stellantis told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration it had reports of 19 fires and one injury linked to the issue. About 320,000 of the recalled vehicles are in the United States.
The automaker said the batteries were produced by Samsung SDI. An investigation by Stellantis and Samsung SDI determined that a fire earlier this year was caused by the same defect reported in the 2024 recall of 154,000 plug-in hybrid Jeep EVs after reports of two injuries.
Vehicles that were repaired after recalls in 2023 and 2024 will need to be fixed again, NHTSA said.
Samsung SDI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stellantis said it had received nine reports of fires originating from the battery in plug-in Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee vehicles that received software in the 2024 recall, and 10 fires from batteries outside the scope of that recall.
Samsung SDI has stated the most likely root cause is separator damage combined with other complex interactions within the battery cells.
The Franco-American automaker had also recalled more than 298,000 U.S. vehicles in October, citing potential rollaway risk.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
