Chrysler to cut weight of next-gen Jeep Liberty by 600 pounds!
The Jeep Liberty is not a particularly large vehicle, but Chrysler engineers managed to pack a lot of mass into it nonetheless. The current Liberty weighs in at nearly 4,300 pounds! At the Chrysler business plan meeting today, product development SVP Scott Kunselman revealed that aerodynamics and weight reduction will be a big part of all future vehicles. Using modern computer design tools and lighter materials the company plans to pare large amounts of excess mass. As an example, Kunselman revealed that the next generation Liberty SUV will shed a whopping 600 pounds!
In addition Chrysler will help drivers reduce fuel consumption through connectivity technologies. New navigation systems will have more intelligence in the routing algorithms with the goal of minimizing the fuel consumption. For example, it could set up the route to minimize left turns even if it might mean going slightly further. UPS has been experimenting with similar technology in its routing and now it looks like consumers will be able to get it.
[Source: Chrysler]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dieselliberty 1:30PM (11/04/2009)
Why don't they learn from the 05-06 Liberty CRDs (Diesel) and bring them back. I have one that gets 30 mpg on the freeway easily. Not bad for a 5000 some odd pound vehicle. City mileage isn't bad either at 20 something.
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nrb 1:36PM (11/04/2009)
My first reaction is to say they didn't sell all that well. However, we're one article too early. The next ABG article says they actually are brining back diesels.
why not the LS2LS7? 1:53PM (11/04/2009)
It's still going to have a lot of ugly left on it though.
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jake 3:06PM (11/04/2009)
Looking at the size I would have expected it to be in the 3500lbs range in the first place. Starting off at 4300lbs obviously a lot of weight savings can be had.
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Matt 9:18PM (11/04/2009)
The Liberty is heavy because it really is a truck. It's essentially a Cherokee with four coil springs; keeping the solid rear axle (and front in the 4x4). The 4x4 is the heaviest model, and it weighs in at 4,269 lbs. The lighter 2wd version is still 3,985 lbs, but you can see in the difference how much weight is in the heavy duty running gear. No doubt there are lots of things they could do to make it lighter (and therefore better able to tackle the trail), but Chrysler hasn't exactly been on the bleeding edge of automotive technology. If a company really wants to break through to a wide open market, they'll make a lightweight diesel off road vehicle with lots of clearance and lots of options. Take a look at the after market for the Tacoma before it grew, or the Cherokee (despite its weight); the demand is there. Nobody makes a solid off road vehicle any more apart from the Jeeps, and Jeep is slipping. If they don't tighten up and improve they'll disappear faster than you can say bailout.
moa 8:21AM (11/06/2009)
"The Liberty is heavy because it really is a truck. It's essentially a Cherokee with four coil springs; keeping the solid rear axle (and front in the 4x4)."
but cherokee weighted about 3000. in some trims it was lighter than wrangler...
PabloKoh 3:08PM (11/04/2009)
My 2dr. 4cyl. 2wd, 5 speed Jeep Cherokee weighs 2800lbs.
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Carney 4:44PM (11/04/2009)
Experience has shown that increased fuel efficiency does NOT reduce fuel consumption.
So all this effort is of marginal importance at best.
Also, we can see from this example that predictions from critics that the constant political pressure to wring a few more pointless MPGs out of cars is causing automakers to simply make their vehicles more flimsy rather than engage in real innovation is being vindicated.
It's predictable, really - the low-hanging fruit, the obvious steps, have been taken long ago, in the prior round of fuel efficiency improvements from 1976 to 1990 (during which fuel consumption ROSE). If you insist on trying to squeeze more blood from the stone of the ICE, a very mature and well understood tech, then it will be painful - either expensive hybrid tech, or making the cars slower, weaker, smaller, and/or flimsier.
If we could only just get off the forced march to austerity-ville.... but no.
Meanwhile, all but ignored, and certainly effectively ignored relative to its importance, the option of just switching fuels, to clean-burning, renewable, non water polluting alcohol, just sits there. With such a fuel, it wouldn't MATTER
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why not the LS2LS7? 8:30PM (11/04/2009)
Alcohol produces NOx as much as the next fuel does. And if you make it with materials grown using nitrate fertilizers, it's up there in non-renewable CO2 also.
Matt 9:51PM (11/04/2009)
You honestly believe that your car's fuel efficiency determines the amount you drive? The correlation is there, to be sure, but you've got it backwards. The amount you drive generally determines the fuel efficiency of your vehicle. This is simple economics; if you drive 100 miles per day and don't haul anything buy yourself, you purchase a car designed to minimize your daily fuel costs. If you only drive 5 miles a day you probably don't care what kind of mileage your vehicle gets because it doesn't hit your wallet. That covers the average person.
Most readers on this site are here because they are not average. They are here to advocate the advancement of automotive technology as it applies to efficiency and environmental impact. Making a car more efficient does not mean it has to be "flimsy" or weak, or even expensive. Some times it requires a little thought or engineering effort, but that's why automotive engineers and designers have jobs. How can you advocate complacency when there is clearly room to improve. Go drive the new Chevy Equinox and tell me that the 32 mpg it gets is somehow less comfortable or less appealing than the model from a 2005 that only managed 24 mpg? That's a 33% increase in the last five years. No hybrid, no diesel, just gasoline and some really smart engineers. Not only is it 33% more fuel efficient, but it's generally more comfortable and safer. Oh, and it starts at $22,440... which is cheaper than the original when you account for inflation.
But you're probably right, we should all just switch to Alcohol and quit with that newfangled technology stuff.
Carney 2:41PM (11/05/2009)
why not the LS2LS7?,
Alcohol fuel emits significantly less NOx. More importantly, alcohol fuel in vapor form in the atmosphere (released, like gasoline vapor, through imperfect combustion or leaks in the refueling process) reacts to atmospheric NOx at less than a tenth of the rate that gasoline vapor does. Finally, unlike gasoline vapor, alcohol vapor is washed out easily from the air by rain. The net effect is that of a dramatic reduction in NOx and especially in its negative effects such as ozone smog.
Carney 2:55PM (11/05/2009)
Matt, thanks to CAFE, average fuel economy went up a whopping 65%, from 13 MPG in 1976 to 20 MPG in 1990, a huge increase. But gasoline usage did not fall 65%, nor by a lesser amount, or even break even. Instead it rose 14%, from 89 to 103 billion gallons a year. By 2004 it hit 140 billion.
The pressures on gasoline demand are too great for increased efficiency to match. Growth in population produces more drivers. Economic growth causes increased per capita and overall wealth which produces more drivers - it's consistent that as soon as people can afford cars, they buy them, and it doesn't stop at one per household. There are other factors as well such as continued flight from crime-ridden high-tax cities and decaying inner suburbs into suburbs and exurbs.
Now look at China and India. The USA has 800 cars per 1,000 residents; China has 8, which is a quadrupling in just the last several years. China's growth in car ownership is likely to be explosive.
America has 3% of world oil reserves and 25% of demand. Now imagine a player the size of the US walking into the room.
Now recall that OPEC has 70% of world oil reserves, including all the cheapest and easiest-to-drill stuff, and having as the very reason for its existence the goal of deliberately under-producing relative to demand so as to produce artificial scarcity and high prices. While non-OPEC oil production has roughly matched world economic and population growth since the late 70s by doubling, OPEC produced no more oil in 2008 than they did in 1978, despite huge increases in efficiency and techniques that make oil extraction far cheaper and easier.
What did your vaunted increases in fuel efficiency avail us when OPEC spiked the price of petroleum from $10 a barrel in 1999 to a world collapse-inducing $140 in 2008? Not at all.
Continuing our suicidal passivity in permitting millions of cars to be produced and sold each year that are needlessly locked in to petroleum-only, when adding alcohol compatibility costs a measly $130 per car, is folly beyond words.