Claimed Wagoneer S sales raise questions—including about Charger sales

The Jeep Wagoneer S, in theory, is not yet available for sale, so how can Stellantis / FCA US have sold 76 of them already?

Sales are booked when the vehicles are delivered, so these are not simply pre-orders. Most likely, the 76 sales of the brand new electric car on STLA Large went to cooperating companies or government agencies, or to rental companies, for early testing. Chrysler Corporation provided pre-production cars to rental companies and various company and government fleets for early feedback back when it was a standalone company.

The advantage of seeding pre-production or very-early-production cars to rental outfits and fleets is that any issues not found in the company’s own testing may be discovered by others. This was sometimes instrumental in finding issues even when the company had a full internal testing staff and budget.

Given that the Wagoneer S and new Charger are both in progress, with the Jeep coming out of a factory in Mexico and the Dodge from a factory Canada, it’s likely that some of the over-3,000 Dodge Charger sales reported by the company are also from testing programs. If so, it’s likely only around a hundred or so new Chargers are mixed in with leftover Charger sales, so they would still swamp the combined Alfa Romeo and Fiat sales referred to in the last story.

The new electric Charger is available for ordering; orders for the Wagoneer S are likely going to open soon as well.