Jeep could have taken the easy route with the new Compass 4xe. Give it more power than the regular versions, add some tougher-looking bumpers, talk about electrification and call it the performance model of the range.
Instead, quite a lot of attention has gone into what happens when the pavement ends.
The new Compass 4xe produces 375 hp, which makes it the most powerful Compass yet. That’s a slightly ridiculous figure when you remember where this model started – the Compass was never supposed to be Jeep’s muscle car. But horsepower isn’t really the reason this version stands apart from the rest of the range.
It’s the hardware underneath.
Jeep has given the 4xe a proper mechanical connection to the rear axle, together with a dedicated low-range function. That’s a different philosophy from simply adding an electric motor at the back and using software to create all-wheel drive whenever the front wheels need some help.
For a Jeep, that distinction feels important.
Plenty of modern crossovers now arrive with black wheel-arch trim, driving modes called things like “Mud” and “Snow” and photographs of the car parked beside a mountain. Most of them will spend their lives dealing with wet supermarket car parks and the occasional gravel driveway. The Compass will probably do exactly the same thing for many owners, but Jeep still seems determined to make sure the hardware can back up the image.
Throughout 2026, the company has been showing what the new Compass can do through its Capability Stories series, with another installment arriving on October 2. The 4xe gets specific calibration for loose surfaces, along with changes intended to make it more useful once grip becomes unpredictable.
None of this turns it into a Wrangler. Nor should it.
The Compass still has to work as an ordinary European C-segment SUV for the other 99 percent of its life. People are going to commute in it, carry children in it and spend considerably more time looking for a parking space than climbing a rocky trail. Making it miserable on the road just to prove a point off it would be rather pointless.
That’s why the combination is interesting. You get the technology and packaging expected from a modern family SUV, but underneath there is more than a collection of electronic driving modes pretending to be off-road hardware.
Will most owners ever find its limits? Probably not. Then again, plenty of people buy cars capable of 250 km/h and never see the far side of 150. Pickup owners don’t necessarily tow at maximum capacity every Tuesday either.
Sometimes knowing the ability is there is part of what you’re paying for.
The 375-hp output will inevitably make the headlines because it is an easy number to understand, and being able to call this the most powerful Compass ever built certainly won’t hurt Jeep’s marketing department. I’m just not convinced it’s the most interesting number attached to the car.
A Compass with 375 hp is amusing.
A modern electrified Compass whose engineers still cared about what happens when one wheel is hanging in the air says considerably more about what Jeep wants the 4xe badge to mean.
And that’s probably how it should be.
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