Stellantis announced its next round of major investments, including preparations for the new Dodge Durango.
Talk about waiting to exhale, huh? Even after it’s spent the past 15 years (!) building the current-generation Dodge Durango, we’re still in for a wait to see the next-generation model. We now have an updated time frame thanks to Stellantis’ latest announcements concerning $13 billion in plant investments over the next four years, which also included money and a launch date for Dodge’s fourth-generation family SUV. Here’s the upshot: The automaker still plans to build a new Durango at its Detroit Assembly Complex – Jefferson, but we won’t see production until 2029.
Are you keeping score there? That means by the time we see this next Durango roll out to the masses, the old one — and even calling it “old” in the current context is a bit of an understatement — will have been kicking around for nearly two decades. Can you remember where you were and what you were doing back in 2010?
At the moment, we don’t know exactly what the next-generation 2029 Dodge Durango will look like or its potential powertrain setups. While the brand just went with an all-V8 lineup for 2026, it’s possible (and perhaps likely) that we’ll see Stellantis incorporate new powertrains into the mix as part of the overhaul. The company said in its statement it expects to drop $130 million into the plant that builds the current Durango as well as the WL-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee, reaffirming its commitment earlier this year.
Earlier UAW white papers regarding its Stellantis-employed members suggested the automaker aims to revamp its Pentastar V6 by 2028, but that information is a couple years old at this point. That same document also said a Durango would emerge next year, and that’s obviously not happening.
Collectively speaking, the $13 billion figure is the largest single investment in Chrysler’s 100-year history, and it includes plans to drop $600 million into its Belvidere Assembly plant in Illinois. That facility will build the Jeep Cherokee and the new Compass once it’s done retooling in 2027. A further $400 million will go into the Toledo, Ohio complex to build a new midsize truck, while $100 million will go into the GME-T4 EVO engine development at the Kokomo, Indiana plant. (On the old UAW white paper, that engine was supposed to come from the Dundee plant in Michigan, but it seems plans have also shifted there.)
So, we have mentions of Dodge, Jeep and Ram in this week’s announcement. There is still one glaring omission, though, and that’s the Chrysler brand. It’s still supposedly working on new models and even has its own design studio to help make that happen, but there’s still nothing new to report. When (or, as the running gag goes, if) we see new Chrysler vehicles emerge, they’ll undoubtedly arrive on the same STLA Medium and STLA Large platforms underpinning the brand’s new models, likely including the new Dodge Durango.
While plans were to fully electrify various lineups like Chrysler’s, that is no longer the case. The new STLA platforms are “multi-energy” solutions, so we’ll see internal combustion remain in the fold, along with electrified — either plug-in hybrid or “range-extended electric vehicles (REEVs)” — in the portfolio moving forward.
