The Jeep Treo was an electric

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

produced by

Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...

under their

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile brand, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with other assets, from its previous owner, American Motors Co ...

brand in the early twenty first century. Launched at the 2003

Tokyo Motor Show The , called (TMS) until 2023, is a biennial auto show held in October–November at the Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan for cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles. Hosted by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), it is a recog ...

, it was envisaged for production in 2008, but the single prototype remained a one-off. Designed for the Asian young urban driver, the car was fitted with three seats and had the provision to carry mountain bikes as an integral part of the near-teardrop shaped design. Although the prototype was designed to be powered by a hydrogen

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

, in its production form the car was to be given hybrid petrol-electric drive.

Design

Freeman Thomas Freeman Thomas (born August 20, 1957) is an American automobile and industrial designer who has worked for Porsche, Volkswagen Group, DaimlerChrysler and Ford. Background Thomas, the son of an American military air traffic controller and a German ...

, the Jeep Treo was envisaged as "the ultimate student car" to attract young urban drivers. The car was designed to appeal to a younger audience than others in the Jeep range, it being expected that they would then move onto the more traditional models as they aged. It had a wheelbase of and the body was long, wide and high. It weighed . Power was provided by two electric motors, one mounted on each axle, to give

four-wheel drive A four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, is a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case pr ...

, driven by a hydrogen

mounted under the floor, to offer a

zero-emissions vehicle A zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) is a vehicle that does not emit exhaust gas or other pollutants from the onboard source of power. The California definition also adds that this includes under any and all possible operational modes and conditions. T ...

. The design was inspired by

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

concepts. The exterior was in the shape of a near-teardrop with an open grill at the front. The interior was designed to be light and airy with a large windshield and glass roof extending over the rear cargo space. The cabin had two seats forward with a single foldable seat behind, and the ability to carry two mountain bikes at the back. The bike mountings were integral to the design to emphasise that the car was envisioned for use by the more active city-dweller. The car was designed to use

drive by wire Drive by wire or DbW in the automotive industry is the technology that uses electronics or electro-mechanical systems in place of mechanical linkages to control driving functions. The concept is similar to fly-by-wire in the aviation industry. D ...

to eliminate the need for heavy and bulky mechanical components, while the driver's controls were modular so that the car could be easily switched from left to right hand drive.

Production

The Jeep Trio was produced to appeal to the young urban market in Asia and was unveiled at the 2003

. The design was promoted as a vision of urban driving “a decade or more” in the future. The concept car was well received by motor journalists and a production vehicle was planned powered by a petrol/electric hybrid drivetrain to be launched by 2008. However, the vehicle remained a one-off build.

References

External links

Image gallery at favcars.com
{{Jeep car timeline All-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 2003 Fuel cell vehicles Hybrid electric vehicles Hydrogen cars Treo Motor vehicles manufactured in the United States

Design

Production

See also

References

External links