When 'Operating as Designed' Means Losing Power While Driving

I bought into the Jeep Wrangler 4xe for a simple reason: the capability of a Wrangler, with the option to run on electric power for everyday driving. For a while, it delivered. Then it started doing something I can't ignore — and that no one will measure.

While driving, the vehicle loses propulsion. Not gradually, not predictably. Electric power drops in stages — first to roughly 50 percent, then to roughly 25 percent — and then the system disables electric drive entirely. The dash reads "Electric Mode Temporarily Unavailable," and the vehicle forces itself into hybrid mode.

There is no warning. I press the accelerator, and for several seconds, nothing happens. Then the gas engine catches and power returns.

In traffic, several seconds is everything.

Let me be clear about what actually worries me. I leased this vehicle; I don't care about its resale value. My concern is my wife behind the wheel when it suddenly loses power pulling into an intersection. That is the part no dollar figure measures, and it's why I won't let this go.

The manufacturer already recalled this — for exactly this

Here is the fact I keep returning to.

In October 2025, Chrysler issued a federal safety recall — NHTSA campaign 25V710000, the company's recall A7C — covering certain 2023–2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe vehicles. In its own filing, the manufacturer describes the problem plainly: "a software error in an over-the-air (OTA) update may result in a loss of drive power." The stated consequence: "a loss of drive power increases the risk of a crash." More than 24,000 vehicles.

So the manufacturer has already told the federal government, in writing, that a software error can cause these vehicles to lose drive power, and that losing drive power is a crash risk.

My vehicle loses drive power. But when I search my VIN, it is not in that recall's population.

I'm not claiming my vehicle is covered by A7C — it isn't listed. I'm raising the question that fact demands: if my 4xe exhibits exactly the loss of drive power the recall was issued for, why isn't it included? Was my VIN missed? Is the recall's scope too narrow? How many other owners are experiencing the same loss of power and, like me, sitting outside a recall that describes their exact problem? I can't answer that alone. It has to be investigated.

How I found the recall — and what happened when I raised it

I didn't start with the recall. I started with a vehicle that kept losing power and a dealer who kept saying "no codes, operating as designed." It was only when I went looking — searching NHTSA's own records — that I found it: recall A7C, campaign 25V710000, issued for 2023–2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe vehicles, for "a software error [that] may result in a loss of drive power." The manufacturer's own words. The exact thing my vehicle does.

So I brought it to them. I told the dealer and the manufacturer's case manager: my 4xe is doing precisely what this recall describes, and my VIN isn't in it — can we measure the vehicle, and can we find out why a car with this exact symptom isn't included?

What I got back was a closed loop. The dealer declined to perform the measurement. The case manager told me he couldn't authorize or confirm coverage for the diagnostic testing unless the vehicle was at a dealer under an open repair order — the very thing the dealer wouldn't open to do the testing. Each pointed at the other. Neither acted.

The practical result is this: to get my own vehicle measured — to gather the data that would show whether it shares the defect the manufacturer already recalled other vehicles for — I would have to pay for it myself, out of pocket, on a vehicle under warranty, for a reported safety concern. That is the corner I've been left in.

So I'm doing the one thing that doesn't require their cooperation: putting it on the public record, and with NHTSA.

What changed

The vehicle drove normally when I got it in September 2025. By late November, it had begun losing electric power during ordinary driving. Across the Jeep 4xe owner communities, owners describe the same arc: Wranglers that drove fine until a software change, after which they began losing propulsion.

And there's a documented clue in my own paperwork. In one of my dealership service records, a manufacturer engineering note characterized this behavior as something that "can be normal operation after the 68C recall." After the recall. That phrase matters, because a recall, by definition, changes how a vehicle behaves after it has already been sold. So by the manufacturer's own words, this is a behavior a post-sale software change introduced — not the vehicle I was sold.

What the vehicle actually does

This isn't a vague "it feels sluggish" complaint. The behavior is specific and repeatable, and a dealership documented it on its own service records.

It happens during normal driving, and it's tied to battery charge — it begins when the battery is in an ordinary mid-range state of charge, not when it's empty. One dealer's own write-up described the vehicle going "into limp mode," showing "only 25% power distribution," then firing the gas engine and displaying the electric-unavailable message.

I have photographs from a single drive showing the sequence on the dash: power limited to 48 percent at 43 percent battery, then cut to 24 percent, then "Electric Mode Temporarily Unavailable" with the Jeep forced into hybrid — all between 56 and 58 miles per hour. This is not subjective.

It isn't just my Jeep

Here is the fact that should end the "driver error" conversation before it starts.

When I brought the vehicle in, the dealer didn't just test-drive mine. They charged a different Jeep Wrangler 4xe — a separate vehicle, with different mileage — to full, drove it under the same conditions, and it did the same thing: it dropped out of electric mode and displayed the same "temporarily unavailable" message. Two different vehicles. Same behavior. Documented by the dealership.

That single fact eliminates the usual deflections. It isn't how I drive. It isn't my accessories. It isn't one defective unit.

And I am far from alone. Across the Jeep 4xe owner communities, the same account repeats across different states and model years: a staged loss of electric power, an "Electric Mode Unavailable" message, a lurch into hybrid, and a hesitation exactly when acceleration is needed. Some owners describe near-misses pulling into traffic.

"No codes" does not mean nothing is wrong

This is the part most people don't know, and it's where the whole thing turns.

A power reduction like this is not random. It is a software-controlled decision — the vehicle's computer deliberately limiting output to protect a component. And a system doing exactly what it was programmed to do does not generate a fault code.

So when a dealer says "no codes found," that does not mean nothing is happening. It means the system is choosing to behave this way. The only way to know whether that behavior is correct — whether the threshold that cuts power is appropriate, or is being reached far too early — is to measure it: drive the vehicle until it loses power, record the battery, coolant, and motor temperatures at that exact moment, and identify the specific condition that triggered the cut.

In my case, that measurement has never been performed. The conclusion that the vehicle is "operating as designed" was reached without ever taking it.

So I asked one dealer to do something simple. Drive it until it loses power, and log the battery, coolant, and motor temperatures at that moment. Check the battery coolant level. Identify the condition that triggered the cut, and write down what the data shows. Then involve the engineer, and put the findings on the repair order. None of this is exotic — it's plugging in a scan tool, checking a fluid level, and recording numbers during a drive.

The service manager declined. I asked why he wouldn't want those numbers — the very data an engineer would need to evaluate this. I was told the testing would be done only if I paid for it out of pocket, and that the dealership wouldn't perform diagnostic work that wasn't paid for by me or the manufacturer.

Sit with that. A reported safety condition, on a vehicle under warranty, that no one has measured — and a request to take a few simple readings that might finally explain it was turned down. I'll let you ask the question I keep asking myself: why would anyone refuse data this easy to collect?

The problem with calling it "normal"

Here is what makes "operating as designed" so hard to accept.

"Operating as designed" is a claim about the design — not about my individual vehicle. And if a sudden loss of drive power is truly "as designed," then every 4xe should do it, because they all share that design. The ones that deliver full electric power would be the deviation. But no one at Jeep would ever call a 4xe that delivers its full electric power "abnormal." That's the vehicle working correctly. Which means delivering power is the designed behavior — and losing it is the deviation.

The records deepen the question. When the dealer reproduced the dropout on a second vehicle, it occurred at a very different battery charge than mine — around 73 percent on that one, versus roughly 41 percent on mine. If the reduction is governed by a defined engineering threshold, that threshold should be measurable — and it raises the question of what parameter actually triggered the reduction, and whether it was ever measured. You cannot record two vehicles losing power at two different points, never measure why, and call both "operating as designed."

Jeep's own standard for what this means

In its federal safety recall filings — including the A7C recall above — the manufacturer has told the government that a loss of drive power is dangerous, serious enough to warrant a recall, because it can cause a crash without warning. That is the manufacturer's own definition of the hazard.

So how can the same outcome — the vehicle losing drive power without warning — be a serious safety matter in one filing and "normal operation" at the service counter? A loss of drive power is defined by what happens to the driver — the vehicle loses power and may not respond — not by which component, or which software, caused it.

What I'm actually asking for

I am not asking anyone to take my word that something is broken. I'm asking for the opposite: measure it.

Drive the vehicle until it loses power. Log the temperatures and the conditions. Identify what triggered the cut, and confirm whether that threshold is within specification. Involve engineering, and let the data — not a code scan that cannot see this behavior — decide whether this is truly "as designed." And research why a vehicle showing exactly what a federal recall describes is not in that recall.

A manufacturer confident the vehicle is operating correctly has no reason to refuse that measurement. The refusal is the part that should concern all of us.

If this is happening to you

Document everything — every visit, every repair order, every response. And file a safety complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem. While you're at it, check your VIN for open recalls — it takes a minute and tells you whether your vehicle is already listed.

Individually, owners get waved off. But NHTSA tracks these reports for patterns, and a cluster of consistent, well-documented complaints about a sudden loss of drive power is what can compel a real investigation — the kind that produces an answer instead of a label. It is the one channel a dealership and a manufacturer cannot close on their own.

I love what this vehicle was supposed to be. That's exactly why I won't accept "operating as designed" as the final word on a Jeep that loses power without warning. We deserve to know what it's measuring when it decides to leave us without power — and we deserve to have it measured.

The author is a Jeep Wrangler 4xe owner writing from personal experience. This piece reflects his own account and opinions and quotes publicly reported manufacturer statements and his own service records. Owners experiencing similar issues are encouraged to document their own, file with NHTSA, and consult qualified professionals.