- Stellantis has announced that its idled factory in Belvidere, Illinois, will now restart production in 2028 instead of 2027.
- The delay comes as Stellantis increases its total investments in retooling the plant from $600 million to $800 million.
- The next-gen Jeep Cherokee will be built at the Illinois factory, becoming the first U.S.-made model to ride on the new STLA One platform, which will spawn at least one more variant.
Stellantis still plans to bring the idled Belvidere Assembly Plant back online. However, the automotive conglomerate announced last Friday that the timeline to reopen the factory in Illinois has been delayed, as it increases investments in the facility by $200 million.
Back at the end of February 2023, Stellantis indefinitely idled the assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois. At the time, the factory was solely responsible for building the fifth-generation Jeep Cherokee, with production moving to Toluca, Mexico, after the closure. In October 2025, Stellantis announced that the Cherokee would return to the Belvidere Assembly Plant starting sometime in 2027. Now, we’re told that pilot production of the “next-generation” Cherokee will start in the first half of 2028, with Stellantis saying that retail production is “targeted” to begin in the second half of 2029.
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Stellantis has also raised its total investments to restart the Belvidere factory from $600 million to $800 million. Since last October, the company says it has already spent over $60 million on preparations for projects involving body, paint, stamping, and general assembly, with more work planned throughout the rest of this year. And once the facility is back up and running, Stellantis says it’ll be able to build all powertrain variants during two shifts.
What’s even more interesting is that the Cherokees that will be built in Illinois will be different from the sixth generation that just debuted for the 2026 model year. Those compact SUVs are based on the STLA Large platform; the Belvidere-built models will feature the newly announced STLA One architecture. Car and Driver reached out to a Stellantis spokesperson about the distinction, and they confirmed that the Cherokees built in Illinois will indeed be an entirely new generation.
Not only will the next-gen Cherokee be built there, becoming the first U.S.-made model to feature the newly announced STLA One platform, but we’re told the Belvidere plant will be used to build at least one other vehicle based on the new architecture, which should be the next-gen Jeep Compass.
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Eric Stafford’s automobile addiction began before he could walk, and it has fueled his passion to write news, reviews, and more for Car and Driver since 2016. His aspiration growing up was to become a millionaire with a Jay Leno–like car collection. Apparently, getting rich is harder than social-media influencers make it seem, so he avoided financial success entirely to become an automotive journalist and drive new cars for a living. After earning a journalism degree at Central Michigan University and working at a daily newspaper, the years of basically burning money on failed project cars and lemon-flavored jalopies finally paid off when Car and Driver hired him. His garage currently includes a 2010 Acura RDX, a manual '97 Chevy Camaro Z/28, and a '90 Honda CRX Si.