Dodge is about to attempt one of the most challenging tricks in the history of cars.
It will try to convince a fanbase that loves the burble of a V8 engine, the whine of a supercharger, and the sharp scent of gasoline to go electric. Or not. Their choice.
Today, Dodge revealed its future. The 2024 Dodge Charger is a muscle car with seating for five, available with two or four doors and electric or gasoline powertrains. It looks like you’d expect Dodge’s next muscle car to look. But it may help convince the fans Dodge calls “the brotherhood of muscle” to embrace a future of electric cars.
Choose Your Own Muscle
Dodge spent last year saying goodbye to its Charger 4-door and Challenger 2-door with special editions. The company ended production recently enough that dealers still have both cars on sales lots.
But their replacement is already here. It’s being marketed as one car. But it replaces both and will be available with two or four doors (but always five seats).
Dealers will also offer it with what the company calls “multi-energy capability.” That means buyers can choose electric or gas-powered versions. Regardless of the powertrain, every version will be all-wheel drive (AWD).
The “Electric Muscle Car”
The speediest trim level is electric, which might surprise longtime muscle car fans but not engineers. Gasoline engines build power gradually over several seconds – the heart of the “torque curve” made famous by the original muscle cars. Electric motors have 100% of their torque on tap at all times. Building a record-setting electric vehicle (EV) is easier than making an exceptionally fast gas-powered car.
Electric versions will be called “Charger Daytona” models.
Dodge says the all-electric 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack “delivers 670 horsepower, is expected to reach 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds, and will run the quarter-mile in an estimated 11.5 seconds.” Dodge claims 260 miles of range between charge-ups.
Dealers will also carry the Charger Daytona R/T, which is good for 456 horsepower, a sprint to 60 in 4.7 seconds, and a 13.1-second quarter mile. The R/T can travel 317 miles between charging sessions.
The Gas-Powered Muscle Car
At today’s launch, Dodge paid the most attention to the EV editions. But it said gas-powered versions are coming. They’ll skip the Daytona moniker.
The powertrain portfolio won’t include a V8. Parent company Stellantis has all but ended production of the famous Hemi V8, removing it from almost every 2024 model in any of its brands’ builds.
In its place comes a turbocharged inline-6-cylinder engine called the “Hurricane.” In keeping with Dodge’s garage-mechanic image, the company calls them “Charger Sixpacks.” We’re not kidding.
The Dodge Charger Sixpack H.O. uses a 3.0-liter twin-turbo Hurricane High Output engine making 550 horsepower. The Charger Sixpack S.O. uses a non-high-output version of the same mill, good for 420 horsepower.
Dodge offered a few details on those models, noting that they’d be available later in the production run. We don’t even know what transmissions dealers will stock. But we don’t expect to wait more than a few months for specifications.
Classic Look
Whatever 2025 Charger you have the factory assemble, it will look like it belongs in the 1970s. Designers worked hard to give the next Charger the blunt-and-boxy look fans associate with muscle cars. But the look is essentially a costume, hiding a sleek modern vehicle.
The front end, for instance, has a blunt-nosed look akin to the Chargers and Challengers of muscle car fame. On gas-powered models, it’s real.
But on EV versions, the look is an illusion – it’s a boxed-in front wing “enhancing downforce while creating a unique visual profile.” Remove it, and you’d find a sleek, aerodynamic sports car nose beneath.
Boxy, broad shoulder lines define the rear.
Inside, the look is driver-centric. A 12.3-inch center display is angled toward the driver. It shares duty with a driver’s instrument screen of 10.25 or, optionally, 16 inches. Many 2024 cars offer a larger central touchscreen as an option. Few offer a larger instrument cluster screen.
Dodge says the instrument panel is designed to evoke the feel of the 1968 Charger. The shifter is a modern take on that car’s classic pistol grip shape.
Mood lighting can be adjusted between 64 colors and wraps 270 degrees around the front seats.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are standard. A head-up display (HUD) that projects speed and turn-by-turn directions in the driver’s line of sight is optional.
“A one-of-a-kind One-button Press Experience allows the driver to instantly switch the vehicle’s personality,” Dodge says. They explain, “A simple push of a steering-wheel button will change the vehicle’s dynamics while the driver information in the cluster and HUD will also change to correspond with the chosen Drive Mode.”
Unique Sound Scheme
Car designers in the electric age put a lot of thought into what a car should sound like. EVs make almost no sound on their own, so designers have to engineer ways to tell pedestrians a car is coming.
Muscle car lovers are every bit as in love with the noise their cars make as with the acceleration they provide. An artificial sound might justifiably seem like an insult to them.
Dodge solved the problem, not with speakers, but with pipes.
What it calls the “world’s first Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust” uses “two passive radiators to create a unique exhaust profile with Hellcat levels of sound intensity,” the company says. To us, it sounds like a metallic cat growling out a threat. Will it convince the Brotherhood of Muscle to associate the “electric muscle car” with the heritage they love?
That’s the central question of Dodge’s future.
Will This Work?
Dodge may have a harder sell to make than any other automotive brand. The company has united its owners as a brotherhood around a rebel’s image. It’s not easy to excite a brotherhood of rebels about joining a worldwide wave of change.
Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis thinks the company can do it. But his pitch is littered with new terms Dodge wants to turn into buzzwords for the brotherhood.
“The electrified 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack delivers Charger Hellcat Redeye levels of performance and announces its presence through the world’s first Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust, while Hurricane engine-powered Dodge Charger Sixpack models will give the Brotherhood of Muscle a gas option that produces better horsepower and torque numbers than the outgoing 5.7 and 6.4-liter HEMI engines,” Kuniskis says.
Dodge is about attitude as much as performance. To make that work in the EV era, it needs to convince fans that they can get the same attitude from plugging a car into the wall.
Or, sell them on a V6 instead.
