Change is inevitable. This comes easier for some than others, and for Dodge, change has been difficult. It’s been 19 months since the Charger Daytona SRT EV concept debuted, paving the way for the company’s electrified future. And now that future is here with the 2024 Charger Daytona, billed as the world’s first electric muscle car.
Whether buyers will accept instant electric torque over a throaty V8 remains to be seen. But at the Charger Daytona’s debut event, Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis acknowledged the difficult road the company faced. After 18 years of walking high on a line of Hemi engines, he likened the EV transition at Dodge to a race toward a wall the company couldn’t avoid.
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“We knew we were heading toward a wall,” he told reporters at the event, using drag racing as a metaphor for the situation. “So we went full throttle and pulled the parachute just before the end.”
This is a reference to Dodge’s series of Last Call Chargers and Challengers, culminating in the Challenger Demon 170 and its factory-equipped parachute. Announced alongside the Daytona SRT concept, the plan was to give the Dodge “brotherhood” a chance to embrace the electric future while still enjoying the Hemi’s last stand.
“They needed that soaking time,” Kuniskis said, sticking to the drag racing analogy. “And [the Charger Daytona SRT Concept] It was the production car, hiding in plain sight.”
To Dodge’s credit, its first electric vehicle is not a compliance car. In top-of-the-line Scat Pack trim, the 2024 Charger Daytona should hit 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and run a quarter mile in 11.5 seconds. The automaker claims to have the fastest and most powerful muscle car on sale today, provided your definition of muscle car doesn’t require a V-8 engine to qualify.
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Judging by early responses on social media, it appears that no amount of “immersion time” will be enough to convert some people. But as we saw with BMW, internet reviews don’t necessarily translate into bad sales. And for those unhappy with the electric Charger Daytona, a 2025 Dodge Charger Sixpack will arrive next year with up to 550 horsepower from a twin-turbo Hurricane inline-six engine.
The future of the Charger is therefore not entirely electric. But it is without a V8 engine for the first time in almost two decades. For a brand that thrived on Hemi power, is this too much change for the Charger to survive? Jump into the comments and let us know what you think.
