Dodge, perhaps alone among contemporary automakers, has seen immense success in translating the archaic 20th-century Muscle Car formula into the 21st. It has done this by stuffing increasingly outrageous iterations of its modern Hemi V8 into nearly every vehicle in its product line. Its fervent Hellcat-ing has been enough, surprisingly, to maintain steadily vigorous sales of its Challenger coupe and Charger sedan, 20-year-old cars aping 55-year-old designs and riding on platforms developed more than 30 years ago.
But those vehicles are finally going away. They will be replaced by flexible-powertrain two- and four-door models, both called Charger, that will be motivated, at launch in early 2025, solely by a 100.5 kWh battery pack and a pair of electric motors. (And if you’re a Mopar nut but are committed to internal combustion, your muscle-car future means an inline-six engine, as if you were one of those guys whose entire wardrobe consists of ///M apparel. Can you imagine?) So how does Mopar’s methylized muscle-maker plan to convince potential consumers to buy into such a blasphemous switcheroo?
To get enthusiasts’ “butts-in-seats” and assist with this electron baptism, Dodge is planning a whole series of events in the upcoming year, said Matt McAlear, the brand’s CEO. It will take its new EV muscle cars on tour in the first quarter of 2025 to train its sales and dealership staff and demonstrate the vehicles’ capabilities. It is launching a courtesy transportation program wherein it will send EVs to dealers to use for short-term consumer test drives, or as 96-hour loaners when customers come in to have their vehicle serviced. It will host consumer-facing “Thrill Ride” drive events at upcoming Mecum and Barrett-Jackson classic car auctions, and at its drifting/drag racing “Roadkill Nights” live events in the summer–—prime sites for the gathering of Hemis of all vintages.
“Dodge is always best as a brand when it does something different,” McAlear said, referencing the automaker’s marketing slogan from the 1980s and 1990s, Dodge Different. And he’s certainly right about convincing people with actual seat time and not just ads. Study after study indicates that once people experience EVs for themselves, or hear from friends and family who do, they’re far more likely to pull the trigger themselves.
Plus, he said, this EV has the bona fides. “This vehicle, it's a muscle car first. If you look at the specs, the design, the capability, and take powertrain out of it, it’s a better muscle car on paper than the cars it replaces,” he noted. “So while there is a polarizing, controversial aspect to this—that it happens to have an EV powertrain as one of the powertrains that’s going to power it—no one can argue the battery electric technology enables terrific performance, and that's what we're bringing to market with this.”
To enunciate this point, McAlear pointed out that even after Dodge introduces ICE-powered iterations of the Charger in the second half of 2025, gasoline power will represent “the entry-level vehicles from a performance standpoint.” So if a potential consumer desires a car with the quickest acceleration (0-60 in 3.3 seconds) they’ll learn that that capability is a battery-only option.
This powertrain rollout and hierarchy is a stated part of Dodge’s strategy for muscling the muscle car faithful toward EVs, according to McAlear. Another prong in this program is to focus on added utility and daily drivability, to create what Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles called “emotional alibis” to lead consumers toward acceptance of this new product.
McAlear listed a suite of capabilities that can provide such cover for what amounts to a highly irrational and emotional purchase. “All-wheel-drive, for instance, helps us compete more in the North as a daily driver,” he said, referencing its all-weather capability. “A hidden hatchback capability gives you amazing cargo space that you didn’t have in your old vehicle. The new Charger two-door now has more rear-seat legroom than the outgoing four-door,” he said. “So this becomes much more of a daily driver than any of the muscle cars that we've had prior.”
Will this litany of added functionality convince Dodge die-hards, who will receive a defeatable synthetic exhaust note that is as boisterous as that of the outgoing car, but no scent of unburned fuel or ability to smoke the rear tires from a standstill?
“Probably not immediately out of the gate,” McAlear said. “It's going to take some time. It's going to take them seeing one on the street. It's going to take them going in for service and testing one while they're getting an oil change. But I've seen those people get behind the wheel and come out with changed opinions.”
However, convincing the faithful may not be the ideal tactic for furthering this car’s market penetration. “Though a muscle car and an electric vehicle seem diametrically opposed, there is an opportunity for electrification to magnify the idea, benefits, and aspirational nature of the muscle car,” said Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision, a Southern California automotive research and consulting firm. “However, the conversion of those from the past, I do not believe is the best strategy. Instead, a new generation of muscle cars can find success with younger folks who think they like muscle cars.”
As it turns out, Dodge has just such consumers in its targets. “If you look at our current demographic today, we have the youngest demographic in the mainstream auto industry,” said McAlear. “We have the highest percentage of Gen Z and Millennials. And those customers have the highest propensity to be willing to adopt electrification. So that sets us up.”
Dodge might be onto something here. Though muscle car seems like an anachronistic category to anyone who isn’t a Boomer, research shows that these vehicles have and maintain broader appeal. “The interesting thing with those cars, I think, is they’re far more long-lived than cars like tri-five [1955-57] Chevys, or other American cars of the era,” said Brian Rabold, vice president of valuation for Hagerty, the world’s largest insurer of collectible vehicles. “There are a lot more entry points for younger generations to become interested in them—through driving video games, through movies like the Fast and Furious franchise.” As Rabold notes, pop cultural exposure conjures interest and desire, and translates into purchases, whether those be old Polaras and Road Runners, or more recent Fox Body Mustangs and fourth-gen Firebirds.
Still, rumors have persisted that interest in Dodge’s new muscular EV is less robust than the brand initially suspected and that it is thus rushing the inline-six-powered iterations to supplement this engagement. McAlear denies this categorically.
“That's what you call an urban legend,” he said. “Someone put one thing on the Internet. And if it's on the Internet, it's true, right?” He laughed, underlining his sarcasm. “We're always trying to bring every new vehicle to market as quickly as possible,” he continued. “It doesn't do us any good from an R&D and a capital expenditure standpoint to hold sales any longer than we have to. So nothing has changed with our timing.”
Overall, once both powertrains are on the market, McAlear expects the mix of Charger buyers to segment about evenly: half electric, half gas. This aligns with Dodge’s current mix of high-test Hemi- versus lesser-powered Challengers and Chargers. “If we look historically at our V6 versus our performance V8, it was roughly 50/50,” McAlear said. “So I still think there's an opportunity, over time—as adoption continues to happen, and as infrastructure comes in across the U.S. in terms of charging capability—I think there's the ability for this [EV] to beat a 50/50 mix.” (Dodge officials declined to address questions about demand or pre-orders, but said they plan to remain flexible in terms of production based on consumer demand.)
If any marque is positioned to succeed with an electric muscle car, it seems to be Mopar’s performance brand. “Consumers who own the Charger and Challenger usually love their vehicles,” said Edwards, whose firm conducts hundreds of thousands of in-depth psychographic surveys with new car buyers annually. “Even those who never buy a Dodge can often agree that Dodge is an exciting brand that has a lot to offer. If Dodge takes the position that they are innovating excitement, then this next step could be a doorway for Dodge’s electric future.” He added one further provision. “They just have to get the messaging right.”
McAlear and his teams seem to be thinking about this carefully, calibrating their messaging to entice purchasers who may be simultaneously powertrain-aware and -agnostic. “People buy a muscle car for so much more than just what powers it. They buy it because of how it makes them feel. It's an extension of their personality. It puts a smile on their face. They have fun being in it. They have fun being seen it,” he said. “So I think that's what this vehicle does. And it opens this up to a much larger demographic and audience.”
After spending some time in the Daytona Charger EV, recently, I felt like it succeeded in charting a freshly charged path into the moribund world of muscle cars. So Dodge seemingly has the product right. And it has a history of creating memorable messaging.
We’ll see if it can find a magic recipe that yields results from a youthful audience open to this surprisingly compelling and venerable category.
Brett Berk is a freelance automotive writer based in New York. He has driven and reviewed thousands of cars for Car and Driver and Road & Track, where he is a contributing editor. He has also written for Architectural Digest, Billboard, ELLE Decor, Esquire, GQ, Travel + Leisure and Vanity Fair.
