The new Charger Daytona’s synthetic “Fratzonic” exhaust note is a skeuomorph. It was created by Dodge for its first electric muscle car to lead combustive fanatics along a path toward a petroleum-free future, one in which such hotrods do not rumble at stop lights, scream a pistonic symphony upon acceleration, and shoot flames from their exhaust pipes.
But unlike other technologies that imitate archaic artifacts—the dripping candle bulb sockets on electric chandeliers, the stone-carving bevels etched into mass-produced cast-iron building facades—this pseudo-soundtrack is defeatable. Its volume is automatically enhanced in the bulky coupe’s Sport Mode, cranked up toward hair metal concert levels in its Track/Drift/Donut settings, and eased slightly when one chooses the Auto or Wet/Snow position from the squircular steering wheel’s selector arrows, but with a couple of prods of the driver-canted 12.3-inch central infotainment screen, it can be eliminated.
I turned it off every time I drove.
I’m 55 years old and I’ve enjoyed my smattering of Hemi-powered doofiness. But while I brought an IBM Selectric to my first year of college, I don’t somehow still require that my phone broadcast typewriter sounds whenever I press a digital key. Likewise, I don’t need a growling ersatz V8 to white cane me into our futuristic, electric-powered present.
Dodge CEO Matt MacAlear bragged to me that the Daytona’s growly electronic exhaust is “Just as loud as the outgoing Charger Hellcat Widebody.”
To me, that’s like boasting that the robot arm that builds the new car cheers the Detroit Lions just as loudly as the union members who work alongside it. To whom is this a relevant metric? I think the most interesting thing about the Charger Daytona EV is the fact that it is electric, and can capitalize on the unique capacities of this powertrain: immediate torque, wild horsepower, quiet operation, and zero tailpipe emissions.
(Full Disclosure: Dodge covered my travel to Phoenix and covered my lodging ahead of a day of on-track driving at the Radford Racing School.)
What Is It?
For those of you without a Hellcat in this fight, the all-new Charger Daytona EV is the first vehicle to arrive on Stellantis’ new STLA Large electric platform. Undergirded by a 400-volt 100.5 kWh battery pack, the front and rear motors are jointly capable of 670 hp in the Scat Pack version, or 496 hp in the “R/T” iteration. Though a four-door model will follow, the initial offering is a big coupe, like those from the peak muscle car era in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
To this end, the Charger Daytona is over 17 feet long—5 inches longer than the outgoing Dodge Challenger. Nearly all that added length is given to rear passenger legroom, which is so sizable that my 6’4” driving partner could sit comfortably behind himself.
With all this power and grip at both ends, the Scat Pack, with its 305/35/20 front and 325/35/20 rear tires, is capable of accelerating to from 0-60 in a claimed 3.3 seconds. The milder R/T, with four 275 mm tires over 18” wheels, will complete the same task in under five.
Performance as an EV is less scorching. Dodge says the maximum charge rate is a curious 183 kW, and it can go from 20% to 80% in a little over 24 minutes on a 350 kW fast charger. Range is estimated at 241 miles for the Scat Pack model—not mind-blowing, but besting another high-performance EV, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, by a good 20 miles. The R/T version fares better at 308 miles.
The Charger Daytona uses a prismatic battery for what Dodge says is better thermal performance, and you can tell how hard they’re trying to establish street cred with the Mopar crowd from some of the official Dodge press materials which compare the energy density of the nickel cobalt aluminum battery to “high-octane fuel.”
How Does It Look And Feel?
Both cars sport excellent sightlines, though the rear view is a bit crimped. And, with the optional glass roof letting the sun shine in, the interior feels vastly improved compared with the cave-like feeling of its progenitors. In addition, the rear windshield, along with its lengthy and creased surround, pops up, hatchback-like. This affords a cargo area that is, with the rear seats folded, 133% larger than the outgoing car. It’s a lot of room: like, lie-down scale.
This thing is like a big electric shooting brake. Though performing routine tasks—like folding down the 60/40 split seats, or grabbing at the contents of some of the trunk’s deeper reaches—can be awkward. There’s also a 1.5 cubic-foot frunk under the hood.
The Daytona’s other significant downside is its interior materials. I appreciated the textured and faceted door panels, and the ribbed vintage-inspired dashboard superstructure surround, especially given the fact that I could adjust the ambient light that emanated from them to any of 64 hues and a range of intensities. And I know that muscle cars are meant to prioritize performance over piddling things like ambiance.
But there is no getting away from the fact that the plastic on these trim pieces, while well aligned and mounted, looks Wal-Mart cheap, particularly galling given the Scat Pack’s $80,000 price tag.
How Does It Drive?
While the outgoing Challenger floated over the road on some 30-year-old bits cribbed from the Mercedes parts bin during the failed 1990s Daimler-Chrysler merger, this beast is built on all-new underpinnings. The high-test models receive adaptive dampers, but even the basic model’s springs absorb impacts and directional changes without its forebears’ often nauseating leans, rolls, or rebounds. A giant, center-of-gravity-lowering battery pack in the floor certainly helps flatten things out.
This makes the Charger Daytona easy to place on sweeping curves, delightfully obeying inputs from the big steering wheel. And the brakes, especially the six-piston (front) and four-piston (rear) Brembos on the Scat Pack, are highly capable of hauling it down from highway speeds, which, in the Arizona exurbs, reliably approach the triple-digits, speeds at which the mammoth two-door feels as stable and unperturbable as the surrounding red rocks.
Though it won’t do a rear-wheel burnout from a standstill, it will chirp its front tires. Moreover, if given the space and proper infotainment screen inputs, it will–as I experienced first-hand from the right seat, with a pro driver at the wheel, and again while standing outside the car–unlock its front motor and disable its stability control, and drift. For those of you who require noise, smoke, rubber particles, and nausea to feel whole (hole?), this big beast will make donuts like Dunkin’.
Things get quite a bit harrier when the curves tighten. This isn’t really the fault of the steering or the brakes. It’s just physics. With an occupant on board, this thing crests three tons. I took the big-tired up-suspensioned Scat Pack into a 90-degree right a wee bit hot, and it snapped free with a toboggan-like glissade. The recovery was predictable, but the event surprised me. If I owned one, I’d stick a Post-It reminder on the dash: Car Is Heavy.
Not at all harried is the Uconnect 5 system, which maintains its reputation as among the most user-friendly in-car software systems. Hard and/or dedicated buttons now exist for entertainment volume and tuning, and HVAC and seat and steering wheel heating (and seat cooling) features, and the nav and media interfaces are straightforward, for those of you who stubbornly refuse to just give everything over the familiar cellphone-mirroring embrace of AndroidAuto or AppleCarPlay. Personally, I surrendered years ago.
A head-up display obviates the need to attend to the standard 10.25” or optional 16” instrument panel, though the vintage-style digital gauges—one of three available graphic options (a limited “focused” and a direction-heavy “navigation” layout complete the trio)—are quite fun.
Early Verdict
Dodge has created a new EV category: the electric muscle car. And it succeeded! The Charger Daytona is a thoughtful and practical reimagining of a moribund vehicular genre, and it performs, responds, grips, hauls, and coddles in ways its anachronistic ancestors never could, while maintaining a distinctly American big car feel. This is a unique offering in an increasingly crowded marketplace, it accomplishes what it set out to do, and it should be celebrated.
Whether it farts or roasts like a duck is, to me, irrelevant to its authenticity. As with so many other issues fueling our current longing for “nostalgia” or “greatness” the longer we insist on abiding by retrograde templates, the longer it will take for us to recognize that we’ve already evolved beyond them.
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.
Gallery: 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona EV
