Orders Open, Finally, for Dodge’s Electric Muscle Car
It seems like every week we hear that production of yet another electric car is going slower than its manufacturer promised, and Dodge is no exception. In March, the company said that it would release the Charger Daytona EV in “mid-2024.” After a delay to August, orders opened on Monday, September 16.
There are many good reasons why you’re only now able to order one of these cars. Both the battery- and the gas-powered versions of the new Charger Daytona use a brand-new architecture called STLA Large. (Stellantis, Dodge’s parent company, has designed this platform to be used by many of its brand-children. Jeep is using it for the Wagoneer S, and Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, and Maserati will use it for as-yet-unannounced models.) STLA Large was designed from the outset to accommodate a battery-only powertrain, either 400V or 800V, but it is compatible with various interchangeable suspension modules and powertrain cradles that can accommodate a hybrid or gas-only driveline.
All Charger Daytona EVs are assembled at Windsor Assembly in Ontario with battery modules filled with Samsung cells. Assembly of early/pre-production models has started, though it is not at full capacity. That will arrive “in the near future,” wrote Darren Jacobs in an email. (Jacobs manages communications for Chrysler and Dodge products.)
The Windsor plant may be slow-rolling production until the modules within that battery pack don’t have to be shipped overseas. Because the U.S. plant slated to build the cells—it’s officially run by a joint venture between Stellantis and Samsung SDI—won’t be ready till next year, the inner workings of the battery are being shipped over from Samsung SDI’s operations in Hungary. Since 2022, when the Kokomo gigafactory was announced, the joint venture has birthed a second gigafactory in that same town of 60,000 or so; together, the factories will cost $6.3 billion and create 2800 total new jobs. Kokomo Gigafactory #1 may be operating a bit ahead of schedule: As of October 2023, the plant was on track to open by the beginning of 2025, but in an email, Jacobs told us that Kokomo #1 will supply the modules to Windsor “later this year.”
Launching an all-new architecture is a herculean feat by itself, let alone getting a brand-new component factory online. Other cooks in the kitchen may have influenced timing, such as Free2Mmove Charge, Stellantis’ charging infrastructure company, not a year and a half old, whose website only launched in July. Then there are the dealers, which must be certified to sell the electric Chargers. This site will help you find the nearest one and see how many orders that dealer has open. Most seem to have only one or two allocations, but the odd location gets up to seven. Coupes will arrive at dealerships in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Which of those many variables is behind the delay? When we asked Dodge for comment, they said, “We have shared that early/pre-production Dodge Charger Daytona vehicles are currently being built at the Windsor Assembly Plant.” What Stellantis has written, Stellantis has written.
For now, you can finally mess around on the configurator, linked here, to get an idea of what the electric Charger will look like.
Our best advice? Pick some other paint color than silver, if you want to stand out. We’ve spotted Charger Daytonas running up and down I-94 in Michigan, and to the untrained eye, they look … well, normal.
don’t want a muscle car, that’s doesn’t sound like a real one.
(and no fake noises please.) (or an electric motorcycle either.)
the new challenger or charger which ever it is well sell as good as there new SUV NOT.
Huh?
Launching an all-new architecture is a herculean feat by itself, let alone getting new tooling installed and achieving production volume.
The herculean feat will be to get people to buy it. The current regime will be gone soon and not be able to dictate we will buy EVs.
ugh
This model is available as either gas powered or electric. And personally, I’d love an electric version. Sounds like an absolute beast. Can’t say that it would make a good daily driver though. But neither are the out going high end Challengers.
So when I have the budget for a summer toy, this would be a lot of fun.
Missed it by a Hemi V-8…
“Orders Open, Finally” – Don’t care. Not going to take a chance on a Stellantis EV. I can imagine the bugs and problems this troubled division of a company with too many redundant brands will have.
I dunno, man. You wrap this lightning bolt in good enough paper, it might be the first electric car worth truly considering from the “nostalgic sporty” perspective.
Just don’t buy one of the first year models. You have been warned.
Avoiding the first model year was 1970s wisdom. Things have changed since. Now we have computers.
So that means don’t buy the second year model either? I guess I’m too old for electric or 6cyl for that matter. Can’t beat the sound of that 440 V8 in my GTX.
It’ll be interesting to see how it launches. Most EV’s with the exception of the Tesla’s seem slow to catch on, and for not surprising reasons, but having a fun car as opposed to an SUV or a truck would be something new.
I looked into getting a Nissan Leaf for my wife (used of course). She only drives about 100 miles a week. I learned the batteries on most are very low capacity around the 40,000 miles area with a $7000 replacement cost. Throwing away a battery at 40,000 miles doesn’t make environmental math to me. Not sure how these electrics will work there way into my garage, since I only buy 10+ year old vehicles. Can they recycle these batteries yet, or do they call it recycle and ship it off to some poorer country to put into their ground water?
There is also the insane amount of diesel fuel that needs to be burned by heavy trucks, construction and drilling equipment to mine for the rare earth materials needed to make the EV batteries. From the beginning of the life cycle to the end of the life cycle of an EV battery, it is not environmentally friendly at all.
Where ever you heard that absurd 40,000 mile quote. It is just plain wrong. Seriously? Quite the opposite is actually true. EV batteries are going many more miles then anticipated initially. Same thing was said about Prius and their batteries. Ours went 270,000 miles before we passed it on same battery pack the whole time.
News flash nobody cares about fake EV bs “muscle cars” ohh show us your fake car muscle quietly. Totally different from every other EV out there. Not interested.