EV muscle car signals new direction for Dodge

How long can Dodge’s family of beastly V8 performance cars last?

That’s the question executives within the company are now wrestling with – just as sister brand Jeep has already confirmed it will retire the conventional V8, potentially by the end of the decade.

Dodge has also flagged that it’s looking at EVs to crown its performance car line-up, teasing a new high-performance ‘eMuscle’ car earlier this month.

The head of the iconic American brand, Tim Kuniskis, declared: “Dodge will not sell electric cars.”

But American eMuscle cars? You bet...

“So if a [battery] charger can make a Charger quicker, we’re in,” said Kuniskis. “And in 2024, Dodge will launch the world’s first full battery-electric muscle car.”

Previewed in a teaser video for the 2021 Dodge EV Summit performing a smoky all-wheel drive burnout, the new ‘eMuscle’ car will signal the end of the V8 engine when it arrives in 2024.

But it also could mean long-suffering Aussie fans could get their first taste of a right-hand drive ex-factory Dodge Charger and Challenger, albeit with no V8 but a quad-motor EV powertrain instead.

“Our engineers are reaching a practical limit of what we can squeeze from internal combustion innovation,” said Kuniskis.

“They know, we know, that electric motors can give us more, and if we know the technology that can give our customers an advantage, we have an obligation to embrace it.”

Following the success of the factory-built Ford Mustang in Australia, stakeholders have previously lobbied for the next-generation Dodge Challenger and Charger to be built in right-hand drive and sold Down Under, but those plans appear to have stalled in recent times.

Some analysts are now suggesting the factory in Ontario, Canada, that currently builds the Dodge Charger and Challenger (and the Chrysler 300 used by Aussie police) could have its manifesto reassessed in future, casting a shadow over the factory post-2023.

The new electric muscle car will likely use a new large vehicle EV platform that other brands in the Stellantis group, including RAM for its EV pick-up, will leverage. However, it’s not clear where the onslaught of new EVs will be manufactured.

And it could deliver a 0-100km/h acceleration time faster than the 2.1-second Tesla Model S Plaid, and up there with the bonkers 1408kW, quad motor Rimac Nevera hypercar.

Whatever eventuates, it’s clear that the days of big, lumpy, gas-guzzling V8s are numbered.

Said Kuniskis: “Through intelligent evolution, we expect to thrive and define the future of American muscle to tear up the streets, not the planet.”