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Dodge will discontinue its Challenger and Charger muscle cars next year
- InitEnabler 4y agoInteresting, even though its going to be discontinued on the car lot. Hobbyists / Racers will be able to buy full semi-painted (Primed I think) chassis / bodys from there direct catalog - https://www.thedrive.com/news/dodge-brings-8k-challenger-body-drag-pack-chassis-carbon-parts-to-direct-connection-catalog https://www.thedrive.com/news/dodge-brings-8k-challenger-bod... So there's some good news for the Mopar fanboys.
- wing-_-nuts 4y agoI remember when dodge had an unlimited lifetime powertrain warranty during the great recession. I almost bought a v8 challenger, but gas prices scared me off.
- outside1234 4y agoIs there no market for an electric Challenger? Said another way, I don't understand why going electric precludes muscle cars. If anything, it seems like they have an opportunity to make them even faster when they are electrified.
- varikin 4y agoBecause many of the people who want challengers and chargers want horsepower.
- tsomctl 4y agoOr, like my wonderful neighbor, want to remove their muffler to show off how awesome they are. More seriously, a successful electric car needs a chassis that's been engineered to be an electric car. You can convert a normal front engine, rwd chassis, but it's always a compromise.
- RajT88 4y agoYou realize that once the obnoxious neighbors of the world all have no choice but to buy electric cars, they'll choose to make noise a different way? For example: Blaring Whitesnake.
- gambiting 4y agoSurely that goal is far easier to meet with electric cars, not less? As many electric manufacturers have already demonstrated, it's relatively straightforward to fit a 500-1000 breakhorsepower EV motor into pretty much any chassis you want. Just add two if you want to realy go nuts. An EV Challenger that slaps a Hellcat in literally every category other than sound and how fast it drinks fuel should satisfy those needs no?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- whartung 4y agoBut as we've seen with Tesla, Rivian and others, electric is no barrier to horsepower. Horsepower is a barrier to range, but that's a different problem. No, the reason there's no market for an electric Challenger et al is because the electric one doesn't sound right. Around here, it seems pretty much every other pony car (Challenger, Mustang, Camaro) has reworked the exhaust system to "sound better", so it can be enjoyed by everyone else within a mile as they do their full throttle runs down empty street at night. It should also be noted that Cadillac has already (year or so ago?) stated they won't be making any more ICE performance cars. All of their future ones will be electric. I doubt this is GM wide, pretty sure the ICE Corvette is filed in GMs "cold, dead hands" drawer.
- jgust 4y agoYou can count on a plugin hybrid C8 or C9 Corvette, and eventually a full electric. It's inevitable.
- rasz 4y agoIf they did they would get 1000hp plaid. What they really want is smelly loud status symbol.
- sschueller 4y agoThere would be if it looked like the ones from the 60s-70s.
- gambiting 4y agoCars looking like cars from 60-70s is precluded by modern safety regulations, not by the type of drivetrain.
- whartung 4y agoI thought the new Challenger caught the profile of the classic version quite well. It does seem a bit smaller, never saw the two side by side. But stylistically, it's a Challenger.
- bunderbunder 4y agoIt may still have been tricky to get regulatory approval, though. I can’t share my sources or specifics, but I do know stories of strings being pulled and crash tests being fudged in order to get a muscle car’s new model cleared to sell. Safety standards are getting strict enough that they do influence the physical shape of the car, because the physical shape of the car influences your options for how to dissipate energy in a collision.
- whartung 4y agoCertainly, if you look at them side by side, the new Challenger is noticeably "thicker", for whatever reason, no doubt mostly regulatory since we know how much manufacturers enjoy adding weight, especially to performance cars. But at a casual glance, it still looks more like a Challenger than not. They'd probably have real problems with a Barracuda.
- linksnapzz 4y agoThey did the same thing that Jaguar did, when they went from the late-70s underpinnings of the X308 XJ to the all-new X350 XJ in 2003. The style cues...the first things that meet the eye; the curve of the rear fender and the shape of the headlights-those things were kept-but the proportions of the car are different. The new one was taller and narrower, with a proportionally smaller greenhouse. It takes a while to see it; but it's a dramatic difference when you do. The Charger/Challenger were the same way. Th '70s originals were built on the old Dodge Coronet platform-low and wide. The new (current) ones, built on the Chrysler LX platform shared much of their hidden sheetmetal with the Mercedes W210/W211 E-class; so instead of low and wide, they're tall and narrow, more like a German luxury sedan. Without, you know, the good visibility.
- garyfirestorm 4y agoIt’s very publicly well known that an eMuscle is being developed https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/dodge-charger-electric-muscle-car-ev-51660656170 https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/dodge-charger-electric-... https://youtu.be/xZNXVuzPio4 https://youtu.be/xZNXVuzPio4
- RajT88 4y agoI don't even like muscle cars, but when I took a peek at the electric Mustang, my kneejerk reaction was, "Why would anyone buy that??"
- drewzero1 4y agoRight? I don't know why they couldn't have just (or also) put an electric drivetrain in a regular Mustang. My two theories are (a) somebody at Ford really hates cars that aren't SUV/crossovers[0], or (b) the Mach E is an attempt to appeal to the aging demographic of people who wanted Mustangs as kids in the 60s/70s. Ford's marketing definitely seems to promote the Mach E for older people.[1] 0: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/ford-exec-says-this-is-why-it-stopped-selling-sedans/ https://www.motorbiscuit.com/ford-exec-says-this-is-why-it-s... 1: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2021/12/20/meet-the-87-year-old-making-the-switch-to-electric-with-fords-mu.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2021/12...
- mitchell_h 4y agomuscle cars aren't about fast, or horsepower, or anything logical. They're a feeling. The rumble, the sound, the vibration. Electric cars just can't reproduce that. they can be faster, quicker, better off the line...but they don't FEEL the same.
- sebow 4y agoIn this regard, electric cars are worse even than 'normal' cars. They're too quiet. If recently one of the car brands did not introduce a (very too quiet) beep on one of their EVs when reversing, I would have been ran over in a parking lot. And my hearing is more than fine (to the point that I have to disconnect electronics when sleeping because I hear them). EVs are not completely silent, but often times the sounds of the environment are louder, thus making EVs harder to notice through hearing.
- lolsal 4y agoCan you upgrade parts of an electric vehicle to improve performance? Can you "tune" an electric vehicle? I honestly don't know; I don't own one and was never into tuning my vehicles for performance. I think that hobby is more what draws folks than the raw performance.
- jollyllama 4y agoPeople still shell out $ for these things, this is just elite consensus via regulation and informal decision making shaping the market. The muscle car dies its second death the same way it died its first.
- QuarterReptile 4y agoYes and no... The enormously large footprint of these cars gets them an allowance that lets their engines be less efficient. The US federal government has required that, if you want a powerful car, you also have to have a large car (or, especially, a large SUV, which gets off easy both for its large footprint and for being classified as 'light truck'.) I like to think that people want to be shelling out $ for S2000s (great car, very inefficient in no small part because its design parameters are a function of Japanese efficiency requirements that centered on engine displacement), but that may be my bias.
- jollyllama 4y agoMy point is, even though Dodge could make money by selling Challenger/Charger for at the very least a few more years, they will not. Despite what we are taught, democracy and market forces are not how things really work. There was never a vote on this, or any of those regulations.
- nebula8804 4y agoIt takes time to retool factories to move to whatever they are replacing this car with. The article states they are investing 2.8 Billion. Must be a lot of equipment they have to install.
- stuff4ben 4y agoI know in my mind and heart that electrification is the way of the future. But a part of me is sad to lose iconic machines such as these. I'm a GenXer so I straddle that line of the past and the future. We're at the end of an era...
- mrelectric 4y agoNo worries, nothing is gone. It'll come back. Also see: restomod vs pro touring.
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoThe main point is getting 99% of consumer transport electrified. If you take your old stick shift gas car out for a 100 mile drive once a month, who cares. You'll have plenty of cars to pick from when EVs start ushering out the old dirtburners into obsolescence. Hopefully the EV drivetrain gets so cheap that it becomes a tsunami. It's not like EVs won't be fun to drive with low center of gravity skateboards and hyperfast acceleration. I would guess that after a few decades of driving EVs, the ICEs and their gear shifts and smell will quickly lose their charm with practically everyone. I hope that with a really cheap and compact EV motor+battery, classic cars get massively retrofitted to be electic. You already see it in some auction cars. An electric motor is not that big. If/when a good compact solid state battery is mass produced, then you can probably cobbly a kit for the standard engine mounts that has the electric motor + batteries in one engine block replacement kit. They can pipe in simulated engine block sound. I will so miss stick shift however.
- linksnapzz 4y agoEV batteries just need to get to get...an order of magnitude higher energy density, so they can take up as much space and weigh as much as a full tank of gas, while giving the same amount of spare power to run the heater/AC and go 500 miles between charges, which (for a full one) should take no more than ten minutes. As an aside, electric restomods are the height of gauchery. Like having a Patek Phillipe case with a Timex digital face.
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- strict9 4y agoYet the massive trucks that obstruct the driver's vision to pedestrians, kids on bikes, and everything else are experiencing YoY growth. The Challenger and Charger are terrible in terms of fuel efficiency but safer to people as drivers can see more of what's in front of them: >Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) analyzed the details of 14,000 fatal pedestrian crashes, and they found that SUVs were twice as likely as cars to be making a left turn when the crash happened. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/suv-and-pickup-truck-drivers-more-likely-to-hit-pedestrians-a7444108492/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/suv-and-pickup-tr...
- ericmay 4y agoJust wait until those trucks are electric too and can accelerate as fast or faster than current electric cars. But for some reason we don't care about car crashes and people getting run over and we keep designing highways and roads specifically to accelerate vehicles next to regular people and slower moving modes of transit and we keep locking people in their homes unless they drive 70 mph with near-instant acceleration to go half a mile to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread.
- zekrioca 4y ago
- xnx 4y agoThere's a terrifying race between cars getting bigger/heavier/faster while being piloted by every-more distracted drivers, and autonomous driving technology. I'm hoping that those at Waymo are making the right tradeoffs between their own product's safety and the danger of not having a better-than-human driving system like theirs more widely deployed.
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoThe EV hummer is already supercar acceleration that the Charger and Challenger couldn't beat. And it's 9000 lbs
- tothrowaway 4y ago
- jrsj 4y agoWow you sure seem like a lot of fun
- vladvasiliu 4y agoThe issue is that many such drivers are anti-social, even if their intention is not necessarily to annoy people. If they want to rev their engine and whatnot, I'm not fundamentally against it. I love me a nice-sounding engine and the visceral sensation it gives you. But please don't do it under my window when I'm trying to work, or worse, at 2 AM when I sleep. That's just a dick move. Go out in the countryside, where the trees will cut down the noise. Ditto for motorbikes with loud pipes. That's an absolute nuisance. And I am, myself, a motorcyclist with a big-ass bike. I just don't rev it above 4000 RPM in the city, so it's quieter than most cars, even at the red light (the stock exhaust has a flap that closes below 5-6000 RPM).
- bobkazamakis 4y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-CxCUZsDHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-CxCUZsDHc
- kevinsundar 4y agoI've never understood why some car owners want their car to sound like its loudly struggling to go from 0 - 30mph.
- brodouevencode 4y ago> struggling If you understand ICE you know that's not the case though. Take all the exhaust off and you get better performance, but it's terrible for your hearing. And it is very annoying.
- hk1337 4y agoApparently Tesla has a way of making the car sound like whatever you want. Someone got the sound got theirs to sound like a Hellcat. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgXT5FXgNf_/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgXT5FXgNf_/
- Arubis 4y agoSome of this may be association with recent violence in addition to shifting towards greener pastures. The Challenger is a fun car to drive, but anecdotally, I know quite a few folks that can’t see one without envisioning it plowing through a crowd of protestors.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoNot surprised - a ICE V8 is part and parcel of the DNA of these brands. Ford seems to shoulder on with the Mustang.
- a1371 4y agoReading the statement carefully, I don't think they'll completely stop the production of the two cars. Just the ICE versions will discontinue. They have seemed to word it like this to create fomo.
- phpisthebest 4y agoToday there is no EV version, and Killing the "ICE" version is killing the car
- gunapologist99 4y agoElectric and gas are simply not the same. Comparing the smooth, precise acceleration of a Tesla Plaid with its premium advanced technology to the visceral emotions that a 700HP gas-powered beast drums up is just not the same. You can feel the sound and vibration of a monster supercharged engine screaming as it violently pitches you forward. It's the same reason why people buy Harleys instead of advanced Japanese superbikes, and it's the same reason why Harley sued Honda for copying their archaic engine design so that it would have the same vibration and sound (https://www.thedrive.com/article/11345/remember-when-harley- https://www.thedrive.com/article/11345/remember-when-harley-...). This CEO is making a big mistake by completely eliminating them instead of just reducing their production numbers. It seems to be more of a political move than a smart business decision; just because he doesn't like that surge of emotion and raw fury emanating from a big-block V8 doesn't mean that others won't pony up big bucks to get it.
- behohippy 4y agoI believe this is mostly due to declining sales. My local dealer had good stock levels during the car shortages and the sales people were complaining about lots of Chargers, but no Grand Caravans. They could sell every mini van they produced, if they could get more.
- dannyphantom 4y agoThis is entirely anecdotal; but since the new Corvette was released I've noticed that I seldom see any Challengers or Chargers on the road, in driveways, or...much of anywhere for that matter. I used to see a ton of regular consumers driving Chargers a few years ago but since then they are mostly police cars, which doesn't really count. Even less so for Challengers... But I have seen the new Corvette a ton, perhaps because it resembles a Ferrari.
- cudgy 4y agoOpposite for me. Tons of Chargers … might see a new Corvette once in awhile. Tesla’s are quite common.
- teeray 4y agoThe real devastation is to police forces who traded in their Crown Vics for Chargers over the past couple decades.