The Charger Daytona has 496 horsepower in the R/T trim and 670 in the Scat Pack.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail
Over 18 years, nearly 2.5 million Dodge Chargers and Challengers have rolled off the line at the Brampton Assembly Plant in Ontario. That number doesn’t include the Chrysler 300 and the short-lived Dodge Magnum, which were also spun off the same platform. Put together from Mercedes chassis bits that dated back to the late 1990s, Stellantis extracted every last ounce of the potential from the platform it could. It was as much a success for the company as it was for Brampton’s autoworkers.
Production ended for the gas-powered muscle car in Brampton, but it resumed in Windsor with the new Dodge Charger Daytona. A vehicle that will go down in history as the first production passenger electric car to be made in Canada. The battery-powered coupe will start arriving at dealerships by the end of this year. A sedan will follow next year, along with versions powered by a turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine. Before we drove the cars, Dodge encouraged us to think of the new Charger Daytona, where Daytona means it’s electric, as a muscle car first and an EV second.
“That’s why we put in launch control and donut and drift modes. We created this car for people who appreciate the wild and crazy stuff we do at Dodge,” says Kevin Hellman, senior vice-president of Dodge products.
In contrast to many of the new electric cars that are coming out, it’s hard to place the Charger Daytona. It’s the only electric coupe in a market obsessed with SUVs and crossovers, and it’s trying hard to convince you that it isn’t an EV. Maybe that’s a good thing because as interest in EVs wanes, the preproduction Charger Scat Pack that I was driving generated more attention on the roads of Phoenix than any other car I’ve driven this year. And it was genuine excitement. Like “Please, let me take lots of pictures of your car” kind of excitement. No one seemed to care that it didn’t have a V8 under the hood or any type of engine. They thought the car was cool, and sometimes that matters more.
I’m not surprised. The last Challenger and Charger built up a cult-like following, especially in the U.S., where most of them were sold. Dodge’s ability to market, sell and keep the platform relevant for nearly two decades should be taught in every marketing class. With trims like “Scat Pack” and “Super Bee” and bold colours like Go Mango and Hellraisin, which weren’t only fun but recall the brand’s rich heritage, it remained highly desirable throughout its lifecycle.
Dodge has a strategy for the new Charger Daytona, too. “The best thing we have going for us is the flexibility to adjust to market conditions,” says Hellman. “This car can be a two-door, four-door, [gas-powered], BEV … we’re not moving from one car to another. It’s all the same car, and about 70 per cent of the parts are shared across them.”
The coupe comes with a hatch.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail
According to the company, giving the customer a choice of powertrain was the best approach. “It was always planned to be a multi-energy platform. We knew going in we wanted to maintain the muscle car ICE (internal combustion engine), but we also wanted to add electrification and we had to find the best balance for both,” says Audrey Moore, the chief engineer responsible for the new Dodge Charger.
Moore says that considerations had to be made early in the design process for battery placement, and there had to be room for the driveshaft and exhaust. “It was a unique design effort for us, but it also made us think hard about doing things more efficiently,” she says.
Another clue that Dodge wants you to forget that the Charger Daytona is an EV is the new “Fratzonic Dual chambered exhaust.” Dodge says it uses high-efficiency extreme bandwidth transducers coupled with dual passive radiators housed in an enclosure with a dedicated amplifier. It’s essentially a 600-watt dual-subwoofer that’s been installed in the rear bumper and pumps out sound through dual pipes just like a real exhaust.
The Fratzonic Dual chambered exhaust is basically speakers near where the tailpipes would be and makes it sound like there is a V8 under the hood.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail
Push the start button, and there’s a thunderous rumble with a subtle, spacey twang in the background. If anything, it gets your attention. And it’s loud, up to 126 decibels. That’s an intensity level that sits in between a jet plane taking off and a jackhammer. It’s also very convincing on a drive-by, and there’s a noticeable bass rumble that can be felt in the car and through the touchpoints. Suspend your disbelief, and you could almost imagine a big block V8 burbling away under the hood. Of course, you can turn all this off in the infotainment system, if you prefer the quiet EV drive.
Both Scat Pack and R/T trims are all-wheel drive and come with dual 250-kilowatt electric motors, one on each axle, and a 100.5-kilowatt-hour battery. The battery is good for 496 kilometres of range in the R/T and 388 in the Scat Pack. The entry-level R/T makes up to 496 horsepower and 404 lb-ft of torque. Level up to the Scat Pack, and those numbers jump significantly to 670 and 627, respectively. The motors are shared between the two trims, and the extra power comes from software calibration, according to Dodge.
It’s a big jump from the gas-powered last generation, which made 485 horsepower from a 6.4-litre Hemi V8 in the Scat Pack trim, but it’s also a completely different car. I loved the design of the last Challenger, but I never loved driving it. It was cumbersome in the corners and a handful under acceleration. The Charger Daytona feels tight, stable, and, dare I say, nimble. It has great steering that has just the right amount of weight to it. And with a near 50/50 weight distribution, understeer is minimal.
Dodge has moved to dual screens, but there are still real buttons for the climate control and volume.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail
We were allowed to drive it on the track and after each lap my times decreased, my confidence rose and it was fun, which is the most important thing. When entering a corner at speed, you don’t feel like the tail is going to come around and bite you, and you feel the massive tires begin to let go well before you hear them.
It’s an easy car to drive despite weighing more than 2,600 kilograms and being larger in nearly every dimension. The last Charger and Challenger were intimidating, especially in Hellcat guise. In contrast, the Daytona feels perfectly tame. While that might be slightly disappointing to some, there are many party tricks it can perform. The Scat Pack gets additional drive modes that include Drag, Track, Custom and Race modes like Drift and Donut, which will either disconnect or limit power to the front axle, allowing you to do as many lurid burnouts, power slides and, yes, donuts, as the tires will allow before disintegrating into a smouldering mess.
The rear seats on the new Charger Daytona.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail
Not being based on a platform from the ‘90s also has significant advantages when it comes to overall refinement and comfort, and the Charger Daytona’s cabin is a huge leap forward, not just technologically but also in fit and finish. The waffled plastic door cards aren’t for everybody, however, but you can spec these in real carbon fibre for more money. And while Dodge has moved to dual screens for the infotainment and instruments like just about everybody else, there are still real buttons for the climate control and a volume knob for the stereo. It’s also very spacious inside, with large back seats that are the same size as the ones in the coming sedan. Better yet, the new liftback design means there’s 644 litres of space under the hatch before folding the seats down.
Dodge is adamant that the new Charger isn’t built for a specific demographic. It’s fun and approachable, and like the last one, I think it’s going to appeal to a lot of different people. In that respect, the new Charger Daytona is a success. The R/T has a starting price of $54,995, and the Scat Pack starts at $86,995. If the track modes and tire-shredding antics don’t appeal to you, the R/T comes with the same electric motors, the e-exhaust, and 95 per cent of the experience.
Tech specs
2024 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T and Scat Pack
- Price: $54,995 (R/T); $86,995 (Scat Pack) plus $2,695 destination plus taxes
- Motor / battery: dual electric motors / 100-kilowatt-hour (93.9 usable)
- Horsepower / torque (lb-ft): R/T – 496 / 404; Scat Pack – 670 / 627
- Transmission / drive: 1-speed / all-wheel drive
- Curb weight (kilograms): R/T – 2,585; Scat Pack – 2,616
- Energy consumption / range: R/T – 2.7 litres equivalent per 100 kilometres combined; Scat Pack – three litres equivalent per 100 kilometres combined
- Alternatives: maybe the Tesla Model S
When standing behind the Charger Daytona, it sounds almost like a V8.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail
The writer was a guest of the automaker. Content was not subject to approval.
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