Dodge previews the Charger Daytona SRT Concept, an EV that's clinging to the past

Shawn Knight

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Forward-looking: Last summer, Dodge teased what it called American eMuscle – marketing speak for electric versions of its high-performance Charger and Challenger models. In November, the automaker confirmed it will end production of its gas-powered muscle cars by 2024. Now, we're getting our first look – and listen – to its electric future.

The Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept features an 800V Banshee propulsion system and a standard all-wheel-drive system, which combine to make the EV faster than a Hellcat in all key performance measures. The performance hood, the R-Wing, is a functional feature that enhances downforce at higher speeds and helps hide the headlights.

Aerodynamic efficiencies continue with the 21-inch wheels featuring a turbine-like design and a red Fratzog logo on the center caps. Six-piston brakes from Brembo supply the stopping power.

Dodge is also outfitting the concept with what it calls the eRupt Transmission, a multi-speed tranny with electro-mechanical shifting that delivers "distinctive shift points, throwing shoulders into seatbacks in true Dodge style." And there's also the PowerShot push-to-pass feature. When activated by pushing a button on the steering wheel, PowerShot "delivers an adrenaline jolt of increased horsepower for a quick burst of acceleration."

The most mind-boggling feature is without a doubt the exhaust system. That's right, Dodge added an exhaust to an electric vehicle. Dubbed the Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust, it pushes "performance sound" through an amplifier and tuning chamber located at the rear of the vehicle. Dodge claims it voices a 126 dB roar that equals the SRT Hellcat, but you can be the judge of that in the video above.

As a whole, it feels like Dodge is desperately clinging to the past rather than simply embracing the future. The gimmicky transmission, nitrous button and exhaust don't belong on an electric vehicle. Styling is subjective but it seems like Dodge is on the right track with the two-door Charger, tastefully blending elements of the existing Charger and Challenger into one.

Fortunately this is just a concept so there's still time to right some wrongs. Dodge could have another winner on its hands if they ditch the gimmicks and stick with what got them to the dance.

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So the one positive aspect of an electric car future, the end of those godawful loud muffers that f**kbois always install, is not guaranteed? Well, then just scrap the whole idea.
 
Looks weird because of how they forced large bucket seats in the rear, makes the B pillars and rear glass look disproportional and gaudy.

The fake exhaust sounds absolutely miserable,

The "PowerShot" sounds like a terrible idea, if this thing is suppose to be faster than a Hellcat it will have plenty of ompf to pass without potentially causing accidents.

Lose the backseats, the stupid fake exhaust and the "KillMe" button and it's not a bad concept.
 
Fake exhaust sound is silly but I don't have a problem with the transmission idea, though. Transmissions are fun.

If you look at tools that are powered by small motors they Rev high and have lots of gear reduction. One problem with EVs is having low end torque and high revving electric motors while keeping overall efficeny at all speeds.
Tesla has a neet trick to solve this by putting the field windings at a slight angle on the stator but it's far from a perfect solution.

And while the largest cost of an EV is in the battery pack, making a smaller high revving motor with a transmission could reduce costs by using less copper and other rare earth elements
 
"As a whole, it feels like Dodge is desperately clinging to the past rather than simply embracing the future. The gimmicky transmission, nitrous button and exhaust don't belong on an electric vehicle. "

Oh yes, lets just make every EV as boring and clinical as POSSIBLE! If it doesnt put you to sleep in 5 minutes its not muted enough! /s

Quite frankly, this is the dumbest thing I have ever seen written on this site.
Fake exhaust sound is silly but I don't have a problem with the transmission idea, though. Transmissions are fun.

If you look at tools that are powered by small motors they Rev high and have lots of gear reduction. One problem with EVs is having low end torque and high revving electric motors while keeping overall efficeny at all speeds.
Tesla has a neet trick to solve this by putting the field windings at a slight angle on the stator but it's far from a perfect solution.

And while the largest cost of an EV is in the battery pack, making a smaller high revving motor with a transmission could reduce costs by using less copper and other rare earth elements
They also makes sense as functional equipment. You dont NEED an electric motor to spin at 8k RPM on the highway when at 4k it makes the same torque. Tesla is going to use a 2 speed transmission in the new roadster to hit that 600 mile range mark, it seems....kinda obvious. People jsut act like electri cmotors ar emagic and there is no such thing as an efficiency band and direct gearing is the ONLY option.
 
So the one positive aspect of an electric car future, the end of those godawful loud muffers that f**kbois always install, is not guaranteed? Well, then just scrap the whole idea.
I agree on the loud mufflers (or lack thereof). However, I think for reasons of safety, electric cars will need to make some "noise". How much and what that sounds like are TBD.
 
"As a whole, it feels like Dodge is desperately clinging to the past rather than simply embracing the future. The gimmicky transmission, nitrous button and exhaust don't belong on an electric vehicle. "

Oh yes, lets just make every EV as boring and clinical as POSSIBLE! If it doesnt put you to sleep in 5 minutes its not muted enough! /s

Quite frankly, this is the dumbest thing I have ever seen written on this site.

They also makes sense as functional equipment. You dont NEED an electric motor to spin at 8k RPM on the highway when at 4k it makes the same torque. Tesla is going to use a 2 speed transmission in the new roadster to hit that 600 mile range mark, it seems....kinda obvious. People jsut act like electri cmotors ar emagic and there is no such thing as an efficiency band and direct gearing is the ONLY option.
Horsepower is torque multipled by RPM. All motors make different torque at different RPMs and have a MAX TORQUE in a certain RPM range. As long as you can keep mechanical losses low, peak efficiency is in that RPM range. Most overdrive gears in cars are geared toward that RPM range with a final output of 70MPH

Just a fun fact for those who don't know. I learned that years ago and still think that bit of information is the bees knees

I agree on the loud mufflers (or lack thereof). However, I think for reasons of safety, electric cars will need to make some "noise". How much and what that sounds like are TBD.
I don't know why we can't let the coil whine of electric motors just do that for us. May electric cars are engineered to have silent motors but this comes at the cost of efficiency. We could increase range and safety with one modification.

Get two birds stoned with one bush
 
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As a teenager in the early 70's, before I received my drivers license, it was sad when the "oil crisis" started, and the "big 3" (Ford, GM, Chrysler) DROPPED the muscle cars, for the cheap 4 bangers. THAT is all you had, plus the junk imports from Japan.
We are going through it all over again!

I saw this on another site...
If you get a Dodge Charger, electric, will you need a charger, to charge your Charger?
 
I would bet that the 'Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust' can be turned off. The marketers at Dodge know what they're doing. The very name Fratzonic is a play on words.

EVs are just glorified electric appliances, not much different than a garbage disposal, dishwasher, or even a trash compactor. Electric appliances have a fundamental problem; they are boring. They also have a secondary problem, they usually do not allow the user to tinker with them. This is one of my criticism of EVs, they are about as exciting and user friendly as an iPhone.

When people shell out the big bucks for a high performance product like a Dodge Charger, Porsche, Colt Python, Steinway, or even an I-9 12900k, they expect more than just a quiet machine. They want something that behaves and looks powerful. They want flash, pizzaz, fireworks. They also expect to be able to tinker, because tinkering is a way to bond with the device.

This is why computer afficionados install RGB systems, hugely over sized PSUs and AIOs. It's really no different than the Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust, aftermarket custom wheels, sound systems.

Think about it. You pull up your new Dodge EV to the stop light. The naive Corvette owner in the adjacent lane revs his motor. A tiny V-8 sound exudes. Now YOU turn on the 'Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust'. YOU crank it to 126 DB. His doors fall off.

Dodge knows what they're doing.


 
As a teenager in the early 70's, before I received my drivers license, it was sad when the "oil crisis" started, and the "big 3" (Ford, GM, Chrysler) DROPPED the muscle cars, for the cheap 4 bangers. THAT is all you had, plus the junk imports from Japan.
We are going through it all over again!

I saw this on another site...
If you get a Dodge Charger, electric, will you need a charger, to charge your Charger?
You'll need a Dodge Charger to Charge your Charger, make sure its not a Dodgy Charger!
So when they first made horseless carriages round about the previous turn of the century, did those cars make everyone feel more comfortable by having a pile of horse **** onboard for the familiar smell?
No, because they offered greater convenience and capability without having to maintain a living creature.

EVs havent figured out how to do anything better then ICE cars except how to get you tickets faster.
 
By "faster than a Hellcat," I assume you meant "quicker". The trend with EVs seems to be capping the top speed to preserve the battery, and IIRC the Hellcat tops 200mph. I don't see any performance information for this vehicle.

I actually like the sheet metal, but I think I'd turn off the "engine" noises.
 
EVs havent figured out how to do anything better then ICE cars except how to get you tickets faster.
No, see that's kind of crapola. You can get a ticket for 80 mph just as easily as you can 180. But yeah, their list of accomplishments are very small:

1. Very nearly eliminates drive line maintenance. 95% of the maintenance list for my EV is the same items that are on the smokers (brakes, suspension etc.)
2. Cost per mile day to day is minuscule compared to a smoker. I have said it before, but the 182 mile trip to Eureka Springs averages $4.90 and the last 65 miles I charge from a level 3. If I stop at an L2 charger, it takes longer, but cuts the cost of the trip down to around $4.15 if I just add what I need to get to my cabin.
3. Electric motors can run to a million miles, again with minimal maintenance.
As batteries continue to get cheaper, that will mean more and more.

So see. That is only 3 things, and they are no real importance, are they?

"You can lead a denier to facts, but you can't make them think."
 
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"As a whole, it feels like Dodge is desperately clinging to the past rather than simply embracing the future. The gimmicky transmission, nitrous button and exhaust don't belong on an electric vehicle."

Well Hey at least they are trying to be different than most every other EV maker out there and make a car that does not look like some sort of plastic blob on wheels that is so ugly even the creators probably think they are all ugly. I like the outside looks of this car and I guess if they could actually make the car sound like a real engine and not some electronic sound board sample that might work as well. You all have to rememeber these cars and the ones like it by other companies are made for gear heads and they like the big V8 sound after all...lol
 
I agree on the loud mufflers (or lack thereof). However, I think for reasons of safety, electric cars will need to make some "noise". How much and what that sounds like are TBD.
Its already a law in the US that below 18.6 MPH, EVs have to make noise so that pedestrians/blind people will hear them https://carbuzz.com/news/you-might-hear-some-strange-noises-coming-from-new-evs
Transmissions are fun.
While the transmissions might be fun to some, its more stuff that can, and likely will, break, and thus begs the question, how much will it cost to fix it?

Even many gas "muscle" cars - I really think they should call those testosterone cars - have tuned resonators to make people think they are more than they are. IMO, its silly, but I bet there are people that the sound of the car will put this EV high on their "buy" list. :rolleyes:
 
Its already a law in the US that below 18.6 MPH, EVs have to make noise so that pedestrians/blind people will hear them https://carbuzz.com/news/you-might-hear-some-strange-noises-coming-from-new-evs

While the transmissions might be fun to some, its more stuff that can, and likely will, break, and thus begs the question, how much will it cost to fix it?

Even many gas "muscle" cars - I really think they should call those testosterone cars - have tuned resonators to make people think they are more than they are. IMO, its silly, but I bet there are people that the sound of the car will put this EV high on their "buy" list. :rolleyes:
Manual transmission are one of the things that VERY RARELY break. You are far more likely to have some sensor break that bricks the car and requires the dealer ship to flash it with a proprietary computer than you are to have a manual transmission break. In all my years as a car, I have never seen a manual transmission fail. I'm swapped tons of automatics out, but a purely mechanical device made out of hardend steel is a lot less likely to break than the epoxy coated coil windings in an electric motor.
 
I keep waiting for someone to devise a way to produce *mechanical* sound (instead using speakers and digital audio) to make an EV "rumble". It shouldn't be that difficult.

When we were kids, all it took was putting a playing card in the spokes of your bicycle to make it "sound like a motorcycle". There MUST be a way to link the spinning of the electric motors to some mechanism that produces a throaty grumble without having to resort to speakers and MP3s.

The author calls the sound (and shift-shock) "gimmicks"... and maybe for now they are... but Dodge knows why Muscle Car buyers buy big powerful cars. "Electric-motor coil whine" is no substitute for an ICE's growl (and neither is a feux exhaust hooked up to an 8-Track Player.)
 
I have never seen a manual transmission fail
You have never seen a burnt or blown clutch? You have never seen what missing a gear when driving hard can do to manual?

You are far more likely to have some sensor break that bricks the car and requires the dealer ship to flash it with a proprietary computer
You have no idea what you are talking about. If an EV owner has their ride put on a scanner every 18-48 months (depending on the manufacturer), problems can easily be headed off. The number of redundancies built into an EV is insane. It's not perfect of course, but it is magnitudes better than the "when it breaks, it's broke" world of a smoker.
 
All motors make different torque at different RPMs and have a MAX TORQUE in a certain RPM range. As long as you can keep mechanical losses low, peak efficiency is in that RPM range.
For an electric motor, this is never true: max torque lies near the very bottom of the rpm range, whereas peak efficiency occurs much higher (at a crossover point between the declining curve of electrical losses vs. the increasing one of mechanical losses)

IC engines tend to be most efficient around their peak torque -- but that's primarily because engine designers attempt to place the maximal efficiency patch within the normal RPM operating range. See for instance this Honda 1.5l engine:

1-s2.0-S2666691X20300063-gr6.jpg


Also bear in mind that the position of that optimal patch can and does shift dramatically based on ambient conditions (altitude, air temperature, humidity, etc.)
 
You have never seen a burnt or blown clutch? You have never seen what missing a gear when driving hard can do to manual?


You have no idea what you are talking about. If an EV owner has their ride put on a scanner every 18-48 months (depending on the manufacturer), problems can easily be headed off. The number of redundancies built into an EV is insane. It's not perfect of course, but it is magnitudes better than the "when it breaks, it's broke" world of a smoker.
clutches are a long term wear item, it's expected they need replaced.

and with the electronics in EVs today the computer systems lock you out from changing anything. There is this whole thing called 'right to repair', you should see basically every car manufacturers stance on it.
 
clutches are a long term wear item, it's expected they need replaced.
Exactly. And keep the fluid and filter up in an automatic, and it just might never break. I'm not saying they don't have a history, I'm just saying when you commented you have never seen a manual fail, it looks a bit over optimistic.
and with the electronics in EVs today the computer systems lock you out from changing anything. There is this whole thing called 'right to repair', you should see basically every car manufacturers stance on it.
At the risk of wasting time with this again, I promise I won't mention that many repair shops are working on them as we speak. In fact. Pick your favorite sensor and call EV capable Walmart's. They can diagnose and fix them.

A Little Rock Walmart replaced one of my staff members battery sensors on her first Model S back in 2017. Advance auto sells hundreds of sensors and board units.

Do you mind if I ask where you got the info I highlighted?
 
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For an electric motor, this is never true: max torque lies near the very bottom of the rpm range, whereas peak efficiency occurs much higher
Yep. The average electric motor peak efficiency comes in at around 74%.

Now the 2nd yep. Torque is instant and a blast to feel, even in a little puddle jumper like my Focus.
 
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