Dodge will end production of gas-powered Challenger and Charger muscle cars by 2024

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: Dodge over the summer said its first electric cars… er, American eMuscle vehicles, would arrive in 2024. We now know that their arrival will usher out two of the company’s most popular gas-powered vehicles. It's the end of an era, and the dawn of a new one, converging.

A new report from Motor Trend claims Dodge’s first electric muscle car concept will be unveiled in early 2022, followed by a plug-in hybrid that’ll enter production at the end of next year. A third new vehicle is also said to be in the works, but the biggest revelation is that Dodge’s current lineup of muscle cars – including the Challenger coupe and the Charger sedan – will cease production in 2024.

It’s all part of a 24-month road map called Never Lift that’ll prime the company for its transition from gas-powered vehicles with combustion engines to electric motor-powered rides.

“I'm juggling knives because I've gotta keep two different huge factions happy because at some point those two factions will converge,” Dodge Brand CEO Tim Kuniskis told Motor Trend. “The problem is no one knows when they will converge. My job is to provide confidence, over the next 24 months, that we're gonna do this,” Kuniskis added.

Notably, Kuniskis would not say if the new vehicles would carry on the Challenger and Charger name, although as Motor Trend correctly highlights, both hold a lot of equity among car enthusiasts. Both were popular among muscle car enthusiasts during their heyday in the late 60s and early 70s, but got a new lease on life in the latter half of the 2000s when Dodge brought them back for another run.

We do know that all of Dodge’s new electric vehicles will feature the Fratzog logo to differentiate them from gas-powered models.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/92348-dodge-end-production-gas-powered-challenger-charger-muscle.html

 

[Irata]

Good luck with that.

I‘d wager that part of the reason why Dodge is retiring its V8 powered vehicles is that they are still on an older platform from the DaimlerChrysler days and their new owner Peugot cannot or does not want to invest the necessary funds needed to modernize it.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Lately it's been all about how many of their cars they can put an OP engine into. The cars themselves aren't great. I mean, American muscle car interiors are not exactly lookers. Probably doesn't help they are also incredibly easy to steal. It's about time they retire them/it (the engine).

Bring on the new stuff!

 

[wiyosaya]

Cry me a river! /s

 

[Neatfeatguy]

This sudden shift to all electric vehicles is going to cause a backup in production of batteries and raw materials needed for them and push prices way too high for cars.

Let us not forget about what is done with all these batteries when they die or if there is a car accident and they're wrecked. There is no good way to recycle many of them. It takes a lot of destructive power to recycle these batteries right now and if you're putting millions of batteries out there and need to recycle them or build them, it takes a lot of non-eco friendly power to produce and destroy them.

I guess I don't see how this shift is any better over using fuel burning cars, at least not in the current state of things.

Governments are rushing things too fast and not doing it properly. They're going to cause a huge cluster fu¢k of a problem in the next 10 years because of their haste.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Luckily our power grid is ready for all these electric cars...

Oh wait we have rolling blackouts already in several states.

Oh and our peaking power plants are the "dirtiest" so this is actually the opposite of "green" but that doesn't matter so much as funding companies that support the right politicans.

 

[BadThad]

So, we shift to electric but we have an ineptocracy that is working it's hardest to get rid of fossil fuels. Guess what? Most electric around the world is produced by coal and gas. Next up, major rolling blackouts! Our federal government is run by geniuses!

 

[Dennis83]

This sudden shift to all electric vehicles is going to cause a backup in production of batteries and raw materials needed for them and push prices way too high for cars.

Let us not forget about what is done with all these batteries when they die or if there is a car accident and they're wrecked. There is no good way to recycle many of them. It takes a lot of destructive power to recycle these batteries right now and if you're putting millions of batteries out there and need to recycle them or build them, it takes a lot of non-eco friendly power to produce and destroy them.

I guess I don't see how this shift is any better over using fuel burning cars, at least not in the current state of things.

Governments are rushing things too fast and not doing it properly. They're going to cause a huge cluster fu¢k of a problem in the next 10 years because of their haste.

We need to do it and then see it fail first, before doing it better. Humanity works like this, can't help it.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This sudden shift to all electric vehicles is going to cause a backup in production of batteries and raw materials needed for them and push prices way too high for cars.

Let us not forget about what is done with all these batteries when they die or if there is a car accident and they're wrecked. There is no good way to recycle many of them. It takes a lot of destructive power to recycle these batteries right now and if you're putting millions of batteries out there and need to recycle them or build them, it takes a lot of non-eco friendly power to produce and destroy them.

I guess I don't see how this shift is any better over using fuel burning cars, at least not in the current state of things.

Governments are rushing things too fast and not doing it properly. They're going to cause a huge cluster fu¢k of a problem in the next 10 years because of their haste.

Luckily our power grid is ready for all these electric cars...

Oh wait we have rolling blackouts already in several states.

Oh and our peaking power plants are the "dirtiest" so this is actually the opposite of "green" but that doesn't matter so much as funding companies that support the right politicans.

Well, it IS NOT BETTER. You're trading CO2 production, which can be cleaned by planting trees, for cobalt and Nickle pollution, which takes thousands of years to clean, and still charging them with the same dirty fossil fuels.

But eco-mentalists, as top gear called them, also fought tooth and nail to stop nuclear replacing coal. They dont care about results, only virtue signaling about how amazing they are for using "clean" technology. These are the same yahoos that think replacing a 5 year old car with a new prius, with batteries made from cobalt mined in australia and nickel mined in canada, then shipped to norway to be refined, then shipped to china to be packaged, then shipped to japan to be put into a prius, then shipped back to the UK to be sold, is somehow "saving on CO2".

IF they stop hard working people from getting the transportation they need, all the better.

:you will own nothing and youll be happy".

Good luck with that.

I‘d wager that part of the reason why Dodge is retiring its V8 powered vehicles is that they are still on an older platform from the DaimlerChrysler days and their new owner Peugot cannot or does not want to invest the necessary funds needed to modernize it.

This right here is the REAL reason. The platform the cars run on is the Mercedes E chassis from 1989. Good platform, but heavy as hell. Pugeot has no interest in investing in a new platform, everyone knew that from the failed AMC merger decades before. The HEMI engines are old, sure they work, but the newer LS engines from GM and DOHC engines from ford are running a train on them now. Chrysler has been in need of new powertrains for years, both their V6 and I4 engines also date from the 90s.

Chrysler is going to see more of this as times go on. Surprised they didnt decide to end RAM production too, the french are allergic to success. Given chrysler's investments in their own tech have been delayed for over a decade now, I dont see this going away.

Then again the chrysler 300c was supposed to end production in 2018. They're still making it, because it sells. They'll keep making the challenger and charger so long as they keep printing money.

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

Well for now EV batteries require lithium, cobalt and others to be mined. Soon we'll be hearing how the mining of these minerals are destroying the environment. Right now it's not so bad because the World is not fully on EV yet. But once that happens it will have the same repercussion as oil. Everything sounds good at first on paper but once it's reality, "Oops".

 

[SRB]

Um, did anyone notice they said HYBRID? They still run on gas. Oh you can plug them in to get a few miles from the house, but the battery packs are smaller and it has a GAS tank.

 

[psycros]

Um, did anyone notice they said HYBRID? They still run on gas. Oh you can plug them in to get a few miles from the house, but the battery packs are smaller and it has a GAS tank.

The all-electric models will come first, insuring that the whole thing fails and they never even get to the hybrid production. People WANT hybrids but car companies don't want to build them because their more expensive and have way more breakdowns while under warranty.

 

[captaincranky]

Good luck with that.

I‘d wager that part of the reason why Dodge is retiring its V8 powered vehicles is that they are still on an older platform from the DaimlerChrysler days and their new owner Peugot cannot or does not want to invest the necessary funds needed to modernize it.

The irony there is, top fuel dragsters still use an antiquated design Chrysler "hemi" from the 60's as the basis of the power plant. They put out around 10,000 horsepower, or about 20 times the stock motor. The only drawback is, you only get one run, from each motor.

 

[Puiu]

It's all about the chicken and egg problem. I'm glad that these companies are switching to EV because it forces the other areas related to it (infrastructure, battery technologies, etc) to advance at extremely fast speeds.

 

[wiyosaya]

We need to do it and then see it fail first, before doing it better. Humanity works like this, can't help it.

Agreed. There are companies out there working toward recycling methods that mitigate the problems, and that is part of what helps humanity advance.

Not to mention, there are companies out there working to manufacture more eco and resource friendly batteries - an article about the batteries for instance - https://www.lightmetalage.com/news/...e-breakthrough-with-new-aluminum-ion-battery/
And the company itself - https://graphenemg.com/

It's all about the chicken and egg problem. I'm glad that these companies are switching to EV because it forces the other areas related to it (infrastructure, battery technologies, etc) to advance at extremely fast speeds.

I agree. I see it as part of the advancement of humanity as a whole.

So, we shift to electric but we have an ineptocracy that is working it's hardest to get rid of fossil fuels. Guess what? Most electric around the world is produced by coal and gas. Next up, major rolling blackouts! Our federal government is run by geniuses!

Its well known that even powering EVs from coal is cleaner than ICE powered from gas.

Yes, Electric Cars Are Cleaner, Even When The Power Comes From Coal

One argument that has been made against electric vehicles is that we must decarbonise the power system first otherwise cars are no cleaner than if they use gasoline. But a new study suggests that EVs help to tackle climate change in all but the most coal-reliant countries - 95% of markets globally.

www.forbes.com

 

[Danny101]

What about the coming ice age? It's going to be a cluster f^^k