Dodge CEO hints at the return of a popular product | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

In March 2024, Stellantis (STLA) -backed Dodge did something virtually sacrilege in the eyes of muscle car purists.

In an effort to transition the brand from its muscle car heritage into a new age defined by electrification, Dodge introduced its most controversial product yet: a replacement for the Challenger and Charger that ditches the Hemi V8 for the choice of either a smaller, turbocharged inline-6 motor or a fully electric powertrain.

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In an August 2024 interview with Automotive News, Dodge CEO Matt McAlear believed Dodge could lure some traditional muscle car buyers into switching to electric while also attracting new customers.

“I think there’s a compelling opportunity to bring people in the showroom, to look at this new technology and experience this new technology and see what it can do for them and why they can fall in love with it,” McAlear said.

On paper, the menacing EV makes a lot of power—670 horsepower, to be exact. However, for loyal owners and fans of the Dodge brand and its loud, thundering muscle cars, raw performance numbers do not make up for something that is skin deep, as many enthusiasts expressed on social media that the brand alienated them.

A Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack. Dodge CEO Matt McAlear admitted that the sour response to the new Charger “stung,” even as the car packed 670 horsepower and 627 lb.-ft. of torque.

Dodge CEO says criticism of EV ‘stung’

In an interview with The Drive, Dodge CEO Matt McAlear admitted that the sour response to the new Charger “stung,” especially as the new vehicle was intended to be a much superior car on paper.

On social media outlets like YouTube and TikTok, car-centric creators, pundits, and enthusiasts criticized the Charger Daytona from many angles. It seemed like there was an endless list of bones to pick, including the fact that it weighed more than a Range Rover, its fake “fratzonic” engine nose, and the fact that it does not come with a Hemi V8—its most mortal sin in the eyes of Mopar fanatics.

“It’s frustrating. But the problem becomes, based on who we’re hearing from, it’s so easy to be negative today. That’s easy. No one wants to be positive,” McAlear said.

The Charger is ‘a muscle car that just happens to be an EV,’ McAlear insists.

The Dodge Charger Daytona EV comes at a time when “pure” performance cars and “hard-core” sports cars are becoming a dying breed for car enthusiasts.

Around the same time as Dodge, the same sort of frustration was also lobbed toward another auto brand: Mercedes. Its high-performance AMG division received heat last year when it released the newest iteration of the C63 AMG.

Instead of the signature 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8, the three-pointed star replaced it with a turbocharged four-cylinder plug-in hybrid motor that made more power but led seasoned reviewers to indicate that it “lost its soul.”

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“[The new Mercedes C63] doesn’t have the feel that we’ve come to expect […] from a vehicle like this,” YouTuber and auto pundit Doug Demuro said in a review. “I hate to say this, but its true, this car drives like a Subaru.”

Despite the criticism, the Dodge CEO insists that what he sells isn’t an EV; he seeks to elude the stereotype by saying that his new loud and fast muscle car just happens to be electric.

“The other thing I tell people is we’re not coming to market with an EV, we’re coming with a muscle car that just happens to be an EV,” McAlear said. “Because you walk around any auto show or any EV show, they’re all two-box, white vegan leather, flat floor, three big large screens, big open consoles—they all look exactly the same. That’s what everyone thinks of as an EV, right?”

Dodge’s advertising also shares McAlear’s sentiment. In a commercial shown on TV, social media, and YouTube, the narrator declares over a b-roll of nature, animals, and children that the Charger is an EV that defies the “eco-friendly” stereotype.

“We aren’t building electric vehicles because its trendy, we’re making them to make a difference,” he said. “We’re building electric vehicles to save our planet. To save it from all those lame, soulless, weak-looking, self-driving sleep pods everyone else keeps pollutin’ our streets with!”

Dodge CEO hints at the return of Hemi V8

Stellantis expects to release the gas-powered versions of the new Dodge Charger, which it calls the Charger SIXPACK, in 2025. Instead of the Hemi V8, the SIXPACK will feature a twin-turbocharged inline-six-cylinder engine that produces up to 550 horsepower.

In December 2024, a report emerged that former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares was the spearhead behind the decision to kill off the beloved Hemi V8 engines that had become the automaker’s signature dish.

In response to inquiries about whether the new Charger will see a Hemi V8 return under its hood, McAlear told The Drive that the new car’s guts could be adaptable to any Stellantis powertrain. Although the Dodge CEO was a little tight-lipped about future plans, he noted that Tavares’ departure opens new opportunities.

“One of the things that’s encouraging is that with the change in leadership, you know, V8s are no longer a bad word around the company,” he said.

Critically, he also warned that any engine it wants in any new car must comply with new and future emissions regulations.

Though President Trump’s DOT Secretary asked for a rollback in fuel economy regulations, McAlear noted that such freedoms do not last forever and that money must be spent on research, development, and engineering that can last one and a half and two years.

“It always sounds easier than it is,” McAlear said. “There are thousands of suppliers, right? And then you have emissions regulations that you always have to update your engines for, and typically that’s done from year to year, because any time you have [an] update for emissions, it’s just more money you have to put into it.”

“You don’t want to have to spend that money if you don’t have to.”

Stellantis NV is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as STLA.