Dodge teases new electric muscle car

Dodge, which is famous for its muscle cars, has announced that it will be making an electric vehicle, which will be unveiled in 2024. It’s big news, and the company even threw in a short teaser of a concept that wears a contemporary version of the Fratzog logo that was used on its cars in the 1960s and 1970s.

As with most teasers, there’s not a whole lot that is clearly visible, and the company isn’t providing much in the way of details. Based on what is shown, the vehicle sports a coupe-like profile and a front-end that is reminiscent of the classic Charger and Challenger.

Elsewhere, LED light strip that ends vertically on each side of the grille, while a flowing roofline leads to the rear that features recessed taillights and another instance of the Fratzog. In case you’re wondering, the logo’s name is meaningless, with the story being one of Dodge designers made it up and the company decided to adopt it.

Retro styling aside, the unnamed EV appears to come with a dual-motor setup for all-wheel drive, allowing it perform a four-wheel burnout. Given that Dodge’s most powerful muscle car currently available for purchase is the Challenger SRT Super Stock with 807 hp, the EV is expected to provide much more.

Stellantis, which is Dodge’s parent company, revealed in its EV Day 2021 release that there will be a dedicated electric platform that will underpin vehicles from its brands. Modular in nature, there are four version of the architecture, including STLA Small (range up to 500 km), STLA Medium (range up to 700 km), STLA Large (range up to 800 km) and STLA Frame (up to 800 km), the last of which is suited to body-on-frame vehicles like pick-up trucks. The STLA Large should be a good fit for the Dodge EV.

So, why on God’s green earth (the company’s own words) would a brand that builds the Challenger SRT Demon, Durango SRT Hellcat and Charger SRT Hellcat, make such a decision? The answer is performance.

According to Dodge CEO Timothy Kuniskis, “if a charger can make a Charger quicker, we’re in.” Elaborating further, he said that “Dodge customers buy an experience, not a technology,” and the brand actually attracts the youngest and most-diverse customers in the industry.

Kuniskis added that these millennials account for a quarter of the United States population and have the highest spending power of any generation. More importantly, these individuals have the highest acceptance rate of EVs. So, by combining spending power with electric power and a brand that is all about the horsepower, Dodge wants to create a customer profile today that will be a key enabler to getting muscle car buyers into EVs in the future.

For over a decade, Dodge has seen rising market share by continuously increasing the horsepower of its engines, and EV technology will further increase those gains. Kuniskis admits that the company’s engineers are reaching a practical limit of what they can squeeze from an internal combustion engine. “They know, we know that electric motors can give us more,” he stated.

As such, to meet the demands of power-hungry customers, an EV was the path chosen. “Dodge doesn’t view EV technology as a revolution, but instead as a natural evolution of the modern muscle car. Let’s face it, car and muscle aren’t changing, and modern has an obligation to,” Kuniskis explained.

Despite announcing an EV, Dodge says that it “will not sell electric cars,” but rather it “will sell American eMuscle.” The company didn’t clarify further, but it’s implied that eMuscle is the branding applied to the “world’s first full battery electric muscle car,” which will “tear up the streets, not the planet.”