It has taken me all day to try and figure out my genuine thoughts, reactions and feelings on today's reveal and just the whole situation in general without being overly negative about what's happening here. First and foremost, kudos to the design team of the new Charger. From all of the online videos and pictures, the car looks fabulous and I can't wait to see it in person. To the team that engineered the Fraztonic system to give an EV a very loud and impressive sound. Congratulations on a job well done. The car sounds phenomenal and it's a big improvement from what we first experienced. It sounds like a healthy, old school V8 and that is something that can be appreciated. Credit where credit is due, the car sounds good and no one can take that away from the men and women that labored on this project. I will even say job well done for the team that came up with the idea to try to make EVs more tolerable, organic and fun. In light of what the EPA has put the Mopar brands up against in pressuring the brand to move into the EV realm, I understand the vision and I don't think I could have dreamt up an electric Charger any better than what you guys did. That being said, I don't think that this was the best route to take in this particular scenario for this particular brand. I am not against EVs nor am I under the impression that every EV has to be as boring an uninspiring an minimalistic and ugly as the vehicles that are produced by the Tesla organization and I'm glad that Stellantis is not going in that direction with their vehicles. The issue is, this powertrain should not be in this vehicle or anything that bears any of the Muscle car names. Even to just take this powertrain and platform and fratzonic sound system and to have called this car the Dodge Banshee (of course with different styling) the car would have worked. Giving this car an R/T package, a Scat Pack package and even an SRT package and called them Banshee R/T, Banshee Scat Pack, and Banshee SRT-E would have given Dodge an EV with a better reception. This was a bad executive call that COULD cost the company ALOT of Money. ALL IS NOT TOTALLY LOST THOUGH!!!!!!!!!!! As I said, this is going to be one HELL of an electric performance vehicle and the potential is has is unprecedented. Just a rename and a different styling and Dodge really will have a decent Tesla Model S competitor on it's hands and one that COULD MAKE the company ALOT of money as well.
As much as I love the modern Hemi V8 family of engines, I'm not completely upset that they are gone. Especially when for one, I see the problems that they have day in and day out and for two, I see the potential the Hurricane family of powertrains has. Anything on the STLA Large Platform from the Dodge Brand with a Longitudinally mounted Hurricane powertrain (2.0L Turbo, 3.0L Twin Turbo H/O or 3.0L Twin Turbo S/O) has the potential to be a very impressive performance machine. Anyone who has read my comments is more than likely aware that the company ZF (the one that makes the current 8-speed transmission) is working on a hybrid 8-speed variant that offers impressive horsepower and torque specs via the internal electronics onboard the transmission unit itself. While quite naturally it would offer more power, it's not too dissimilar from the already popular hybrid powertrain setup in the Jeep 4Xe vehicles such as the Wrangler and Grand Cherokee. To put that into perspective, Dodge could have the gas powered I6 Hurricanes in "R/T six pack" & "Scat Pack six pack" with the Hurricane S/O and H/O respectively and let the Daytona's be hybrids with the Daytona R/T using the 3.OL S/O Hybrid powertrain and the Daytona S/P using the 3.0L H/O Hybrid powertrain, which would easily surpass the current Hellcat in horsepower while still having an ICE engine under the hood along with an EPA silencing hybrid system that allows for a 25+ mile full emissions free range of driving. At that point most people won't have any complaints. Offer the Charger like this with the Durango and Dakota as it's ICE/Hybrid stablemates and the Dodge Banshee as it's EV stablemate and you have yourself a lineup.
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