I have a question. When we had more cars in the lineup, did we have these fuel economy penalties? I'm watching Ford and GM come out with new V8s but I notice they have alot of other vehicles in their lineup besides muscle cars and they're not having these types of issues or if they are, they don't seem to be as devastating as they are to the Stellantis N/A brands. Don't get me wrong it was definitely time to switch up things with the Chrysler brand as the Charger/Challenger/300 have "essentially" been the same since 2005 so that's a good 20-year run. The Designs haven't Changed on the current gen cars since 2015. Not too many other cars can say that. While the way Stellantis is going about things may seem a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction, once you look into it, there may be a bit of merit to what they're doing. If, they execute it right and make the right lineup for each of the four brands.
Chrysler: Luxury (5-6 vehicle lineup. bring the 300 back as a BMW 5-series competitor/Tesla Plaid/Lucid Air competitor, Wagoneer=Chrysler Imperial, focus brand of EV/hybrid vehicles, Chrysler 200 = BMW 3/4-series/Tesla 3 competitor, Chrysler Valiant-Pacer = Rebirth of the Australian Mopar Legend brought to the States as a luxury muscle car and proper sister car to the Coronet muscle sedan, Chrysler Town & Country= Luxury minivan)
Ram: Trucks (Rampage, Dakota, 1500, an actual Ramcharger SUV to compete with the Tahoe/Expedition, 2500, 3500)
Jeep: All Terrain SUVs (STLA: Medium: Compass, STLA: Large: SJ-Type Cherokee STLA: Large: Grand Cherokee, STLA: Frame Wrangler/Gladiator)
Dodge: Every day vehicles/performance/heritage vehicles (STLA: Medium: Colt, Dart, Gen-2 Hornet, Nitro) (STLA: Large: Charger Coupe, Coronet Sedan, Monaco crossover, Durango SUV, Dodge Grand Caravan)
Stellantis' also needs to really commit to the Hurricane family of engines and make an entire family of engines to compete with what Ford has done with the Ecoboost platform. The Hurricane already does compete with the 2.7L Ecoboost, 3.0L Ecoboost and 3.5L Ecoboost in power for the most part but there needs to be a hot 2.4L Hurricane I-4 Turbo for the STLA medium/base STLA Large platform vehicles producing about 375-390hp and roughly 400-425lb-ft of torque along with a 2.2L Hurricane producing roughly 325-350hp and 350lb-ft of torque. That's not a hard feat to accomplish and still drops the carbon footprint down especially if these powertrains are mated to hybrid transmissions that can operated in zero emissions modes on some trim levels. If they can produce those kinds of 4-cylinder turbo hurricane powertrains on the lower end of the spectrum, have the 3.0L Hurricanes in the middle with up to 550hp, A 3.8L Hurricane could sit at the top with standard and high output variants. With 23.5% more displacement, the power output should be around Hellcat territory with a powertrain that would still help to reduce the carbon footprint and reduce the amount of fines and penalties Stellantis is having to pay. Yeah, it may be a little different than what we're used to but the power would still be there and Stellantis would be able to save some of that money and put it into programs like Direct Connection and Jeep accessories.
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