Can the new electric Dodge Charger Daytona really be considered a muscle car without the famous Hemi V8 under the hood? The R/T and Scat pack make big power numbers, and the styling is still retro-modern and unmistakably Dodge Charger. Maybe that’s good enough for the “Brotherhood of Muscle.” But we’ll have to reserve further judgment until we get a chance to get behind the wheel of the future of the muscle car.
The Classic Charger’s Old-School, Industrial Charm is Gone
The last Charger and Dodge Challenger were aging designs that showed in the cabins. On the flip side, they felt old-school, a good thing in the era of touch screens and buttonless dashboards. They had a rough industrial quality to them, with their cue-ball-capped gear lever and wide, overstuffed seats that weren’t the most comfortable but just felt like they belonged. Dodge says the new Charger evokes the past, but it’s hard to look beyond its thoroughly modern cockpit-like aesthetic.
Bigger screens and Stellantis’ first digital gauge clusters
Real buttons have given way to capacitive touch ones, and a 10.25-inch cluster screen has replaced physical gauges on the R/T and a sizeable 16-inch screen on Scat Pack trims, the first digital gauge clusters from Stellantis. The 12.3-inch central display is angled towards the driver and creates a more intimate driving environment than before. The look veers more towards a sports car than a muscle car, especially with the new fixed-headrest sport seats that wouldn’t look out of place in a Toyota Supra.
Dodge has fitted the Charge Daytona with a new 64-colour ambient lighting system that animates to opening and closing the doors, starting the engine, and more. The lighting shines through what Dodge calls a “parametric texture” that envelops the driver and front passenger in 270 degrees of light. There are new sound systems, too, both provided by Alpine Audio. A 9-speaker version is standard, but the optional 914-watt 18-speaker system with a subwoofer should satisfy all the audiophiles.
…the suckers for nostalgia that we are will miss the old generation, rough edges and all.
A new one-touch drive experience mode allows the driver to change the vehicle’s personality with just one button, tweaking the interior lighting, gauges, and head-up display to correspond to the selected drive mode. In addition to drive modes, the Charger will feature things that haven’t been seen on an EV before, like line-lock, race prep, and donut mode, which are the kind of vehicular antics only Dodge seems to specialize in.
A new “pistol-grip” electronic shifter pays homage to Charger’s heritage
The sports car theme continues with the flat top and bottom steering wheel and the “Powershot” button, which provides an additional 40 hp for 15 seconds. A “pistol-grip” electronic shifter and the start button are in close proximity on the centre console and are cues to the Charger’s heritage.
Like many other Stellantis products, the infotainment system will run Uconnect 5. It will include a navigation system informing you if you can reach your destination or need to stop at a charger beforehand. A new drive experience recorder also works for both drag and circuit racing and captures and logs vehicle data, video, and audio through a dashcam.
The Charger has lost the Hemi, and the cabin will offer an all-new experience that’s up-to-the-minute modern and fitting with the whole EV theme, but the suckers for nostalgia that we are will miss the old generation, rough edges and all.
