Corporations will use any excuse to justify doing something they’d probably need or want to do in the absence of that excuse. During the pandemic, there were a lot of items that experienced totally justifiable price increases due to supply chain issues and changes in demand. Then there’s stuff that got more expensive seemingly because everyone was using the emergency as a reason to charge more.
Are the tariffs on vehicles going to cause prices to go up, vehicles to get cancelled, and otherwise result in changes to the market that were not planned? Absolutely. Is it the only reason why Stellantis would need to kill the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T electric car? That’s what it sounds like Stellantis is saying, and I am just a bit skeptical. I have honestly missed Stellantis shenanigans in The Morning Dump. Nature is healing.
Lotus is one of the companies that seemed like it we be most proportionally screwed by tariffs, but now there’s a silver lining. Lotus might be saved, and it might be saved by internal combustion. BYD isn’t worried about protectionism long-term, as it’s expanding its presence in Europe much in the same way Japanese automakers took hold of California in the 1970s and ’80s. Is Hungary the new California? They both make pretty good wine.
Ending on a truly terrible note, a massive fire in England at a classic car mecca has claimed three lives.
Charger Daytona R/T Postponed ‘To Assess The Effects Of U.S. Tariff Policies’
When Sam reviewed the all-electric Dodge Charger Daytona, he walked away impressed with its muscle-car approach to something that’s entirely electric. At the same time, he worried that there would be “a group of Hellcat V8 diehards that will go to their graves condemning this car and refuse to consider it no matter how many times they get beat at the drag strip.”
I haven’t driven one yet, and maybe I’ll never get the chance, but the few I’ve seen do look great. I also think the 465 horsepower and sub-5 second 0-60 mph time in the R/T trim is plenty enough for me, thank you. However, at over $60,000, there are just too many other electric cars with better range and similar performance I’d consider. You’re not even that far away from a base Lucid Air.
That’s assuming you pay full freight. Dealers have already been dropping the prices of Chargers by up to $32,000. Heavy discounting for a brand-new car is a terrible sign. The fact that it’s for a Charger, the once extraordinarily desirable muscle car, is something that sounds insane until you find out it’s because the car is a pricey and not particularly range-ful BEV. The company sold fewer than 2,000 of them in Q1, though we don’t have much to compare it to since the car just launched. By comparison, Dodge sold 10,660 of the gas-powered Chargers in Q1 of 2024.
All of this is reason enough to probably reconsider selling the entry-level R/T version, and Mopar Insiders learned a that’s a part of a bunch of changes coming for MY 2026:
Dodge is dropping the Daytona R/T for 2026. While our sources told us that the Charger Daytona would be an order-only model for the new year, Dodge has changed its mind. Dodge appears to have eliminated the R/T due to poor sales. According to various car inventory search websites, more than 3,500 units of the 496-horsepower R/T two-door are sitting on dealer lots, so it looks like Dodge is cutting its losses and shifting focus. Meanwhile, the more powerful Daytona Scat Pack—making 670 horsepower—still has around 1,600 units left from 2024 and 2025, but it’s sticking around for another year with some significant changes.
The site also reports that the four-door electric Daytona Scat Pack will be around in 2026, making people who missed the old Charger sedan happy. Maybe. Why did this happen?
Slow sales seem like the obvious reason, but that’s not what a Stellantis spokesperson told Carscoops:
“Production of the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T is postponed for the 2026 model year as we continue to assess the effects of U.S. tariff policies,” the company told us in a statement. “The Charger’s flexible, multi-energy STLA Large platform allows us to focus on the Charger Daytona Scat Pack’s performance as the world’s quickest and most powerful muscle car, add the new four-door model to the Charger mix for the 2026 model year and lean into the new Charger SIXPACK models that will launch in the second half of the year.”
The Charger Daytona is built in Canada and, therefore, is likely subject to some tariffs. The vehicle is almost certainly USMCA compliant, so it’s probably not seeing import duties as high as other vehicles. This is merely my opinion, but like a pair of Yeezy Foam Runners… I’m not buying it. The car is already likely a money-loser, so having to make it more expensive to any degree is untenable. However, there’s no reason to keep making a car that requires such heavy discounting, and this feels like something that Stellantis would have to do anyway after seeing the (lack of a) market response.
It’s much better to focus, as Stellantis is doing, on the pricier models.
Lotus To Be Saved By The Gas Engine
Lotus, which makes no cars in the United States and has no real hope of doing so, is perhaps the company most disrupted by the tariffs. And I’m not even talking about the recent ones. I mean the Joe Biden tariffs on Chinese-built cars. Add any more tariffs onto that and Lotus, which planned to introduce a bunch of Chinese-built EVs to the United States, would be more boned than Lotus usually is.
There are some changes afoot that might make things a little easier for the automaker. First, the popular Lotus Emira is made in Hethel, which means it will likely be able to sneak into the country under a proposed lower tariff number. Even better for everyone, sliding EV sales have persuaded the company to reconsider that whole full-electrification-by-2028 plan.
What’s the new plan? Dan Balmer, CEO of Lotus Europe, explained it to CAR:
The Hyper Hybrid is the answer, Lotus hopes. EREVs, or extended-range electric vehicles, have become big business at the premium end of the market in China. Li Auto’s blandly attractive SUVs with their big batteries mated to a back-up 1.5-litre engine have eaten into the market share of BMW, Mercedes and JLR.
The problem for a luxury manufacturer is that once the battery is depleted the four-cylinder engine is sweating hard to power a generator to keep the electric motor fed.
Lotus’s solution is the Dual Hyper Charging technology. Once the battery runs low mid-journey, the company’s ‘ultra-fast’ On-The-Drive Charging technology will provide a rapid top-up, theoretically retaining the same smooth, powerful electric experience for longer. ‘It will satisfy Lotus users’ pursuit of driving joy,’ Feng told analysts.
Also, the Emira gets to stick around a bit longer, and some other electric projects are getting postponed.
It all seems like good news to me.
BYD Will Base Its European Operations And R&D Center In Budapest
Budapest is a great town, although I think I was once drugged there. I don’t remember much, other than ending up at the casino and winning what felt like a lot of money (probably due to the exchange rate and my inability to quickly convert Forints to USD in my head).
BYD seems to feel the same, and so the company has launched its European HQ in the country, not too far away from its first European plant. From the automaker:
As evidence of BYD’s stated policy of localisation in Europe, it has committed to produce patents based on development at the Hungarian centre, and to cooperate with Hungarian start-ups and domestic suppliers. The proportion of higher-education employees at the centre is expected to be at least 90 per cent.
Commenting on the announcement, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said: “Establishing BYD’s European headquarters in Hungary is a natural progression. As the core hub for BYD’s European operations, the headquarters will focus on three key functions: sales and after-sales services, vehicle certification and testing, and localised vehicle design and feature development. Through these synergies, we aim to deepen integration with local markets, enhance our localisation capabilities and brand influence, and ensure sustainable growth in Europe.”
On hand was Viktor Orbán, the wannabe strongman ruler of Hungary. The placement in Hungary isn’t a surprise. The country is in the EU, and Orbán, much like Turkey’s Erdoğan, likes to play various global pacts against one another. Hungary is the EU state that’s most closely aligned with Russia and, arguably, China. This makes it a safer place for China to invest without having to worry about as many political problems.
Also, it’s close to a bunch of European markets, the food is great, the labor is educated and relatively cheap, and the rosé ain’t half bad.
Three Killed In A Fire At Bicester Motion
I was watching the news out of Britain yesterday and holding my breath, hoping that terrible scenes of a massive fire at a former RAF Base-turned-car nirvana only claimed machines, and not lives. Unfortunately, two firefighters and at least one civilian were killed in an explosion and blaze at the facility.
Bicester Motion, if you’re not aware, is a sort of incubator for people in the automotive space a couple of hours north of London. There’s a regular “Scramble” historic motoring event on the old flight surface. Hagerty has an event space there. And basically every inch of the place contains car, or at least car-adjacent, workshops and spaces.
Tragically, a fire at a main hangar set much of the place ablaze yesterday. From the Oxford Mail:
The tragic incident has taken the lives of three people, two firefighters and one member of the public, and seriously injured two further firefighters who attended the emergency response.
The full scale of the disaster is only coming to light this morning after the fire began at about 6.40pm on Thursday, May 15.
Several car groups have reported that the building affected on the northern edge of the site was hangar 79, which was used to store multiple vintage vehicles.
The loss of classic cars is bad, of course, but nothing when compared to the lives lost and people injured. I suspect we’ll get more news soon about the cause of the fire. In the interim, our thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
So the last time I was in Hungary I dropped a friend off in Vienna en route to Prague, and for that last stretch I got stuck in some inexplicable traffic. I only had the radio to listen to, and every station was playing “Budapest” by George Ezra. It’s not the worst song to have to listen to a bunch of times.
The Big Question
How cheap would a Charger R/T have to be for you to buy one?
Photo: Stellantis
Stellantis has nobody to blame but themselves
1) discontinuing the previous cars over a year before the replacements were ready
2) launching the 2-door version only initially, leaving a 2 year gap with no 4-door availability
3) launching the EV versions first, when the ICEs were always going to be the higher volume sellers
4) pricing starting at $60,000 when the previous cars started at more like $35,000
5) no RWD base version
6) no naturally aspirated base version
7) because of #s 5 and 6, even the ICE models, when they finally show up, will be close to $15,000 more expensive than their closest 2023 equivalents
8) not building the ICE models with a hybrid or EREV/PHEV option
That would be a lot of car for 30-35k.
I live near a major metropolitan area and several CDJR dealers but have honestly never seen one of these EV Daytonas on the road.
Well if price is the big issue I’m sure dropping the base model will help.
Honestly, I can’t think of a price that makes this car appealing. It’s a rolling contradiction made by a company with terrible reliability.
It could be cool to see in some kind of E-Stock Car race. But not to own.
I’ve seen one on the road. Plenty of $60-70k cars rolling around, plenty of EVs. Still see plenty of HEMI Chargers/Daytonas. Apparently the Dodge buyers and the EV buyers have little overlap.
I saw one last week and I was confused. I recognized it for what it was, but it sounded like an ICE car. That lead to me spending a good chunk of my bathroom study time trying to find an ICE version for sale.
That’s a strange question. Pretty much every Stelantis vehicle I have been in has felt pretty cheap to me.
In my experience, FCA/Stellantis interiors are generally good, and often much better than segment competitors. I think as a company they have much bigger things they need to concentrate on before they get to interiors.
I essentially gave away my last Stellantis product for free, so I think they’d have to pay me for the emotional and financial damage it would inevitably do to me.
How cheap would a Charger R/T have to be for you to buy one?
No matter what price point, all I could think about would be what else I could be buying for this same amount of money. If I was given one for free I suppose I’d take it.
Plus you’d have to be ok with setting the money on fire, since depreciation on one of these will likely make it all the way to zero
Remember you would have to pay income tax.
What was the use case for the current Charger, electric or otherwise? And that is before acknowledging that everything Stellantis tries to sell these days is simply overpriced.
The Pacifica and Voyagers aren’t overpriced. Just old and in a segment nobody wants to buy anymore.
To-may-to, To-mah-to.
The Venn diagram of EV drivers and Dodge Charger drivers is nowhere close to each other. They should have released the 4 door version with the I6 first, then add the electric option. For the 2 door one, just ICE. Lumping the vehicle under the same name (including sales) and having the electric version helps to cut down in emissions for regulations purposes.
My guess is that the dealerships are putting people on Jeeps just to please their customer base.
I was thinking the same thing. How could a brand be so oblivious to the desires of their customers. Very few EV drivers would be drawn to the Charger, and likely even fewer Charger drivers would want the EV. It’s honestly just a master class in shooting yourself in the foot.
How cheap you ask?
Fucking free? No big pass.
At least the Presidential Turd is getting a new, old ass toy.
Screw this. Loser.
Man, I always feel for Lotus.
Yet Steve Serio, former long-time owner of Aston-Martin Lotus New England and one of the remaining OGs in the business summed it up best.
Great steering in the Evora, Elise and Exige. Good manuals. Haven’t drive one, but the Emira’s exterior is way better than what you should get for your dollar, and the interior seems a massive step up over the Evora. Yet the thing that gets Lotus isn’t one big thing, it’s all the little things. It’s death by a thousand paper cuts. From the packaging quirks that makes working on them a pain, how long it can take to get parts, few independents work on them, dealers are rare.
Add in the fact that most of their buyers have been daily-ing the equivalent of a Mercedes-Benz GLE forever and the step-up in intensity is too much for those people. One of the two will hate it. The biggest issue in that price segment is comfort is such an important item, as people want comfort over “experience.”
I like Lotuses, and I like the idea of Lotuses. I’m also the kind of person that values the experience they offer. Yet I also understand why they’ll remain niche in a market that is too used to being comfy and cozy at all times.
People here seem to like to shit on Stellantis, which isn’t necessarily unmerited, but I try to separate the company from the products. Most of the bone-headed crap that they’re still trying to mitigate came from Tavares, which will likely go down as one of the worst CEOs of the modern era, which is really saying something.
Every company lays eggs and every company has its problems. Ford and GM are facing issues over their co-developed 10 speed automatic transmission, GM is in the hot seat over its mishandling of poorly produced V8s, Hyundai-Kia has had no end of issues with its poor run of 4 cylinder engines and easily stolen vehicles, Toyota has problems with select transmissions and its turbo 6 cylinder engine, Honda had issues with fluid dilution, Subaru is Subaru, the list goes on and on…Thing is, if you’re going to criticize companies, at least be sure to do it on an equal opportunity basis. Most of the ICE powertrains made by Stellantis group companies are very solid, with some exceptions, none being as remarkable failures as those in the list above.
Just bringing a little balance to the conversation.
One non-maintenance item in 10 years of ownership for me, a simple sensor failure.
To be fair, everything looked a lot different ten years ago.
People have been complaining about Chrysler’s poor reliability (with varying degrees of accuracy) for my entire life.
Over how many miles on which product?
I’d take about anything they made 10+ years ago over what they make today in terms of reliability.
Chrysler ranks dead last in vehicle dependability and Jeep and Ram are middling at best. Stellantis brands also have tended to carry the highest days inventory in the past few years.
From a B2B perspective, they are typically considered The Worst OEM (see e.g., supplier revolt over 2022 PO terms that were so bad, Stellantis rolled them back and the purchasing head “left for personal reasons”).
Stellantis deserves the shit.
Isn’t a lot of Chryslers problem their hybrid system? Anecdotally the people I know with the standard Pacifica haven’t really had problems with them.
THIS!
And this is not even taking into account how overpriced almost every Stellantis product is, nor the massive depreciation hit they take.
The issue with Stellantis (and its previous FCA form) is that they have launched nothing but failures and zero successes.
The basic design of the current Wrangler is fine, but it is fruit that is hanging about as low as possible because it was incremental. Even there, the drivetrains other than the V6 haven’t stood out as particularly good. The other inherited products might be fine, but it isn’t as though the Hemis haven’t seen their share of problems that rival those of Ford and Chevy with their Ecoboosts and 6.2 engines. Nowhere is anything Stelantis makes anywhere but near or at the bottom of their category.
But that isn’t the most damning part. It is that any truly new thing they produce is a failure. The Dart, Hornet, Wagoner, Cherokee, Renegade, etc., were never competitive, and the new Dayton just follows that trend.
It isn’t the questionable engineering and build quality as much as the massive failure of overall strategy.
The issue with Stellantis (and its previous FCA form) is that they have launched nothing but failures and zero successes.
And even they do build something that sees some success, the Journey, for example, they just abruptly cancel it and leave a gaping hole in their lineup instead of building a 2nd generation. Truly a baffling product strategy.
True, but Journey wasn’t a Fiat/Chrysler or Stellantis product. IT predated both and was based on a platform from Mitsubishi.
I’d say the Cherokee was successful, though. It sold very well the first 3-4 years but in a typical FCA/Stellantis fashion they let that product wither on the vine too long until it was no longer competitive nor attractive.
If you look at old Motorweek reviews from the 90s, there was about a decade where the Pentastar/Diamond Star was considered an unstoppable hit maker. Dodge especially.
Once we got deep into the Daimler years, post-911, it was all over.
I’ll never understand why Bob Lutz didn’t become the CEO of Chrysler back then.
But I think there were still a few bright spots after that period: think about the LX cars, JK, JL Wranglers, WK2 GC, current Durango, Rams, the revived Cherokee, Hellcat everything. This was a financially healthy and successful company a decade or less ago. Not independent anymore but successful nonetheless. Now it’s neither of those.
Wasn’t it because of how he and Iacocca tended to butt heads – so Iacocca picked Eaton as his successor?
Its sales weren’t bad, but it wasn’t a great product. It was mildly competitive at first, but even as a new product, it didn’t outperform the average option in its category. The Jeep brand generated sales at first, but the poor quality of the design and build meant it was bound to drop off fairly quickly. As far as the development of new products goes, a few years of decent sales followed by elimination isn’t going to sustain a company.
The KL Cherokee was definitely the right product at the right time. It was priced and equipped right for its segment, at a time when some of the big names had slipped some. 2018 was its best sales year, after 4 model years.
Its sales drop really occurred once they started picking off trim levels, perhaps in an attempt to shift more to the Compass, which also saw a sales drop. They haven’t had a proper entry in the most popular segment now in years, a segment which is nearly every automaker’s highest volume nameplate.
The Renegade had something of an early mover advantage. None of the vehicles in the segment at the time were all that well received by the media, even Toyota or Honda, but they all sold well.
The Jeep name has been able to overcome mediocre product, but they have to have the product to begin with.
How about the Ford Ecosport, Chevy Sonic, the Fiesta and Focus (Powershit Transmissions), Buick Verano, Chevy Trax…I could go on. Most domestic manufacturers are not very good at delivering the best entries into less-than-full-sized vehicle categories.
For sure, the domestic makers all tend to have a lot of junk, but Stellantis can’t even reach that low bar.
If anything, this site is way too easy on Stellantis with every third article being about some Holy Grail old Jeep that’s to be celebrated into debt to buy because they only made it one year with an extra ashtray for the rear passenger or something (Just joking with you, DT). Pretty much everything they make is bottom-barrel in their categories, overpriced (sometimes laughably), and often outdated, but not in a positive traditional Toyota way where it’s old tech that’s bulletproof, if less efficient and powerful than competitors. “Stellantis outdated” is just old stuff that was mediocre when it was introduced. If it’s not outdated, it’s probably got a swimming pool worth of gremlins. Most of the brands under that umbrella have made a number of legendary vehicles in the past—many of which are favorites of mine—but what about now?
I’ve owned a car from almost ever manufacturer out there, including Toyotas and Hondas. Every manufacturer has their strong points and weak points, but I often find Toyotas to be overhyped for what they are. These days, the Toyota Tax looks less and less worthwhile. That said, I’ve also owned many Mopar vehicles, Jeep, Ram, Dodge, etc. I use and maintain my vehicles like a sane person, but I’ve never had any serious issues with them. The only problems I’ve had are regular wear and tear or due to neglect or abuse from a previous owner.
This isn’t intended as an insult, but the comment and username combination in your case is very funny to me in this circumstance.
Toyota is definitely overrated. You couldn’t know that I’ve said that for years. Look at their newer tech to finally replace ancient stuff, too—they’re having problems. Interiors are never criticized enough for mediocrity, either, and the lack of character to drive most of them isn’t just a minor thing, it’s like driving an energy vampire. For all the criticism they’ve gotten for outsourcing the Supra and ’86, I think it was the smartest thing they could have done. My GR86 is really a Subaru. One of the worst parts of it is the terrible throttle calibration. Guess who specced that? Clutch was the absolute worst, too—weirdly inconsistent as well as devoid of feel, though that was an easy fix by swapping out the pedal spring. None of the past sporting cars I drove of theirs impressed me much, either.
I’ve known a lot of people with Mopars and they had a lot of problems, though I will credit that I don’t recall any engine failures, unlike my uncle and two cousins with Hyundai/KIAs, which makes that a 3/3.
The name is just me being a fan of Greek mythology, though I wonder if a vulture capital firm naming themselves after a guard dog that keeps the dead from returning to the realm of the living is coincidence—marketing thought it sounded cool—or seemingly uncharacteristic self-awareness.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, I do appreciate it!
Underneath my initial acerbic reactions to anything is someone who is actually more fair and reasonable . . . well, more or less. I like a lot of kind of terrible cars (I think most of us do), so even if I don’t “get” a specific model or brand, I can usually understand the feeling for them. Stellantis bothers me because they have so many great names and so much potential, and yet they’re nearly perpetually poorly managed (well, the previous incarnations of it as Stellantis as an umbrella name hasn’t been around long). It’s quite frustrating.
One important consideration is that this is all relative. No maker is perfect, and no maker builds cars that all explode in the first few miles. The general reputation is based on years of experience with large datasets. Toyota and Honda receive praise because they have been consistently more successful over a long period, across a range of products, than have companies like Stellantis.
When people make decisions on what to purchase, all they have is that history. Nobody can predict if the exact car they are buying will last 10 miles or a million miles until they try, but that doesn’t devalue the past results on which the predictions are made.
For Toyota’s issues with some new models, what will be telling is how they deal with it. The problem with manufacturing debris causing engine issues should be easy to correct and doesn’t indicate a deeper design issue. The degree to which issues are from fundamental design problems, simply sloppy quality control, or initial startup issues makes a difference.
I was generally one of those Chrysler issues are overblown people, having had good luck with their products being owned by my family as far back as 1991 (of course most of those products had the 4.0 I6 from AMC).
2 years with the Grand Cherokee 4XE however broke me. Beyond powertrain issues, frequent recalls (one with a 6+ month lead time for a pinch bolt on the front suspension), and just general fitment and quality problems had me think that I won’t do it again.
I owned an AMC wagon for a short time in college and loved it. My partner inherited a 2012 Wrangler Unlimited in 2013, and I ended up hating that thing more than any other vehicle I have ever owned. From door hinges that continually rusted to an audio system that was glitchy for over a year before failing, and a series of other minor mechanical issues with which it was constantly plagued, I was happy to see it go.
I mean, most of those things were covered here. Hell, Matt had a whole series shitting on his Subaru for being unreliable. The fact that it was Stellantis’ turn today hardly means they’re biased.
Right. I was more so referring to the commentariat, not the authors. I find The Autopian, overall, to be fairly balanced and reasonable.
that’s quite a lofty request. Many of the commentariat seem like they got burned by a MOPAR/FCA/Stellantis product in the past and can’t seem to let that go, which may be understandable to some degree.
But something tells me most of the slamming comments come from people that never owned one but say what they heard from a friend, neighbor or relative.
I think you make a good point. If a person’s gotten burned by a certain brand or manufacturer before, I’d say it’s reasonable to throw some shade at them here and there. But if a person is just piggybacking on a narrative because it’s cool, that just makes them look ignorant.
You can also examine available data to help determine whether your personal experience, whether firsthand or secondhand, aligns with what people are experiencing more broadly.
Currently, Ram, Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler hold the four worst positions in terms of ten-year maintenance costs for non-luxury vehicles. Yes, all of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it isn’t out of nowhere.
The tragedy to Chrysler is that it never quite seems to get good design and decent reliability on the same page, a handful of exceptions aside. For all the 1990s design hits they had, they let that success go to waste with shoddy reliability (glares angrily at Chrysler front-drive transmissions and 2.7L V6 engines).
Whereas their 2000s products are better reliability-wise, but atrociously poor from a comparative design standpoint. Yeah, a Dodge Journey was decently reliable, but if you had the money to buy something better, a Honda or Toyota product seemed a better quality product from an aesthetic point-of-view.
Admittedly, those exceptions are the brands that are doing the best right now (Ram and Jeep), so I guess they did sort of focus their efforts the right direction, kind of unintentionally.
The unfortunate bit about the Charger and ilk is that it seems like Stellantis in kind of going through the same funk late-’80s Chrysler was. The products are out of touch for where the market moved to, and milking the same energy that used to work isn’t working well now. They’re trying to sell a baroque 1992 Dodge Dynasty in an era of 1992 Toyota Camry.
I hope they have their next Dodge Intrepid (but make it more reliable).
I wonder how much of the dislike of Stellantis is due to the types of vehicles they build vs. their actual quality (deserved or not). I can think of half a dozen or models (many of their most popular) that I suspect would get critized if they offered Lexus level quality.
I’ve had great luck with Dodges – my wife and I have put ~300k miles across three Chargers and a Durango, with very little in the way of reliability problems – in fact, all four combined had less trouble than my 2017 Sierra.
That said, the product management is the flop here. Dodge let the Charger (and Challenger stagnate), then they committed to full EV when they hype was at peak and couldn’t back out when reality came crashing down in the form of poor EV sales. Then they finally roll the two door version out at absurd prices . . .
I don’t know if any major auto company has had worse luck with leadership than Chrysler and its successors. During its history, the bright spots (Iacocca, early Eaton years, etc.) have been outliers. I mean the last time they had a leader who “tried” was Marchionne during his first 4 years. Then he spent the rest of his tenure putting-off new vehicle development while seeking a merger partner.
Then Mike Manley put off new vehicle development while searching for a merger partner.
Then they finally merged with PSA, and then Tavares put off new vehicle development while searching for…I don’t know, his brain? His ambition? That one is still a puzzler.
My FIL’s Gladiator literally ate its spark plugs at 15k miles and the rear diff exploded at 5k. The transfer case had a sensor failure around 14k stranding him on the beach when he couldn’t get it into 4×4. He filed a lemon law return, which they drug their feet on until he lawyered up. Eventually they just offered an extended warranty, but still made him pay for the spark plugs. He couldn’t trade that thing in fast enough and got a Toyota.
My friend’s Ecodiesel Grand Cherokee started knocking at 30k and Stellantis denied warranty claims despite all services being performed at the dealership, no modifications, and a fuel analysis showing the diesel was totally fine.
I have a Chrysler-era Jeep YJ 4.0L, and I love that thing to death, but it has absolutely nothing in common with Stellantis today.
It’s too bad, because in a lot of ways Stellantis is a really innovative company. They’re STILL the only ones with a PHEV minivan and seriously capable off-roader.
I’d think about one if they were going for (hypothetical/promised) Slate money. $20k.
Even then I would be a very hard maybe.
How much for me to buy a EV Charger? Sell it for $5,000 and I’ll take it. I just don’t care for sedans or EVs.
I count on people buying or at least leasing new EV’s so I can scoop them up cheap in 2-3 years. But I’m not buying a new one because of depreciation. They are great used cars though because they lose so much value quickly and retain the balance of an 8 year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty.
Frankly, since the creation of Stellantis, they have offered nothing that I would buy at any price significantly above “$free”. I suppose that if I was forced to, I’d pick something from Jeep or RAM, as those two brands seem to have a touch more autonomy from the mother ship.
I feel like Stellantis’ butchering of the Charger is going to be studied in business schools for decades. It’s hard to botch something as badly as they’ve botched it, between the lack of understanding their audience that can literally be summarized with “muh V8”, what might be the cringiest release video of all time (going back in time to convince the Dodge brothers that EVs are cool?! Are you kidding me?!), launching the BEV before the ICE version, delivering a final product that’s half baked and weighs as much as a full sized truck…I’m not sure I can be convinced that they weren’t trying to sabotage it on purpose.
I tend to agree with this. Sadly they had so many things that could have saved a bunch of this launch and then dramatically failed.
What’s wild is the hurricane powered one will be a very intriguing product, and not just for the muscle car crowd. Apparently the base output is going to start in the 40s. It’ll give you a 400+ horsepower, straight 6, rear wheel drive based hatchback in either sedan or coupe form with standard AWD and a ZF derived transmission.
There is nothing like that on the market outside of the luxury segment.
I do think the 2 door should optionally get awd as well though. I always thought that was the downfall of the hellcats and even basic 392 challengers and 300’s. No AWD while Jeep was able to handle the power with all wheels digging in.
To be fair, many BEVs weigh as much as, or more than, a full-sized truck and gone to market half-baked. The Charger simply accomplishes that by looking better, and not like a geometric space catfish.
To be fair, it is a 2 door sedan that is essentially the footprint of a Chevy Tahoe so weighing as much as a full size truck isn’t as out of line as it is for some other EVs.
Lesson one: Make sure your golden parachute contract is iron-clad.
You summarized my thoughts well – they put effort into making it fail, intentional or otherwise. I don’t much care for the sheer size of the thing, but I don’t think the design is bad nor the variety of power train options it was slated to come with. But the sheer number of bone-headed fumbles seemingly designed to antagonize their potential customers and anger the shareholders is simply breathtaking. It’s really hard to know if it is a Crystal Pepsi or Tab Clear scenario.
I’m just waiting for ANY EV with a decent range to get cheap enough that the lease rate would equal my average weekly fuel bill.
The Fiat 500e is close, but the range means I can’t make it to see family & back in the summer, let alone winter. I’m not adding a charging stop to a drive that’s normally 2 hours ’round trip.
Used is where it is at. The reason why leased EV deals aren’t great is because used EVs hold on value worse than a colander holds water. Buying a used EV can be a heck of a deal.
I don’t want to own an EV though, I want to own an EREV. A lease for a few years bridges that gap.
For me, the “how much would it have to cost” question could be applied to the entire Stellantis lineup.
No one:
Carlos Tavares: let’s raise prices on our uncompetitive products! Line go UP!
Stellantis: brilliant, here’s $100,000,000
The funny/sad thing is that it is the mirror image of the Ghosn “Let’s cut all the spending so our products cease to be competitive for the foreseeable future, so the numbers allow me to get a big bonus!” type of corporate incompetence. Both end up in the same place.
I don’t think Tavares ended up in a musical instrument case. 🙂
Only because he had the foresight to screw over a non-Japanese automaker. 😉
Ghosn and Tavares are complete failures, but at least Ghosn didn’t jack up prices. He just gave you less/worse product for the same money. Ghosn was an absolute tightwad, but Tavares was a greedy tightwad.
Ghosn also gave us the CrossCabriolet
He gave us the crosscab? I forgive him for everything.
Apparently Ghosn wasn’t a tightwad when it came to weddings. At least when using someone else’s money to pay for it, if the articles I read were correct.
What happened at Nissan was poor management, for sure. But I think what Tavares did coming out of the pandemic is a masterclass in collecting bonuses while tanking a company. Well, I mean Muskrat is trying to rewrite the book, but Tavares had a real board and division leaders to answer to.
Man, Dodge has really crapped the bed on this one.
The EV market around ~60-70k is so saturated at this point, and the Charger does nothing extraordinary to set it apart, while alienating a lot of its fanbase.
Shame, because a big liftback 2 door is pretty neat in the sea of crossovers.
I do actually like the styling much more than the older ones. More of a 1968 vs 1970 charger (round taillights best taillights).
Huh, I didn’t know it was a liftback until now.
Yeah, pretty neat to see another performance liftback (RIP Stinger)
*whispers*
There’s a sedan version of this liftback coming with a turbo straight 6 that’ll either be tuned for 420 or nearly 600 horsepower, offer standard all wheel drive, and allegedly start in the low 40s.
Our Stinger replacement is here. The problem is Stellantis is who’s making it….
Allegedly is going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
But I hope to see it. And stellantis does still offer fun colors
I mean, the previous gen Charger/Challenger started in what…the low 30s I believe? They were much cheaper by the time they got to dealerships but that’s neither here nor there. According to Mopar insiders the S/O Hurricane is going to be the GT trim, which was the base trim on the previous cars. I don’t think it’s all that far fetched that it would start in the low 40s or even high 30s when all is said and done if they’re trying to sell them in volume, which I assume they are.
I saw a Charger advertised for around 400 a month the other day. I imagine that is going back to a lease deal. And to be honest, that would be the only way I would consider having one for now.
They are pretty damn attractive, they are plenty fast. But they are overpriced and the last lease deal that seemed to good to be true limited monthly use to I think 500 Miles a month or some crazy thing.
Not that Carlos was very smart or anything, but going cold Turkey on ICE was definitely an oversite. They could have literally paid themselves the EV credits and perhaps made money off the US Gov’t incentive systems, Still sold the same number of BEV Chargers and had a 2 and 4 door Ice runner with ERev, twin turbo 6 and still optioned a big old Hellcat v8 to ween people off them and still have a Halo to bring people in to look at and then buy the twin six instead.
Most of the guys yelling incoherently about never driving EV’s are boomer’s that have V6 Challengers (“so the old lady can drive it” ugh) instead of Hellcats. I’ve never heard of Bicester Motion before but thats awful what happened.
I have a 392 manual challenger, also Gen X. I have no interest in any EV really. even the really fast ones are just hard to see the benefits from a price/longevity standpoint currently.
And that’s ok, personally i don’t think i would ever buy an EV either as i think hybrids are the way to go for non-enthusiast cars. But these guys basically equate EV’s to communism and everything that is against America and won’t even take one for a spin. Source: i worked with a bunch of these guys and we got a Bolt added to our fleet and i could not get one of them to just even take it up and down the road. Again i wouldn’t buy one, but it wasn’t mine and it was a hoot. Btw i have 4 V8 powered vehicles and a hybrid camry in my possession.
Right on, I can say the Lightnings, even the Work Truck models are plenty fast and fun to drive. they have plenty of teething issues as well. and the prices are half again as much as they were 3 years ago when we first started seeing them. it would be hard for me spend 60K on a work truck level ride that at this price has to fit a few more than one single duty. Probably it would be fine for 80 percent of what I would do with it, but the hassle of the 20 percent is a big deciding factor.
Honestly, I am unsure if I would want the Gas Electric version based off the E REV ram truck over say a twin turbo six. it would likely come down to pricing and how confident I though the Stellantis batteries might hold up.
Most of the people I see driving Challengers and Chargers, no matter the engine, are not boomers. At least in my town. Sure, there are a few, but not many.
Didn’t these go on sale and have horrible sales figures well before any sort of tariffs were even thought of? But I guess getting a car company to take responsibility for a bad decision is like pulling teeth.
1947 total units sold in Q1.
If that’s demand-limited and not production-limited, yikes.
given the steep discounts, all signs point to demand-limited
I just returned from a trip to Budapest (along with Vienna and Prague) a couple of days ago.
The key to converting from Forints (or any currency) to USD is knowing what $10 equals (in this case its approx 3600 Fts.). You could do it by $1 USD = ?? Fts but what actually costs a dollar these days?
I found it much easier to use this as a base, plus 360 is easy to multiply to $20 and $30 (720 and 1180) if you’re into snowboard or skateboard math.
Budapest was lovely, but it was surprisingly more expensive for food and drinks than Vienna and Prague.
It was pretty cool to see some Ladas in person, though. Definitely a decent number of Chinese cars there already as well.
1080, brah. 😉
This is actually a fascinating question, because the cost is not what’s preventing me from buying one. I don’t commute, I have fast cars already, I take a fair number of road trips, and I’m often carrying kids in the back.
The R/T does basically nothing for me that I don’t already have covered by something else I own, so the question is really: “would I pay *anything* for a car that would mostly sit, would require me to install a charger (not a Charger) at home, and would cost money in insurance, registration, etc.”?
Can it power my home after a storm? Then I’d pay at least as much as I would for a home generator (~$10K) because I can probably get enough utility out of the occasional drive to cover insurance and registration.
Same. I’ve a 493HP NA flat-six and a 507HP NA V8.
The Charger R/T doesn’t have a big NA V12 so I couldn’t be bothered.
A double Hurricane V12 would pique my interest for sure.
Shout out to that one guy with his Daytona EV at the most recent Autopian Chapel Hill meet-up. Was cool to see one in the flesh and it’s definitely an interesting car. At the same time, not surprised to see the EV not doing well
I saw my first one Saturday at a Cars & Coffee. I didn’t ask if they paid sticker or got it recently at a 30% discount. But we did get to hear the fake exhaust, which I think is dumb BUT did sound pretty nice and a lot of people got a kick out of it.