As cool as the Dodge Hornet looks, it isn’t exactly a memorable car. Essentially just a light rebadge of the equally forgettable Alfa Romeo Tonale, the Hornet was met with mostly lukewarm (if not outright negative) reviews online and faced lots of criticism from owners.
Despite those marks against it, the Hornet has risen in the ranks at Dodge to become the brand’s second-selling model since 2022. Sounds pretty impressive… until you realize Dodge only sells three cars (the Charger, the Durango, and the Hornet).
Well, that number is about to decrease by one, because the Hornet has officially been taken out of production for good.
The Hornet Has Actually Been Out Of Production For Some Time
Because the Hornet is just an Alfa Romeo underneath, it’s built in Italy on the same assembly line as the Tonale and shipped to the United States. That means, despite wearing a Dodge badge, it was still subject to import tariffs. The company decided in July to suspend production last year “assess the effects of U.S. tariff policies,” according to Automotive News.
This confirmation, then, is simply Dodge revealing it’s finished its assessment and decided it was no longer worth the trouble to front the 25% tariff to import such a slow-selling vehicle. Specifically, Dodge blamed the Hornet’s death on “policy environment.” Here’s the company’s full statement given to CarBuzz:
Production of the Dodge Hornet, built in Italy, has ended due to shifts in the policy environment. Dodge is committed to ensuring Dodge Hornet owners continue to receive customer support, service, warranty coverage and sustained parts supply. All Dodge Hornet models carry a 3-year/36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper and 5-year/60,000-mile powertrain warranty. Dodge Hornet R/T PHEV upgrades to 8-year/80,000-mile warranty on hybrid components and 8-year/100,000-mile warranty for battery.
Why Did The Hornet Fail?
The Hornet had a couple of things going for it. As I mentioned earlier, I think it looked pretty cool, despite being what my colleague Adrian called “the most lazy-assed badge engineering job on sale.” Its optional plug-in hybrid powertrain was also pretty neat, and it made almost 300 horsepower.
Neither of those attributes was enough to justify it to buyers, though. With a starting price of $31,990 including destination, the base 2025 Hornet was more expensive than the equivalent Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, two vastly superior vehicles. The cheapest hybrid trim, meanwhile, started at an eye-watering $43,640.
I drove a base Hornet back in 2023, back when it was pretty new, and remember it having nice steering and solid acceleration. But I also remember it feeling cheap and barren inside. While the turbocharged 2.0-liter engine was just fine, the nine-speed automatic gearbox was subpar, delivering slow and sometimes clunky shifts, especially at slower speeds.
It didn’t take long for the buying public to realize the Hornet wasn’t exactly prime material. Hornets began to pile up on dealer lots across the country, to the point where, by the end of 2023, America had a gigantic 517-day supply sitting unsold. Shortly after, the incentives started rolling out.
By September 2024, dealers were slashing prices to get Hornets off their lots. Back then, my colleague Thomas was able to find base models listed for under $25,000 (or about $7,000 off MSRP). And by early last year, some buyers could even score Hornets for as low as $79 a month. Looking at Cars.com now, the cheapest new Hornet, a 2024 model that’s likely been sitting for a while, is listed for just $22,452.
The people who did buy Hornets weren’t much help, either. Back in December 2023, Thomas did a thorough examination of the Hornet forums and found a bucketload of people regretting their purchases, primarily due to reliability concerns. This comment from an owner is the one that stuck out the most to me:
I purchased my Dodge Hornet September 9, 2023 and it has already broken down. I had to have it towed Monday to the Dodge dealership and the mechanic just called me and said that there are 200 different codes going off. I am so upset and scared that I was sold a lemon. … This was the first vehicle I purchased on my own and now I am so disappointed. … My parents live in Michigan, are extremely worried about me, my safety, and the cost and inconvenience this is causing me.
Where Does This Leave Dodge And Its Parent Company?
With the Hornet dead, Dodge’s lineup is down to just two vehicles: The extremely old Durango SUV and the Charger, which can be had as an EV or with a straight-six gas engine. At $40,990, the V6-powered Durango GT is now the cheapest vehicle in the lineup (you can’t get into a Charger for less than $51,990).
If you’re shopping for a compact SUV and absolutely dying to have something from Stellantis, you’re not totally out of luck. While the Hornet may be dead, its sister car, the Tonale, has been confirmed for America in 2026. There’s also the outgoing Jeep Compass, which is still kicking in its current form after a decade.
If you’re willing to wait a bit, the third-gen Compass should be going on sale in America sometime this year (though it’ll be a bit more expensive than the $30,990 MSRP held by the current model).
Rest in peace, Hornet. I’m not sure I’ll miss you, but I’ll definitely remember you.
Top image: Dodge
Saw one the other day on the road and was thinking to myself “OMG, they do actually exist in the wild!”
I live in prime American brand employee discountland (Detroit metro) and I barely see any of these on the road.
RIP, sweet prince. I’m not sure that I’ve seen a more phoned in product in recent memory…I guess maybe the Rogue PHEV? That’s amusingly lazy as well, but I digress. The dear Hornet is a microcosm of everything that’s wrong with Dodge and Stellantis.
It’s too expensive, it’s hilariously unreliable, and it’s not even vaguely competitive. It’s also not even its own product, they just slapped Dodge badges on a Toenail and were like HURR DURR IT’S A DODGE, BUY IT YOU STUPID DUMB IDIOT! The PHEV versions were around $50,000 at MSRP lmao.
I usually give Stellantis and particularly Dodge/RAM customers shit for the fact that they just keep buying (or more accurately financing on hilariously bad terms) piles of “manly” garbage, but I’ll be damned…even they saw this abomination and were like “hell no”. Stellantis took their customers for fools, served up the sloppiest of slop imaginable, and even their buyers who’d literally finance a loaded dumpster with a Hemi and a paint color called FUCKING GUN didn’t fall for it.
That’s slopenomics, baby! End stage capitalism go *audible wet fart*.
When they announced the Hornet, I stupidly got my hopes up. A PHEV crossover in fun colors with some light performance focus? Exactly the sort of thing I’m interested in. But it’s just such a huge miss in all sorts of ways. Less cargo space than several competitors. Efficiency was subpar. Reliability was…well, it is a Stellantis product, so that one should not surprise me.
There was a solid 30 seconds that I was like “oh a performance PHEV small crossover is a neat idea”….and then I remembered it’s an Alfa Romeo in a wife beater
I bet most of those Hornet sales were to fleets. Every time I’ve seen one on the road it has had the rental car no-smoking sticker on the window.
I still have not seen one on the road at all. I’m pretty sure local dealers sold at least a couple, but I don’t know where/if people are driving them around.
I have seen a few around National Parks which further supports my last comment.
Stellantis just has too many damn brands. If you have brands with 1 or 2 or 3 cars, you done messed up.
They are overstating the value of their lame-ass IP. Chrysler? Who cares, get outta here. Ram? Why are these not just Dodge Rams?
Yeah, everyone I know still calls them Dodge Rams. And the Pacifica should just be a Dodge Caravan.
Because at some point they split them off. Whether that decision was good or not is kinda irrelevant as far as putting toothpaste back in the tube, but at this point it’s clear Ram is still viable and Dodge isn’t doing too hot.
Maybe they can get a 2-for-1 cemetery plot so Dodge can be buried next to Chrysler for eternity.
I was going to say, it’s their 2nd best selling car. And also their 2nd worst selling car.
My weeklong rental last summer was a Hornet. The car was generally fine (for a rental), but the visibility was terrible. The dash is high, the rearview mirror/consol is low. The Mandalorian can see better than a Hornet driver.
Their problem is their ad department. They put all their eggs in the “we are Patriotic, GTF out of my way, this is real horsepower, look at all my eagles and American flags” camp. This pretty much sets you up to sell just one type of vehicle.
I don’t understand bringing the next gen Tonale here after this abject failure.
Are they committing to making it in the US or just rolling the dice that tariffs will change?