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
I’d like to see a venn diagram of people “…shopping for a compact SUV and absolutely dying to have something from Stellantis” and sentient beings. I just don’t think there is much overlap.
Pretty sure the average person thinks Stellantis is a once daily eczema treatment.
They’ll be selling new ’26s until 2038.
That can only function if paired to a cellphone made before 2029.
Never seen one in the wild. I’m not sure how Dodge/Chrysler sells anything without a V8.
The best modern eras for Chrysler were the Misubishi and the Diamler years.
Stellantis should do what has actually worked for them in the past and just team up with a reliable Japanese automaker.
The Dodge RAV4 would turn this companie’s fortunes around overnight.
Was thinking about this with the 4XE’s death as well. The current “policy change” has given Stellantis a ton of breathing room to discontinue products that they pumped out that were not ready for prime time and cite the “policy change” as the reason rather than admitting that the 4XE or Hornet PHEV were products that had problems that they just couldn’t solve. Its a shame for those who bought or leased them as in addition to the awful experience they’ve had the resale will now tank even more. Stellantis should have had to buy every one of these back.
“Why Did The Hornet Fail?”
From my perspective, the main issues were that it was only available in trims best described as ‘overloaded/overpriced’ to ‘more overloaded/overpriced’.
There were no affordable versions with just FWD and without all the extra crap.
Hell… if they just made a cheaper affordable FWD hybrid designed to go against the Prius and RAV4, I bet that would have done a lot to improve sales.
What they were doing would have been like if the old Chrysler only sold the SRT Neon and no cheaper versions.
Sure the SRT was great. But most people bought the non-SRT versions because most people didn’t want or need the extra features or power… and/or weren’t willing to pay for it.
And then add in the reliability issues and design execution failures and it’s no surprise to me it failed.
And it seems to me that there was no real attempt to update the vehicle to make it better or more competitive.
And here we are again with Stellantis cancelling a product with no replacement in sight.
I think the FCA-PSA merger was a huge mistake.
PSA had/has nothing that the old FCA/Chrysler couldn’t have done on their own with the same or better quality.. which isn’t a really high bar.
And Stellantis really needs to lose the idea of Dodge being a “sports car brand”
It’s fucking stupid.
Dealers still have a four year supply sitting on their lots.
I was wondering if they realized that they could stop production, and still have plenty of current inventory to sell until the next generation would come at the end of the decade anyway
There’s a place for Dodge. In the cemetery plot right next to Plymouth, DeSoto, and Fargo.
Dodge can still be saved.
But to turn Dodge around, the first step is that Stellantis needs to lose the idea of Dodge being a ‘sports car brand’
The next thing that needs to be done is put Ram trucks back under Dodge.
And after that, start offering vehicles in not-over-loaded-with-shit-you-don’t-need trim levels.
A lot of people say “Put RAM back under the Dodge name” but I think at this point that would actually drag the RAM brand down.
Nah… Everyone knows Ram is part of the same company that makes Dodge.
At worst, I believe it won’t make a difference.
At best, I think it will lead to better brand recognition overall.
Yeah it just makes them look like absolute morons whose brand strategy is hiring a primate to throw spaghetti at a wall.
Can you imagine how pissed dealers would be if they invested in all this branding and signage that everyone thought was a terrible idea, only to have to undo it all again? But, knowing Stellantis, that’ll happen. Or they’ll make Chrysler do trucks and RAM will handle the minivans. RAMVAN is actually a half decent name.
Dodge has been cycling through bankruptcy after bankruptcy every 5 to 10 years, for my entire 45 year life.
They know this game. It’s what they do, how they survived.
Government bailouts come with huge executive bonuses.
I have little sympathy for them, this day in age with the answers to nearly all your questions at your fingertips they chose to buy a Dodge Hornet, in spite of everyone saying how shit it’s design was even before it was available for purchase, then immediately after they started getting sold people started having serious problems.
We all knew it would suck because we’re car dorks, but I don’t begrudge the general public for making mistakes like this. IDK when the dumb thing came out, but it had to have been brand new back in mid-’23 so there probably wasn’t much hard evidence as to how much it sucked yet.
Too bad us car dorks are an extremely secretive bunch, not daring to utter a single word about automobiles outside our freemason-esque organizations, certainly not publicly on the internet where nothing ever truly dies…..
Yeah, but a lot of that is just noise to a normie. There’s also going to be some car people saying it’s good.
I guarantee it was a situation where dad was like, “By God I owned that Dodge Ram I bought back in ’93 for 25 years and the sumbitch never let me down, you oughta buy that new little Dodge I saw on TV! Better than that damn plastic Honda.”
Yep. My uncle clamors on and on about his ‘90s Chevy Suburban going 300,000+ miles and he can’t understand why I bought a “Jap car.” Never mind that most any modern Chevy outside of their trucks is a 3-cylinder rebadged Daewoo.
As if the Suburban was somehow a miracle of engineering and didn’t just have 3 moving parts that could all be fixed with a hammer.
Exactly. This narrative that “you can’t buy a bad car in 2025 or whatever” has been around for a while. Some better than others sure, but every car these days knows how to car. The only reason we know the Hornet is a complete dumpster fire is from the ppl who bought the first ones and found out the above advice is mostly, but not universally, true. I feel pretty bad for that person.
As for anyone who buys one today, no sympathy given how easy it is to find all the horror stories. You knew what you were getting, or you should have.
I spend my free time reading car sites, and I could still probably end up making a poor decision if the deal seemed good.
Look, it’s just as likely it could have been the Bronco that ended up being unusable due to unknown electronic gremlins. And then a whole bunch of ppl here who pre-ordered would be lamenting their fate, saying they never would have expected to be so let down. Don’t blame the victims.
The internet has provided a world of information at our fingertips that we are too lazy to use.
I just googled “dodge hornet” to see what shows up. I expected to see plenty of hate given all the issues. Instead I see C&D toward the top with a rating of 7.5/10. Similar high-average ratings from other sites going down the page. I’m not going to read the reviews b/c I don’t care, but yeah I can see a normie getting screwed. People don’t expect cars from major brands to be complete and total garbage.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of people out there who end up buying what the dealership can get them financed on. The Hornet with all its discounting, is a prime candidate for that. This is also why the Journey sold so well, but at least it was a reliable, if underwhelming, vehicle.
File that under “A deal too good to be true”
I test drove one while shopping and decided on my ‘24 Outlander. I loved the Outlander so much we bought a 2nd one for the wife and a new Mirage for our oldest.
I have heard many stories about the calamities involving the Hornet. I drive my Outtie for work every day and cannot be without a vehicle. Someone in another comment said they should buy them all back from customers.
I agree. They are junk.
I just don’t know why they tried another rebadged Alfa after the Dart failed. Did they think doing the same thing again would somehow go differently?
Higher ups made some pretty charts and upped their synergy. No way it could have failed then!
Don’t forget that they leveraged their core competencies to set brand trajectory!
Why do they restyle them as Dodges? Mechanically, nobody wants an Italian car. It’s only weakness for styling that gets anyone to buy them, and Stellantis decided to eliminate that temptation.
I called this one. I’ve mentioned a number of times that there are no Hornets to be found anywhere in my region, and that’s been the case for many months now. I assumed that this was basically a shadow cancellation, and Stellantis was sort of hoping to not have to admit that they cancelled a product after what… 1-2 model years? What an embarrassing disaster for them.
Maybe it’s high time that Stellantis begins to consolidate brands. RAM never needed to be its own brand, and Chrysler only has one model currently (Pacifica and Voyager are the same vehicle, only different trim and options). Considering that Dodge now only has two models, it too seems to be on shaky ground.
We should just align with the global model where most of the vehicles are sold under the Fiat nameplate. All Chrysler, Dodge and RAM dealers would become Fiat dealers and then they’d be able to sell the whole lineup if they weren’t before. I know that there will be a debate of which name to use (gonna be alot of hurr durr comments coming from people who resist change if it’s not Dodge). The only difference is that your Dodge Durango is now going to be a Fiat Durango, and nothing else about the vehicle would change.
This would also have the additional benefit of consolidating marketing budgets as they’ll be able to make a massive push for the singular brand, versus the piecemeal approach that they currently use to advertise the individual brands.
I think that Jeep, as a brand, is also fairly safe and they have the widest lineup of the Stellantis brands currently marketed in the USA. Jeep needs to stick around for sure as well as it is currently the strongest brand they have.
Or just sell it as a Dodge, with that being the only change to the car. Keep alfa styling and naming, just put a Dodge emblem where the Alfa one would go.
They did it with the Neon. It was a Neon whether you bought it from Dodge or Plymouth.
I’m of the opinion that they should kill the Fiat brand… at least in Canada and the USA. Or relegate it as a niche Eurocar brand.
The volume brand for Stellantis in North America should be Dodge… and the Ram trucks should be put back under Dodge
And Chrysler should be a fancier/more luxurious Dodge… with softer suspensions.
And Jeep should be left as is, more or less… just fix the reliability issues (cancelling the 4XE will help with that) and improve the fuel economy (come out with a reliable fully baked hybrid system to replace the half-baked 4xe)
Not sure how much more “niche” Fiat can get…
I agree with you in part. Ram as its own brand is just silly. But I think they should kill off Fiat in the US instead. Hear me out.
Pretty much their entire dealer network is already unified Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep dealerships. Fiat operates in standalone stores in fewer locations. These are often affiliated with a CDJ dealer, but not always on an adjacent property. Sure, consolidating under Fiat might work, but why rile up the unwashed masses?
Consolidate the whole thing into CDJ dealerships, which we can be pretty confident will play in Peoria.
Sell the Fiat 500e as the Chrysler Cento. Resurrect the Hornet as the Chrysler Concord (without the e) once the “policy environment” calms down. Either that or give Chrysler a badge-engineered mall-crawler based on the the new Jeep Compass. Now they’re up to three vehicles.
Roll Ram back into Dodge, consolidating marketing while adding vehicles to the brand’s lineup. Heck, people still call them a Dodge Ram anyway. No one will miss Ram as its own brand.
I agree that, of all the Stellantis brands in the US, Jeep is on the most solid footing. Even if they were to consolidate everything else under Fiat, Jeep needs to retain its status as a brand. (Fiat-Jeep dealers could be a thing, I suppose.)
But, for the love of bog, they need to bring me a Peugeot 508 SW as a Chrysler Town & Country. Chrysler Estate would also be an acceptable moniker. (And now that lineup has four vehicles! At least until the tens of us who want one buy one.)
Au contraire. They should bring back all their dormant brands (and dig into the Rootes catalogue as well): Fargo, Singer, Karrier, Commer, Sunbeam, Imperial, DeSoto, Hillman, Simca, Eagle… what’s Hotchkiss doing these days? Perhaps Gutbrod is available?
I don’t know you worked up that header graphic, but I love it. Thanks for the chuckle.
The fact that Alfa Romeo is ostensibly a luxury brand, and that lightly down-badging one of their vehicles resulted in a product that was still outclassed by the Nissan Rogue should be a serious message to Stellantis about Alfa Romeo
Stellantis can make a reliable car if they try. I can speak to that having owned two of their Italian models. But they’re cool with letting things go on sale with a bunch of problems and fixing those problems for subsequent model years which is a terrible plan.
I’ve had a Tonale as a service loaner a couple times and it’s a fine car compared to a RAV4, CRV, or Escape, two of those three I’ve had as rental cars. Everyday commuting is not better or worse. It’s just too expensive. And the reliability issues are more front and center compared to other unreliable cars, like the current Grand Cherokee, which still sells like hotcakes.
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’m only here for the Nsane comments ????
Regardless, my Stellantis retired neighbor is a Dodge/RAM house all the way, but when his wife’s Dodge Dort inevitably died, they went with a Buick Encore. Some times you just need affordable, reliable, small transportation.
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.
Yeah, I’ll bet you are right about fleet sales. But I keep feeling like I should see at least one driving around here. I just want to know someone bought one of the ones available locally for personal use.
And then a chunk of the ones that were at dealers probably became dealer loaner cars.
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.
Make it 3, no one needs Fiat either, and they are still selling brand new 2023s so…
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 think their problem might be their cars…
Yes, and the cars themselves.
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?