Dodge officially revealed the redesigned Charger today, and we have to say, we like what we’ve seen so far. While you’ll still be able to get a gas-powered version of the coupe and sedan, Dodge is also offering the Charger as an electric vehicle. Opt for the Charger Daytona Scat Pack, and you’ll get an EV that makes up to 670 hp and a range of 260 miles. Alternatively, if you’re OK with “only” having 496 hp, the Charger Daytona R/T offers 317 miles of range.
A redesigned Dodge Charger is always going to be a big deal. After all, while the Charger has continually been updated, it hasn’t been fully redesigned since 2006. And this time around, you can get an electric version. Clearly, Dodge has a lot riding on this redesign. So how did CEO Tim Kuniskis decide to market the new Charger? With a 10-minute-long video that features the Dodge brothers, low production value and a script that only people who still use Facebook could possibly find funny.
The video opens with Kuniskis getting into a Charger and traveling back to Detroit in 1910. It’s cheesy, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. A lot of promotional videos are cheesy. I mean, one of the Dodge brothers’ lines is literally, “Holy, Hamtramck! What is that, and who the hell are you?” Even Widmer’s would have a hard time handling that much cheese.
And then, essentially out of nowhere, things take a hard turn to the right. Kuniskis starts talking about how the Dodge brand and its legacy are under attack by mysterious, ill-defined forces. Then, at about the 4:13 mark, he goes on this weird rant about how most people think electric cars are supposed to be politically correct, and it only gets weirder from there:
They told us we couldn’t sell Hemis, but they never told us we had to be boring and slow. So we took the rules, found the gray areas and used them. Used them against them to build a muscle car. To build a Dodge muscle car and slide it under the wire that the regulators threw down in front of us like spike strips on the highway.
What? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about, Tim? What gray areas? Also, who actually thinks EVs are supposed to be boring and slow? Have you been asleep for more than a decade and somehow missed the fact that it’s not 2012 anymore? I’m starting to think so because only a few seconds later, you brag about the Charger Daytona not “looking like a typical battery-electric melted jellybean.”
If Dodge wanted to take a shot at Mercedes’ EV lineup, we’re not going to stop them, but come on. Does the GMC Hummer EV look like a melted jellybean? What about the Hyundai Ioniq 5? The Ford F-150 Lightning? The Genesis Electrified GV70? The Kia EV9? I could go on, but you get my point. It’s been a long time since most people associated EVs with the G-Wiz, Tim.
We then get a few lines about how the Charger wasn’t designed with efficiency in mind and how performance was a top priority before Kuniskis drops the line, “This is NOT the electric car that they want the brotherhood to have.” Again, what? Who is “they”? Regulators? The ones trying to keep emissions from killing our planet? There’s certainly a conversation to be had about mining emissions and how we can recycle batteries, but no one is telling automakers their EVs need to be slow.
Does Kuniskis think there’s some kind of global conspiracy to outlaw performance cars? If he does, who does he think is in charge of this conspiracy? I think we would all like to know, Tim.
From there, the right-wing dog whistles just keep coming. Including an extended kale smoothie joke that you just know made the actor playing John Dodge die a little inside. It’s honestly a little surprising that Kuniskis didn’t sneak in, “You will own nothing and eat bugs,” at some point.
The most confusing thing about this video, though, is that the Charger Daytona Scat Pack isn’t the first high-performance EV to be sold in the U.S. Far from it. If Dodge had released this car back in 2010, sure. We’d be willing to buy that angle. In 2024, though? Come on.
Tesla has been selling versions of the Model S that are just as, if not more powerful than the Scat Pack for years, and it’s far from the only automaker to do so. Lucid? Rivian? Porsche? Mercedes? BMW? They all make some absurdly quick EVs. Heck, even Hyundai is about to begin selling the 641-hp Ioniq 5 N here, and Kia already sells the 576-hp EV6 GT.
Odds are, though, Uncle Randy isn’t going to care that none of this makes any sense. Kuniskis owned the libs, and to him, that’s all that really matters. Well, that and making sure he doesn’t forget his Black Rifle coffee on the way to check in with his parole officer now that he’s out of jail for his role in January 6. And if that’s not the ideal customer, I don’t know what is.