“Electrical muscle automotive.” The phrase earns extra feedback and emails than virtually some other we routinely write about.

To purists, it’s a contradiction — muscle automobiles odor like gasoline and sound like rage. They will’t be electrical.

To others, it’s a promise — electrical automobiles are higher on the sort of monstrous-torque, drag-strip efficiency that muscle automobiles are made for. They are often muscle automobiles.

The controversy will intensify in a single month. Dodge will debut the manufacturing model of its upcoming electrical muscle automotive, the Charger Daytona, on March 5. Dodge revealed the information eventually week’s J.D. Energy Auto Summit in Las Vegas.

It Appears the Half

What, precisely, is an electrical muscle automotive?

Matt McAlear, senior vice chairman of Dodge/SRT gross sales and advertising and marketing, instructed commerce publication Automotive Information that for Dodge it’s about aesthetics and pace. “We’re not going for the bottom drag coefficient. We’re not going for the best mileage,” he mentioned.

Dodge revealed the Charger Daytona greater than a yr in the past as an idea automotive. Latest pictures launched to the media reveal little has modified since that first unveiling.

It has the proportions of a basic Dodge muscle automotive, with a blunt entrance finish and broad rear fenders. However that’s partly an phantasm, and McAlear’s statements are partly marketing-speak. The automotive truly has a modern nostril (as if Dodge was going for the bottom drag coefficient), hidden by a faux-boxy entrance fascia that conceals a entrance wing.

It additionally makes use of a mock exhaust sound. McAlear guarantees it’s “simply as loud as as we speak’s Hellcat.” However electrical motors are practically silent. The noise comes from air pumped by way of organ-like pipes sculpted to create a snarling sound.

However Is “Electrical Muscle” Doable?

It might appear to be a fancy dress, however the automotive will possible have the efficiency to again up its muscled seems to be. Electrical automobiles (EVs) are able to uncooked pace that shocks (pun sort of supposed) gasoline purists. There are 5-seater electrical sedans with sub-2-second zero-to-60 occasions.

How is that attainable? Due to the character of electrical motors.

Gasoline engines construct torque over time. Engineers work to chop that point as brief as attainable. However the torque curve ruled muscle automotive engineering for many years.

Electrical engines begin at peak torque. That allows sooner acceleration which explains Kia can promote you an electrical household SUV with a quarter-mile-time that rivals these of supercars in earlier eras.

Some Automakers Promote Vehicles. Dodge Additionally Sells an Picture.

Can Dodge promote the followers it calls “the brotherhood of muscle” on the electrical period? McAlear is betting on it. Dodge understands it sells a way of life greater than a factor product of steel.

“We’re not constructing a commodity, we’re constructing personas,” he mentioned.

Convincing the devoted that persona can exist in a high-tech, electrical kind could also be one of many automotive trade’s hardest challenges. However Dodge will start making an attempt in 30 days.

The corporate might have a backup plan if the brotherhood isn’t prepared instantly. Rumors recommend the Charger Daytona may be accessible with a turbocharged 6-cylinder engine, although nobody appears certain whether or not Dodge will reveal it that approach at first.