Go Woke, Go Broke

Mrs.  PolyKahr owns a Dodge Challenger.  Our grandson, when one of us takes him to school, prefers to ride in the Challenger rather than my stogy, if practical vehicle.  Yet Dodge announced last year that they would discontinue the popular Charger and the more muscley Challenger.  Mike McDaniel has the story at the American Thinker entitled Dodge emasculates muscle cars.

A long-profitable niche for American car makers has been the all-American muscle car. Low-slung, two door sedans with enormous horsepower, wide tires, aggressive styling and the low rumble of those powerful V-8 engines. There’s nothing quite like them, and they sell for a premium. Ford made the Mustang, Chevy the Camaro, and Dodge, the Charger and Challenger.

They were initially designed to go fast in a straight line, but as technology improved and suspensions became more sophisticated, they began to hold their own on the racetrack as well as the drag strip, and their internal amenities began to rival luxury sedans. Dodge’s 2023 Challenger, available in a variety of models, boasted a beginning price of $32,800. But engines of over 700 horsepower were available, pushing the MSRP to some $99,315. The more horsepower, the higher the price, and prices from $60,000 to $80,000 were demanded for the real muscle cars.

And suddenly, in August of 2022, Dodge announced beginning in the 2024 model year, there would be no low, V-8 rumble, at least not a gasoline-powered rumble. Dodge was going full woke and would henceforth produce only electric powered muscle cars.

I have wondered, time and again, what drives executives to believe that any of this woke garbage is what the American public wants? One suspects they are the sole audience for MSNBC, which explains MSNBC's tiny ratings. Yes, there is a small...note "small"...market for EVs, though Tesla is by far the dominant brand here. But anyone who travels routinely anywhere understands that finding the next charge is akin to ancient cave men finding the next antelope. Perhaps you will, then again, perhaps you will not.

Enthusiasts tout the EV like it is the next great revolution in transportation, akin to the days of horse drawn carriages yielding to the automobile. But you have to realize that they have been pushing these ideas since the early 1980s, when some self-styled "futurist" drove a electric contraption resembling a golf cart around a track and telling us it was the next big thing. Of course, I am still waiting for the flying cars they promised us in the 1950s. The fact is that EVs will always be a niche market.

But, back to the Challenger, one of the things buyers of these vehicles like is the throaty sound of the V8 engine. Together with the quick response to the throttle, it is a major part of the muscle car experience.

Muscle car enthusiasts willing to part with nearly $100,000 dollars aren’t going to be satisfied with muscle cars with fake muscle. Replacing the throaty roar of a V-8 with the muted whine of electric motors isn’t going to raise their blood pressure, and Dodge knew it two years ago. They touted their “Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust” and their “eRupt Multispeed Transmission, as viable replacements for the real thing.

The exhaust system on the concept Charger, which [Dodge CEO Tim] Kuniskis said is as loud as a Hellcat engine, pushes sound through an amplifier and tuning chamber located at the rear of the vehicle. He compared it to a wind organ with chambers and pipes.

“Exhaust system?” EVs have no exhaust systems. Perhaps the “exhaust system” will expel unused electrons? What Kuniskis is trying to sell is a stereo system that plays, at enormous volume, a sampled simulation of the real thing. And the “eRupt” transmission is software that momentarily interrupts power delivery to the electric motors to simulate the shifting of real transmissions.

Really? A stereo system? When will automobile makers learn: Go woke, go broke. The tell tail sign that EVs are a part of the woke ideology is that government feels the need to subsidize them. A true improvement stands on its own, and nobody has to subsidize it because the market is always looking for the next thing.