It was meant to be the end of an era.

Dodge shocked the automotive world in 2022 when it announced it was discontinuing its vaunted V8 muscle cars and replacing them with electric vehicles. 

Pressure on the industry at the time had all automakers moving full steam ahead toward battery-powered lineups and even Dodge’s performance cars couldn’t outrun the train. That’s not to say it was giving up.

It decided that if it was going to build an electric car, it would build the first electric muscle car. But what did that even mean?

First, it had to look the part, with a burly body and a tough guy face and the Charger Daytona that it designed has all of that. It’s a modern take on the iconic muscle car shape with bulging fenders, Coke bottle sides and squinting headlights that make it look like it is sneering at you from under a furrowed brow.

Second, it needed to be powerful and ready to rip down a drag strip. The first models out of the gate are the $61,590 Charger Daytona R/T with an all-wheel drivetrain rated at 496 hp and the $70,190 Charger Daytona Scat Pack that cranks that up to 670 hp, both more potent than their V8 predecessors.

Perhaps most importantly, it had to sound like a muscle car instead of an electric dentist’s drill. This was the hard part. Sticking a couple of speakers on it to play engine noises wasn’t going to cut it, so Dodge designed a system it calls the Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust, which takes things a step further.

It uses a set of transducers and passive radiators to pump a synthesized sound that combines the rumble of a V8 with futuristic noises through pipes that exit from the rear bumper, which are tuned to give it a warmer, more analog tone. The volume can be cranked up to 126 decibels at full song. That is as loud Dodge’s gas-powered muscle cars ever were. Unlike them, it can also be shut off entirely, so even your most persnickety neighbor will approve.

A long wheelbase provides enough legroom for four six-foot-tall passengers and the space required to accommodate a 100.5-kilowatt-hour battery pack under the floor. In the R/T it provides up to 308 miles of driving range between charges, but the more powerful Scat Pack, with its foot-wide tires, is rated for just 241 miles.

That’s pretty short, but so are drag strips like New Jersey’s Island Dragway where I took a Charger Daytona Scat Pack for a few runs.

It was a nice two-hour drive to the track. The Charger Daytona is an excellent cruiser, as a muscle car should be. The Scat Pack has a computer-controlled suspension that can adjust its stiffness and, with the exhaust disabled, it is as quiet as any luxury car.

The range is an issue for road trips. It takes far longer than a half-hour to charge the battery at a station, so if you don’t start the day with a full battery from charging at home, you need to spend a little time planning ahead. The built-in navigation helps by finding charging stations and telling you how long you need to stop at them to fill up.

The car was the first Charger Daytona that had visited the track and it quickly became the center of mostly positive attention. Everyone said it looked better in person than in pictures and they all got a kick out of the exhaust, which also makes the car vibrate like there’s an idling engine in it. None, however, were quite ready to run to the dealer to trade in their Dodge Challengers, Ford Mustangs and Chevrolet Camaros for one.

They might be swayed if they take it for a pass down the track. With the all-wheel-drive grip, the Charger Daytona takes off like a jet from an aircraft carrier catapult and will cover a quarter-mile in 11.5 seconds without much effort from the driver. There are quicker electric cars, including some from Tesla, but riding something this big that weighs nearly three tons is a certain kind of thrill. Throw in the bellowing exhaust, which is grin-inducing in the silliest ways, and Dodge has definitely created a unique novelty. I tried it without the sound to be sure and it just wasn’t the same.

Unfortunately for Dodge, it hasn’t been selling as quickly as it moves. The brand’s traditional fans have not yet embraced it and the incentives have been piling up. It is an understandable reaction from the muscle car customer base, but many have simply refused to give it a chance.

They won’t have to for much longer, because Dodge will be offering a version of the Charger powered by a turbocharged inline-six-cylinder gas engine engine later this year. With the changing political environment surrounding electric vehicles, a return of the V8 appears to be on the table and Dodge has not confirmed or denied the possibility.

But there’s no denying the Charger Daytona is a lot of fun.