Gas-powered muscle cars drive into sunset, turn electric
PONTIAC, Mich. — Thundering gas-powered muscle cars, for decades a fixture of American culture, will be closing in on their final Saturdaynight cruises in the coming years as automakers begin replacing them with super-fast cars that run on batteries.
Stellantis’ Dodge brand, long the performance flag-bearer of the company formerly known as Fiat Chrysler, is officially moving toward electricity. Dodge unveiled a battery-powered Charger Daytona SRT concept car this month, which is close to one that will be produced in 2024 as the sun sets on some petroleum models.
Stellantis says it will stop making gasoline versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger muscle cars and the Chrysler 300 large car by the end of next year. The Canadian factory that makes them will be converted to electric vehicles. Other automakers are moving — or have moved — in the same direction.
General Motors has said it will build an allelectric Chevrolet Corvette. Tesla says its Model S Plaid version is the fastest production vehicle made, able to go from zero to 60 mph in under 2 seconds. Audi, Mercedes, Porsche and other European automakers already have high-performance electric models on sale. And Polestar, an electric performance spinoff from Volvo, just announced a new Polestar 6 roadster for 2026.
One reason for the industry shift is that electric vehicles are simply faster off the starting line. Their handling is typically better, too, because their heavy batteries create a low center of gravity.
Stricter government pollution requirements are another factor, too. As automakers in the
U.S. face more stringent fuel-economy requirements adopted by the Biden administration and produce a broader range of EV vehicles, they will have to jettison some of their gas-fueled musclecar models.
Tim Kuniskis, CEO of the Dodge brand, said the possibly of government fines for not meeting gas-mileage requirements hastened the shift to the electric Charger. “Compliance fines and things like that associated with a big cast-iron supercharged V8, yes, it’s tough,” he said.
Still, it will take a few years for the gas-powered classics to go away.
“Over the next several years, I think we’ll continue to have some internal combustion stuff, probably through most of the decade,” said Sam Abuelsamid, a research analyst at Guidehouse Insights. “But increasingly, the focus is going to be on the electric ones.”
Under new gas-mileage standards that were unveiled in April, the fleet of new vehicles will have to average around 40 miles per gallon in 2026, up from 25.4 mpg now, the EPA says. The standards are likely to become even stronger in the future, a trend that will compel U.S.-based automakers to shed some gasoline muscle cars if they are to avoid fines.
To many gearheads, the thought of a muscle car without noise and smells is heresy. But Kuniskis says Dodge is working hard to make the electric experience match internal combustion. The Charger, he said, will generate its own air flow to make an exhaust noise that rivals gas performance cars. And the transmission will shift gears.
Electric vehicles, he said, have the potential to perform better than gas muscle cars with fast acceleration. But he said they are kind of sterile.
“It doesn’t have the emotion. It doesn’t have the drama. It doesn’t have the kind of dangerous feeling that ICE (an internal combustion engine) has when it’s loud and rumbling and shifting and moving the car around.”
Rick Nelson, the owner of Musclecar Restoration & Design in Pleasant Plains, Ill., near Springfield, cautioned that switching from loud fuel-burning engines to quiet electricity may be a hard sell to old-timers who grew up with the sounds and smells of racing.
“Guys like me are just going to frown on it and laugh at it,” Nelson said of electric muscle cars. “But this isn’t about my generation.”
Kuniskis says the shift to electricity doesn’t mean the end of the muscle car. It’s just a new era.