First fully electric Dodge due in 2024 as muscle car brand ends ICE models

Dodge, one of the world’s most recognisable carmakers and a staple of American muscle cars, has laid out the funeral arrangements for its traditional ICE models, which will end production in 2024 at the same time as the brand’s first EV will hit the road.

Following its July EV 2021 day, Dodge brand CEO Tim Kuniskis has revealed in a recent interview with MotorTrend that Dodge will unveil its first electric muscle car concept early next year and use it to demonstrate the brand’s direction and the possibilities for electric muscle cars.

It will also unveil a new plug-in hybrid Dodge model which will not be anything we have seen before – so not the Durango. While the hybrid will be unveiled sometime next year and will go into production by year’s end, Kuniskis has promised a third “significant” Dodge vehicle will also be unveiled next year.

“The third one is going to be a very, very, very, significant car at the end of the year,” Kuniskis said in his interview with MotorTrend.

First off the blocks, however, will be the Dodge electric muscle car concept, but Kuniskis doesn’t expect it to be smooth sailing.

Having already received death threats from Dodge enthusiasts opposed to the idea of electrification, the company will continue to make its internal combustion engine (ICE) models through to 2024, and there will be new buzz vehicles to entertain the masses.

But by 2024 the internal combustion engine at Dodge will be dead.

“These cars that you know today will go out of production by the time we get to 2024,” said Kuniskis. “Some of the buzz models, to the person who is excited about it, they will be super pumped. To the average person it won’t be that big of a deal.

“For 24 months we are feeding the beast,” Kuniskis continued.

“I’m juggling knives because I’ve gotta keep two different huge factions happy because at some point those two factions will converge. The problem is no one knows when they will converge. My job is to provide confidence, over the next 24 months, that we’re gonna do this.”

Dodge will also be using the “Fratzog” name and logo – the triangular icon historically used only as a badge on vehicles between 1962 and 1975 but never in marketing – on its electrified models as a means to differentiate them from their ICE siblings.

Dodge’s plan follows the decree from parent company Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares that all 14 brands have 10 years to execute a business and product plan in line with Stellantis’ larger electrification strategy.

Announced in July, which will see the multi-brand group achieve 70% of its European sales and 40% of its US sales from “low emission vehicles” by 2030. Stellantis is kickstarting this goal by investing €30 billion by 2025 in an effort to “continue to be a pioneer in the efficiency of automobiles”.