The People Have Spoken, And Electric Vehicles Can’t Be Muscle Cars

The Dodge Charger Daytona EV made waves when it was announced earlier this year, despite the famous American automaker also announcing that an ICE model would arrive a year later. While we have made a case for electric vehicles qualifying as muscle cars, America does not agree. According to a study conducted by American Muscle, 56% of Americans don’t think the Dodge Charger Daytona is a “real” muscle car, while 52% of you believe that an EV will never truly be a muscle car. I thank the 44% and 48% who agree with me.

While not surprised by the outcome of the study, I have to admit that it’s much closer than anyone expected. That’s a near 50/50 split, which means Dodge may be on to something.

What Was The Methodology Behind The Study?

American Muscle surveyed 1,001 Americans, with 46% either currently being an owner of a muscle car or a previous owner of a muscle car. The other 64% have never owned a muscle car, which may seem like an odd inclusion in a study about such an important market segment.

There is a method to this methodology madness, however. Gen X is moving out of that sweet spot, handing over to Millennials as the group with the most purchasing power. Gen Z are buying cars even earlier than 40-year-olds, which means they also have a chunk of the buying power. Whether the older generation likes EVs or not is becoming slightly irrelevant. Two new generations are moving in, and most of them have no problem buying an EV. Speaking as an Elder Millennial, I’m on record saying that I’d love to own both.

I do respect the fact that some people don’t want electric vehicles for reasons that have been outlined many times before. EVs take too long to charge, they don’t have enough range, and batteries are too expensive to replace. Some anti-EV points are valid, but for the most part, there’s a tremendous amount of misinformation out there. We won’t dive into that because it’s not the number one reason customers don’t want an electric muscle car. We can sum it up in one word: nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a useless but powerful emotion. The textbook definition is a sentimental yearning to return to a past period or irrecoverable condition. In this case, it’s a yearning for a V8-powered muscle car, of which only one is left now that Dodge and Chevrolet have seemingly pulled out of the market. There’s nothing wrong with being nostalgic, and it puts Ford in a highly enviable position.

Does this mean Dodge made a massive mistake going down to six cylinders? I don’t think so because nostalgia for V8 muscle cars is dying out. These cars became popular because Americans returning from WWII wanted to live life as much as possible and, like every other generation before them, didn’t want to do the same thing as their parents. That’s also why station wagons died out, and SUVs became popular. Almost everything in life moves in cycles, and death and taxes are the only certainties. Thanks to the BMW M5 Wagon, which has been confirmed for America, family-friendly hearses with powerful engines are cool again.

Basically, the people with the buying power aren’t particularly blown away by muscle cars. As a child of the ’90s, I get nostalgic when I see a NA Mazda MX-5, a Subaru WRX STI, a Honda NSX, and an E36 M3. The ’90s weren’t particularly kind to muscle cars, so there’s nothing to get nostalgic about.

You can see this in the top brands consumers want to produce an electric muscle car.

The People Want These Brands To Build An EV Muscle Car

The people behind the survey were smart enough to ask the people what brands they wanted to enter the market. Dodge will be disappointed to find out that it only came third with 29% of the vote. In first place was Ford with 33% of the vote. This is hardly surprising given Ford’s giant footprint in the USA, which means that most of us have at least one fond memory tied to an F-150. It also shows that Ford may have made a mistake by pasting the beloved Mustang badge to the rear of an SUV because this group obviously doesn’t consider the Mach-E as a muscle car. That’s fair, considering that it only has one muscle car trait: moving briskly in a straight line.

Chevrolet ended fourth, and only two other American brands made the cut, with Rivian ending in ninth place, just ahead of Volkswagen. The voting split is below, but the one we want to talk about is the brand that came second, just 3% behind Ford. Yup, it was Tesla.

This is a doozy for two reasons. First, Tesla already sells muscle cars, depending on your definition. The Model S Plaid is stupidly fast in a straight line, capable of reaching 60 mph in two seconds. That’s way beyond traditional muscle car straight-line speed, and the only model that gets close is the Demon 170, which gets to 60 mph in 1.66 seconds. This battle seems straightforward, but multiple videos have shown that the Demon 170 is one tiny driver’s mistake from losing over the quarter mile.

The fact that Tesla even made the list shows what a following the brand has already built in the USA. It has the highest retention rate of any automaker, and despite its cars having many flaws, it’s still the go-to brand for EV buyers.

However, Tesla is only 20 years old, having been established in July 2003, which brings us to the second big problem. It’s not even old enough to order a beer (four more months), so there’s no historical design language to draw inspiration from. If you look at modern muscle cars like the Mustang, Charger, and Camaro, they all have one thing in common: design inspired by models made in the ’60s and ’70s.

What would a Tesla muscle car even look like?

Americans Are Willing To Pay Big Bucks For Electric Muscle

The survey also asked Americans what they’d be willing to pay for an EV muscle car, and the average worked out close to the average price of a new car. People are willing to fork out $58,389 for an EV muscle car, which seems reasonable considering that a 2023 Challenger Hellcat costs roughly $10,000 more.

Interestingly, existing muscle car owners are willing to pay more for an EV muscle car than non-muscle car owners. Perhaps it has something to do with existing owners knowing that muscle cars are not cheap to buy and certainly not cheap to run.

Related

This Is Every One Of Dodge’s Last Call Charger And Challenger Special Editions

All of Dodge’s Last Call models are in one place including the Demon 170.

Non-muscle car owners said that they’d pay a maximum of $51,000 for an EV muscle car. Existing owners added 31% to that figure and said they’d be willing to pay $66,728. That’s roughly the same as a Chevy Camaro ZL1, Dodge Challenger Hellcat, and the Mustang Dark Horse. In other words, existing owners want to pay the same.

That means the success of any electric muscle car will rely on price parity, so Dodge is off to a good start. The EV and ICE Chargers are both based on the same STLA Large platform, which will reduce costs. Final pricing hasn’t been revealed yet, but we’re willing to bet Dodge is already aware of the situation.

What Have We Learned From This Survey?

It’s an interesting survey, but like all surveys of its kind, there are problems. There’s a big difference between a study and a survey. A study, like the one that proved sports car owners have small penises, has to go through several steps before it can be published. Anyone with access to a website can run a survey.

Related

New Study Shows Sports Car Owners Have Small Wieners

If your car is fast and flashy, you might have a teeny wienie.

American Muscle didn’t share the questions that were asked, so we don’t know whether they were asked in such a way that would bias the result in either direction. Then there’s the ever present problem of basic human psychology. A person will give the answer that will make them seem smart, rebellious, woke, etc.

Still, it is fun to look at and may actually provide some insight into the minds of Americans. We’ll only know whether the survey’s results have any validity once the sales results come flooding in.