Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Is Precisely What the EV Market Needed – Style, Substance, Performance, and Personality

As they go ever further down the electrification path, automakers have done their level best to keep up without going broke. We are pretty far down this path now, and Dodge has dropped its first battery-electric muscle car. In our testing, we found some very important ways that the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T differs from the EVs that others have come up with. If we could sum it up in one phrase, it would be, “Dodge didn’t play it safe.”

I’m in my second decade of testing, reviewing, and reporting on battery-electric vehicles, along with vehicles of all types. In a typical month, I test two new BEVs from a wide variety of manufacturers. My reviews and my positive opinions on EVs are always honest, but for the most part, they are along the lines of “nice hair,” if you follow me. Many are sterile. Sure, they can be quick. But fun does not always equal quick, and in my book, muscle cars and sports cars should be fun above all else. You know that permagrin you get when driving a great car. We all do. And in my (expert) opinion, most EVs lack that feeling entirely. I find myself typing “satisfying” an awful lot. It’s usually as far as I can go with the superlatives when I review an EV.

2025 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T Stage 1 – Style and Design

That’s why the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T battery-electric vehicle has me so excited. It’s quite obvious that the folks at Dodge started with two basic goals; Fun, and stylish. Let’s talk about style a bit. When I saw the Charger Daytona in images, I judged it to be pretty good-looking right off the bat. Who doesn’t love a great MOPAR coupe? Long, low, wide, bold. The Charger Daytona is what I have thought of as a great coupe since the very first one I owned, a V-8-powered 1969 Plymouth Fury III. As crazy as this sounds, the two cars share very similar dimensions and a wheelbase that is within a fraction of an inch. The images don’t do the car justice. In person, it is drop-dead gorgeous.

The front hood has a see-through wing. Writing or saying that seems odd, but it works great in person. It looks bad-ass, and it’s a hidden treat for those seeing the car in person for the first time. Does it add downforce or something useful? I don’t really care. It’s that novel. I’ll take it at face value.

The Charger Daytona has so many great design elements it’s almost too good to be true. When I sit my six-foot, 200-pound frame in the car, my left arm rests perfectly on the windowsill. A product manager from Dodge told me a couple of weeks back that the stubby C pillar was necessary for roof strength, but it’s OK. It’s far enough back that the driver can’t see it without turning around and actually trying to see it. This new coupe offers that classic cruising vibe. That is very, very rare in 2025.

I like a car I can see out of, and the Charger Daytona offers good visibility not just of the road ahead but also of the world around you. It’s a great Sunday cruiser or touring car if you wish it to be. That experience is made even more pleasant by its comfortable, practical, and upscale interior. I’ve tested virtually every version of the Charger and Challenger made over the past decade, and every single one, regardless of its performance pedigree, impressed me as a very comfortable car. This Charger Daytona lives up to that expectation. And so many EVs do not. Many are too stiff, and the long wheelbase and goofy short overhangs make them turn a bit funny. They seem a bit awkward. Not this one.

Some purists think the hatchback is a sin. Not me. I think it looks like a great place for my bike. That hatchback is an enabler, making it possible for me to take this vehicle out on a weekend and explore. It will make the Charger Daytona a choice when a normal trunk would have pointed me to my SUV instead. Even with the seats up, there is more than enough space in the Charger Daytona to pack a week’s worth of vacation supplies for two or a weekend’s stuff for four and hit the road.

The Drive

My driving has been in just the Charger Daytona R/T Plus with the Stage 1, Sun and Sound, and Blacktop Packages. I took to it right away. The wheel is nifty. I find I like the flat top and bottom. The pistol-grip shifter is hands-down the best in the EV segment today. It feels great in the hand, and pulling it back for Drive seems intuitive. I’m almost disgusted by the dinky little doodads some EV manufacturers use as drive selectors. One brand bragged about eliminating the drive selector. No thanks. I’ll drive the car. I’m not interested in being an occupant.

Normal Mode is fine for most situations, but I love to play with drive modes. The Sport mode in the Charger Daytona R/T Plus Stage 1 feels well-tuned. In New England, a lot of our driving is on twisty roads with many intersections. Sport Modes can be cumbersome and almost tiring. This one is pretty good in that respect, and I find I can use it for many minutes at a time without it bugging me. The PowerShot button is fantastic. I loved it in Hyundai/Genesis EVs, and I’m glad Dodge copied it. Quick spurts of performance work extremely well in my neck of the woods, where you only get a mile or so of safe space to open up a car. The dash-displayed countdown is nifty.

I like the handling. It’s a muscle car, right? So, we’re not expecting it to be tossable like a Toyota GR86. It’s a substantial vehicle. You feel the weight of it, but it hugs turns, and you can experience some nice sideways G sensations with it, even safely in public. Best of all, the Goodyear Eagle Sport A/S tires smooth out road imperfections nicely. Dodge made a smart move here. This tire pick enables 12-month use. Summer-only rubber would have been a bad pick, in my opinion. During the week I had the car, we had light snow twice. With all-season rubber, I felt confident driving the Charger. With summer-only rubber, I would have left it parked.

I wouldn’t call the Stage 1 package fast. I’ve driven other performance EVs with more punch off the line, and more impressive specs. 496 hp is nothing to sneeze at, but 6,750 pounds is a lot of iron to launch. The Scat Pack’s 630 hp sounds better if straight-line performance is your top priority.

I’m somewhat of an infotainment snob. I’ve tested thousands of cars, and I know what works and what doesn’t. Apparently, so does Dodge. The driver information display is outstanding. It has what you need, including the tire pressure at each wheel. I like that in a car with no spare. The head-up display is perfect. The important info is shown, and can be configured so it appears to the lower right of center. That means you don’t have to stare through it to look straight ahead at the road. I had a different brand EV this past week before the Charger, and the head-up display was almost dangerous it had such a large display. I ended up turning it off. Dodge nailed it.

I make no bones about being a fan of UConnect. Version 5 is very good. Few brands do it this well, and nobody does infotainment better. What you need is there, and you won’t have to tap through three screens to get the seats heated up. Some key items are reserved on-screen all the time. The HVAC controls are physical and below the screen. I’m not in love with the haptic feedback bar that Dodge used, but I’ll take it any day over having to use menus.

This particular Charger has an Alpine audio system. I loved it before I heard it because, in my senior year of high school, I put an Alpine head unit into my own MOPAR coupe. Crazy Train still sounds great. Being fair, this Alpine gets a B+ at the $70K price point. It could use a smidge more of that bass you feel in your gut. A bigger subwoofer would be my very first aftermarket upgrade.

The power-adjustable seats are classic Dodge. Great to sit in, great to look at, built for full-size humans. I love the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, another EV muscle car at this price point, but it had manual seats. Come on!

The frunk is an option, not standard (which is weird), but I love it. No drain, though. That’s a rare miss on Dodge’s part. That frunk is an ideal tailgating cooler. It should drain to ground. If you are a tinkerer, there must be a way.

Another miss is the artificial engine sound. Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust? LOL. It’s fun to say, but it drove me nuts. It’s on, or you can place the vehicle in “Stealth Mode.” I’d prefer to have it just come on with the push of the Start button, then go away after 15 feet of driving. I’ve driven enough crazy-fast EVs now that I associate silence with speed. Don’t let me wreck it for you. Need an idea for an aftermarket product for this car? Figure out a way to program the opening seconds of Motley Crue’s Girls, Girls, Girls. That’s a better engine sound than Dodge’s, even if it is a bike.

Living Electric

I have a great home Emporia EV charger setup in my house, and thanks to my local Ford dealer, I also have a public DC charger within walking distance. I live the electric life when I test vehicles. I’m careful not to confuse my kWs with my kWhs, and I can talk shop with the EV nerds. Here’s my simple take on the Charger Daytona on the topics of charging, range, charging curve profiles, and all that jazz: don’t sweat the details.

Dodge has a great first-generation electric car here. However, just like the Hellcats had some space between them and the next-best gas-powered muscle cars, Tesla and Hyundai both have some real-world advantages when it comes to moving electrons around. My pal Kyle Conner of Out of Spec Reviews shredded the Charger Daytona’s electric-car cred. I won’t partake. Owners of this car are unlikely to rely on public charging, unlikely to be put off by the small differences in its charging rates, and unlikely to be concerned that its range is 268 miles. The Ioniq 5N’s range is just 221 miles, and nobody cares.

Here’s a real-world-helpful aspect of the Charger’s EV specs. It has an 11kW onboard AC charging capability. That means it can make full use of a hard-wired, Level 2 charger. (220V supply x 48A supply = 10,560W delivered). Many EVs I test today still can’t pull the full 48 amps, which is a shame. So, at home, this car will add range as quickly as any good home charger can deliver it.

When charging in public, the Charger can accept a peak of 183 kW. So, the Charger Daytona can’t accept a full-speed charge at a 350kW-rated DC Fast Charger. This is true of nearly every EV today. With each passing generation, the ability of cars to accept power faster improves. Practically speaking, there are endless reasons that public DC chargers are slower than 350 kW anyway, so for now, this car is adequate in terms of public charge rates. Is it the best? No, but it’s far from the worst. I charged at a ChargePoint DC station, and the station could only deliver 60 kW. So, the car was not the limiting factor. This will be true most of the time folks charge it in public.

I Like the Charger Daytona, But I Would Love A Dart Demon

As you can see, I give the Charger Dayton two thumbs up. However, personally, I like Evs to be smaller and zippier. They make great city traffic and suburban runabout cars. Rather than an 80-inch wide, 6,750-pound Dodge EV, I’d prefer a more compact coupe that would be easier to park and easier to zip into small traffic breaks. Maybe a Dart Demon? Price it around $45K and I think it would sell itself.