Electric Muscle vs. V8 Soul: Charger Daytona EV vs. Challenger!

When Dodge announced the Charger was going fully electric, muscle car fans revolted online — so Edmunds’ Brian Wong put the new Charger Daytona Scat Pack head-to-head against the outgoing Challenger Scat Pack to settle it properly. One relies on instant electric torque, the other on a supercharged Hemi’s building roar, and neither wins as cleanly as either side of the internet argument predicts. It’s the most honest look yet at what “muscle car” means in an electric era. Watch to see which one Edmunds actually recommends.

When Dodge announced the Charger was going fully electric, the reaction from muscle car fans wasn’t mixed so much as openly hostile — an EV simply replacing the V8 that defined the nameplate for half a century felt like sacrilege to plenty of longtime owners. Edmunds’ Brian Wong decided to settle the argument the only way that actually matters: back-to-back, on the same day, in the same conditions. He lined up the new Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack against the outgoing Dodge Challenger Scat Pack, two cars built by the same company, wearing the same performance badge, chasing the same buyer. What he found wasn’t a simple verdict in either direction — and that’s exactly what makes it worth watching.

The Numbers Nobody Expected

Comparing an electric muscle car to a V8 one inevitably starts with the spec sheet, and Wong walks through exactly how the Charger Daytona’s electric powertrain stacks up against the Challenger’s supercharged Hemi on paper. The numbers alone tell a more complicated story than either side of the online debate wants to admit — electric torque delivery changes the entire character of a launch, while the Hemi‘s power band rewards a completely different kind of driving. Neither number tells the whole story on its own, which is exactly why Wong insists on driving both back-to-back rather than settling the argument from a spreadsheet. It’s a comparison that Dodge itself seemed reluctant to invite, given how carefully the brand has managed the Hemi‘s legacy up to this point.

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What the Challenger Still Gets Right

Stepping into the outgoing Challenger Scat Pack after the Daytona reveals exactly what internal combustion loyalists have been defending all along — a supercharger whine building underneath you, a sound and feel that the electric powertrain simply can’t replicate no matter how good its performance numbers look. Wong’s driving impressions make clear that the Challenger’s appeal was never purely about elapsed times; it was about the sensory experience of a V8 doing the work. That’s a hard thing to quantify in a spec sheet comparison, and it’s exactly why so many buyers remain skeptical of an electric replacement, regardless of how quick it is in a straight line.

The Daytona’s Case for Itself

The Charger Daytona doesn’t try to disguise what it is, and Wong’s time behind the wheel makes the case that it doesn’t need to. Instant torque delivery gives it a different kind of drama than the Challenger’s building Hemi roar, and Dodge clearly engineered the Daytona’s driving experience around that distinction rather than pretending to replicate a V8. Whether that trade-off satisfies longtime muscle car buyers is still an open question, but Wong’s driving impressions suggest Dodge built a genuinely quick, genuinely different car rather than a half-hearted electric conversion of the old formula. It’s an argument that will likely define Dodge’s next decade far more than any single dyno chart ever could.

Edmunds’ Verdict and What It Means for Dodge Fans

By the time Wong reaches his final take, the comparison has moved well past the simple electric-versus-V8 framing that dominated Dodge’s own marketing rollout. Both cars represent genuinely different answers to the same question: what does a modern muscle car owner actually want from their next Dodge? For an audience that has spent decades defining performance purely in terms of cubic inches and supercharger whine, a video like this one matters because it takes the debate seriously instead of dismissing either side outright — a rare thing in an argument this emotionally charged. However the debate eventually settles, Wong’s comparison gives both camps something concrete to argue over besides marketing copy and internet speculation.

Watch the full video and share your thoughts below.

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