As a Qualifier: I was a 2006…
As a Qualifier:
I was a 2006 Chrysler 300 v6 owner.
I was a 2006 Chrysler 300 SRT8 owner.
I was a 2012 Chrysler 300 SRT owner.
I was a 2016 Charger Hellcat owner.
I am a 2015 Jeep SRT owner (paid in full).
I am also a Cadillac Lyriq Luxury 3 owner and I waited longer than expected to get my hands on my build while GM dealt with COIVD, the supply issues, chip shortages and UAW strike. My car came to me roughly a year late. Soon after that, the other GM Ultium vehicles came to market for Acura, Honda and Chevy. GM took the time to iron out software issues and build quality problems and delivered, what I feel 14,000 miles later is probably one of the best products they ever built.
Unfortunately for Dodge, without the V8 engine in their cars - specifically the HEMI - they are IRRELEVANT. The situation they now face was a logical consequence of their previous actions, trajectory and mainly the reason I couldn't stay with their product.
#1 Pricing is shoddy and unfair on all the highly desired items. They got away with it during COVID but decided to keep screwing customers with the "LAST CALL" editions and even bigger, bolder markups.
#2 Quality control has been poor.
#3 Maintenance repair has been poor. I have two recent disappointing experiences which caused me to quit them.
#4 Theft of these vehicles has skyrocketed and coincidentally, so has their insurance costs. Their maintenance and daily use costs have risen as well.
In short, they've priced their audience out of their cars.
The new Charger EV is absolute evidence of this. Here you have a car with 2018 technology being released (late) in 2025 with a 2024 sticker on it, but with 2030 pricing.
The car is a big, heavy, slow, overpriced and obsolete shitcan (Yes I've driven it) with limited appeal due to the fact that the core audience expected something along the lines of a more powerful Hellcat.
Carlos Tavares doubled down on EV, scraped the old Charger and Challenger and decided on a one-size-fits-all EV platform to cut costs and ended up with a mess in a market that recognizes and punishes mistakes.
Pricing is off the rails and the core audience doesn't want this vehicle.
They might accept this vehicle with a HEMI, but the pricing needs to be back in the $50,000 range before that's even debatable.