Crazy Plan to Save Dodge?
Dodge has fully embraced EVs and seemingly abandoned its core customer base. Is it too late to turn things around?
Decades from now, historians may end up using Dodge’s introduction of the all-electric Charger as a case study in bad business. In case you haven’t been following along, it’s going over about as well as the introduction of “New Coke” in 1985.
While YouTube hides dislike numbers, the data still exists, and third-party browser extensions will be happy to show it to you. As of this writing, the intro video has over 50,000 dislikes compared to 19,000 likes. That’s a pretty terrible ratio for a cute kitten video, let alone the supposed future of a brand. With slow sales and news of mass layoffs looming, it’s no secret that Dodge isn’t doing well as a company.
Mopar fan and YouTuber Tony Defeo recently shared his views on his Uncle Tony’s Garage YouTube channel. From his perspective, the company has abandoned its core base to chase after EV sales that are unlikely to materialize. They might as well follow up on a series of radical decisions with another. At this point, he says, they have nothing to lose.
Raiding the Corporate Archives
Before you write him off as yet another “behind the times” Boomer, Uncle Tony’s not even saying Dodge should abandon EVs. He even acknowledges that the first proper Mopar was the 1894 Electrobat, an electric car with a 1,600 pound lead acid battery. Despite its primitive tech, it was exceptionally popular until it gave way to the convenience and performance of gasoline-powered vehicles.
Tony thinks that this stripped-down Electrobat concept could be due for a comeback. He also cites the 1968 Plymouth Roadrunner as another example of a product that cut the fat and delivered a simple, but effective product. A big motor, a column shifter, a bench seats, and steel wheels – everything you needed to go fast, and none of the fancy stuff.
So, how could Dodge combine these two ideas to cause a sensation? Instead of an $80,000 tech-laden spaceship, Dodge should give us a basic platform with buttons, knobs, and roll-up manual windows – and the baddest battery and motor combo they can sell us for under thirty grand.
You want mass EV adoption? That’s how you get it. Tony is probably on to something here. What do you think?
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