Wicked Wednesday: Remembering the First Dodge EV Performance Car; the Dodge Circuit EV
Back in 2008 and 2009 Dodge was on the cusp of releasing an electric sports car. Could the Dodge Circuit EV have changed history?
As popular as the electric vehicle is becoming there are still many enthusiasts that are not very happy that EVs will be taking over the automotive world. But there is one thing that we can all agree on. And that is that the EV is profitable. Look at Tesla. It currently has a market capitalization more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, GM, and Ford, COMBINED. It has helped make Elon Musk the richest person on the planet. But Dodge could have changed the course of history with the Dodge Circuit EV that it was developing back in 2009, and the Dodge EV from 2008.
This week’s “Wicked Wednesday” is all about the Dodge Circuit EV and the Dodge EV from over a decade ago. Recently a video was posted on the Marspeed YouTube channel. This video takes a look back at these two electric vehicles that never got made. It also looks back at the now defunct ENVI Organization that Chrysler created to develop environmentally friendly automobiles. The cars were THIS close to coming to fruition. Could that have changed the current automotive landscape? Would Chrysler be the current day Tesla? Would cars such as the Hellcat have ever been made? Let’s take a look.
ENVI Organization
Tesla was just about to release the Tesla Roadster and perhaps inspired by this Chrysler created the ENVI Organization in September 2007. ENVI was derived from the words “Environment” and “New Vehicles.” So, as you can imagine the goal was to develop more environmentally friendly EV models. This included everything from Wranglers to minivans. But we are just going to focus on the Dodge performance cars that were called the Dodge EV in 2008 and Dodge Circuit EV in 2009. These were two-passenger, RWD, all-electric sports cars that produced zero tailpipe emissions.
Lotus Europa S
The Tesla Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise chassis. Lotus would build the car and then ship it to Tesla for them to install all the electronics. The ENVI Organization sought to follow the same business model. Only they would use the Lotus Europa S which was a slightly larger version of the Elise. Dodge created the Dodge EV first in 2008 and it was almost an exact copy of the Europa but with EV technology. In 2009 the Dodge Circuit EV was born, and Dodge tweaked the styling a bit to give a look of baby Viper mixed with Lotus. However, if you were familiar with the Europa S you could clearly see it in the design. The interior design was simple and sporty. Pretty much what you would expect in a two-seat sportscar.
Power
The Dodge Circuit EV got a 200-kWh electric motor, a lithium-ion battery, and a power controller. This provided 268 horsepower and 480-pound-feet of torque. This enabled the car to accelerate to 60 mph in about 4.7 seconds and hit the quarter mile mark in 13 seconds. For perspective those numbers are nearly identical to what the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with the 6.1L V8 was capable of. So, the performance of the Circuit EV was there. From a range perspective it was estimated that the Circuit EV could cover 150 to 200 miles on a charge.
2010 Model
The Dodge Circuit EV was to be released as a 2010 model and it would be the first vehicle produced by the ENVI Organization. Several prototypes were built and tested throughout the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. Chrysler was well on its way to creating the Circuit EV along with other electric vehicles. $448 million dollars had already been invested. But there was a bit of a financial crisis in the U.S. in 2008 and Chrysler declared bankruptcy. Fiat became a major shareholder after the reorganization, and they immediately killed the ENVI Organization. They felt that with so few EVs being sold at that time that it was not going to return the company to profitability any time soon, so they wanted to focus elsewhere.
What If?
But what if the Dodge Circuit EV was built? Nobody really knows. It is possible that the company could have focused more and more on EVs and perhaps became as valuable as Tesla is today. That may have meant the amazing vehicles like the Hellcat models would have never seen the light of day. Or, it could have meant that a performance division would have remained focused on powerful V8 cars. That division could have benefited from a cash influx from the EVs and produced even more amazing Hemi performance cars than we have today. It is impossible to know for sure. But what we do know is that the Dodge Circuit EV is a wicked Dodge that never quite came to be.
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