Dodge is in a pickle. When it brought back the Charger so many years ago, it sold plenty well for over a decade. Then Dodge made the fateful decision to go electric with the all-new Charger Daytona. After just a few months on sale, things are getting awkward—and the discounts are embarrassingly large.
Remember when I told you the old Dodge Charger is the cheapest muscle car on sale right now? Well, it turns out things aren’t going any better for the new model, either. It’s not just that it has trouble doing burnouts, or the fact that it’s an EV built to appeal to people that normally hate electric cars. It’s also failing to shift units, hardcore.
The first cars started hitting dealerships in late 2024. Prices were high—the new R/T would set you back $61,590, with the Scat Pack even pricer at $74,185. Fast forward to today, and the mood has changed. Dealers are slashing prices across the country—how does $32,000 off sound?
This is a 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack, on sale in North Carolina. That’s the fast model, with 670 horsepower on tap from dual electric motors that drive the front and rear wheels. It’s a hot ship, capable of hitting 60 mph in just 3.3 seconds. Dodge originally wanted to sell this car for $75,980. Meanwhile, Deacon Jones Dodge will let it go out the door for just $43,480. That’s a discount of $32,500. Mighty.
What’s even more wild is that Cars.com suggests this beautiful orange muscle car was only listed 35 days ago, originally at full sticker price. Just over a week in, Deacon Jones sweetened the deal by dropping the price a full $6,500, before making a further $26,000 in discounts over the following three weeks.
It’s the most extreme discount I came across, but it’s by no means a fluke. Clay Cooley Dodge in Texas has a Scat Pack in silver for $56,603, a full $19,377 under sticker. Medina Auto Mall in Ohio has slashed $25,260 off their 2024 model. Extreme Dodge in Michigan has a great deal too, slashing $21,184 off a Scat Pack for a current advertised price of just $57,796.
If you’re not so obsessed with power, you can get into a Charger Daytona for even less money. We’re talking Toyota Camry money, here. The R/T trim only has 496 horsepower, but it’s still got dual-motor all-wheel-drive. With that said, it’ll still hit 60 mph in 4.7 seconds on its way to a 12.6 second quarter-mile, according to Dodge. Even better, you can score one for a hair over $30,000.
Once again, it’s Deacon Jones Dodge with the hottest deal. Down in North Carolina, they’ve got a few R/Ts on the lot, like this one listed for $30,185. That’s $32,500 under sticker—this car originally wore an MSRP of $62,685.
Elsewhere in the country, you’ll pay a touch more, but the discounts are still radical. Claremont Dodge in California has a black Charger Daytona R/T for $40,090, over $20,000 below sticker. Jason Lewis Automotive has a striking orange example in Tennessee for just $42,527. Over in Virginia, Southern Chrysler Dodge will sell you an RT for $44,500, over $17,000 under sticker.
Some of this is coming from up top. Last week, Autoblog reported that the automaker was throwing plenty of cash on the hood to get things moving—up to $12,500 in some cases. What we’re seeing now is far beyond that, however, with dealers apparently making their own calls to drop prices further.
Given that March is not yet over, we don’t have a full picture on how the Charger Daytona is selling. The model had barely been on sale when Stellantis released Dodge’s Q4 sales figures last year, so there’s no help there. We should get a better idea when Q1 sales are posted soon.
Regardless, it’s easy to read between the lines here. Typically, a brand-new performance or enthusiast model will sell far above sticker price when it first hits the market, due to high demand and constricted supply. We’ve seen this before with models like the Ford Bronco and the Tesla Cybertruck, for example. We haven’t seen any evidence of that with the Charger Daytona, though. Nobody’s running with stories of big dealer markups or scalpers selling early editions for cheap. Instead, big discounts are plastered across the Internet for all to see.
It’s an inauspicious launch for a model that was supposed to herald a new era. It’s early days yet, but it’s clear the Charger Daytona hasn’t found its stride just yet.
Image credits: Dodge, Cars.com via screenshot
How much of those discounts will start to disappear once they apply their vin etching, dealer processing fees, true coat, nitrogen air for tires, ceramic coating, etc.
NC dealers love charging ‘doc fees’ too upwards of $800. Obviously it’s negotiated out of any deal if you know what you’re doing but with $30k off already you can’t let them lose out on that extra profit…
You make them an offer that YOU can’t refuse, bottom line, out the door, no BS tolerated. There are hundreds of thousands of new cars begging for a buyer, and you have the wallet, therefore the power. Kindly but firmly: “This is my bottom line, if you can make it work, we have a sale. Any BS, the deal is sunk and I walk.”
Like the PT Cruiser/Prowler era, of Plymouth Nostalgia™, the whole Charger/Challenger era of Dodge Nostalgia™ has run its course, and Stellantis has completely lost the script.
What should they do? Ditch the 70s nostalgia that is the Charger (which is BS anyway because it was a time when Chrysler was on its way to a federal bailout) and replace it with a new brand of Dodge Nostalgia™ based around the 90s models that made them attractive enough to be acquired by Daimler Benz.
Bring back the Shadow, Spirit, and Stealth nameplates. Unlike the Dart, which flopped, the first two were modern value models and the third was a modern halo car at the time. Now would be the time to go back to that trough again.
The Stealth nameplate is due to return on a Durango replacement, but I see little value in the Shadow/Spirit nameplates. Yes, the R/T and CSX were super rad, but both cars were awkward K-car holdovers until the cab-forward cars that really attracted Daimler’s attention appeared on the scene. Bring back Intrepid, perhaps. Maybe even Neon. They could use some cool old Plymouth names like Roadrunner and Barracuda.
The Dart sold almost as well as the Caliber (the real flop.. for different reasons). It was a decent car, based on a very successful Fiat platform. But money that could have updated the car was redirected to crossovers by 2015.
With the demise of the Plymouth brand, what is the value in using those names? I also don’t think it matters that the Shadow and/or Spirit were developments of the K-car platform; more Chyrslers than not of that era were developments of the K-car platform. They were cheap, economical cars, and the high-perf versions were okay for their time. You could bring back the Intrepid and Neon names while you’re at it, though I’d argue that Neon and Shadow were in the same segment and the quality issues with the Neon are fresher in buyers’ minds.
Using the Stealth nameplate on a Durango replacement says all you need to know about the c-suite at Stellantis.
Roadrunner and Barracuda are awesome car names. They would have sold well just because of the name. Why in the $%@ did they go with “Hornet”?!
If you look at the dealer’s website, at least for the Deacon Jones ones, they’ve only got it listed at $6500 off. That’s a big difference from the $23,685 that cars.com has it at. So I suspect that it’s probably not available anywhere close to that price. If they were willing to sell at $23k and change (before the tax credit), I’d be on the phone putting down a deposit right now.
I have my doubts that the discounts are real. Whenever I go to a dealer and they’ve advertised a huge discount, magically when I want to talk numbers the price shoots back up to at or very close to sticker price.
Well you just have to have a Dodge vehicle in the household to qualify for the loyalty cash. And then you just need to have a competitor’s vehicle to get the conquest cash.
And you just need to trade in a gas car to get the Electrification credit. And the returning EV credit just requires you to already have an electric car that you bought new and is less than 3 years old.
And of course you just need to be an active military member and a student and a veteran and a paramedic to get the rest of the discounts.
So most should qualify.
I hate how accurate this is.
There will be a handful of people who actually do qualify. Maybe one of those people is wanting a fast EV?
That sounds like my one and only experience of buying a new Dodge, after confirming what my price would be over the phone before driving to the dealer
Between this and the disastrous Hornet, Dodge has a serious problem.
Audi does, too. Here’s a 2023 Q5:
615 days at this dealership
860 days on CarGurus · 0 saves
$56,235MSRP$56,235
No one is interested in it. It’s been sitting around for almost 29 months.
Are they not allowed to put money on the hood on an Audi?
For me at least the fundamental issue is that is it not an especially good looking car. The outgoing Charger and Challenger were always visually appealing cars even in base trim. This one looks awkwardly proportioned trying to fit the styling of a sixties Charger onto a platform with different hard points. Also the body looks far too big for the wheel size. Throw in an MSRP that asks around the same as a Mercedes CLE AMG a car that visually looks more like a muscle/pony car than the Charger does I can see why it doesn’t draw people into the showroom before you even get to the fact it’s a BEV.
The one attractive angle is the front 3/4’s view shown in the lead picture. From the side it looks like a sedan/suv with a coupe body stretched over it, just big and ungainly. The upcoming sedan looks a little bit better, but not by much.
I saw one out in the wild a few weeks ago, and it was pretty striking in person. Now granted, it was moving in the opposite direction so I didn’t get a real close look, but it may be one of those cars that just doesn’t photograph well.
At $30K, my cheap ass is now interested. I kinda like how they look. They at least look like their own thing and they’re not heinous.
I love/prefer EVs.
That said, I’d rather have a Hellcat than this disposable tech-laden abomination whose designers were forced to expend more effort making a fake exhaust system than an actual quality car. I’d hate to have an electrical or software problem after the warrantee period is over with.
Albeit, after so few of these sell, they could become highly collectible decades into the future. If anyone ever figures out how to hack the software to make them more economically or at least DIY repairable, their desirability will increase.
They’re certainly more appealing at these prices but I don’t think I’ll ever be interested in the BEV version of these. I’m not anti EV either, I just don’t think the muscle car experience is something we’re ever going to be able to replicate without a big ole V8.
I can’t imagine tons of people want to spend Mercedes-Benz money on a Dodge. Car prices across the board are too high, and they’ll only go up starting next week.
That $30,185 car is now $23,685, on cars.com, but it’s $56,185 on the dealer’s website, with the only drop from MSPR being $6500 consumer cash. Something strange is going on with the cars.com pricing.
The secret ingredient is….
marketinglying?Vin diagram of customer wants for this car vs features of the car has almost no overlap. Funny, I normally hate cars designed with too many consumer panels but it sure seems like this thing had none and Tavares just told them this is what they had to build. Combine that with the fact that Hyundai of all brands proved EVs can actually be properly fun a whole year before this came out and it then proceeded to have only the same go fast party trick as every other EV (and not even be close to the fastest EVs out there…) it totally makes sense it’s such a disappointment and a terrible seller.
Speaking as someone who is both the target market and wanted one of these things, the R/T is far too expensive. $60k for entry into the model? I don’t think so.
$74k for the Scat Pack is a bit easier of a sell considering the Hellcat like performance, but that’s also not the model I’d be after.
While I never want to actually root for failure, especially for an automaker that I have a soft spot for, this does seem to be reaping what you sow.
The decision to cancel a beloved car, and not even offer the V8 that made it so beloved as an option in its replacement, then to raise the price by tens of thousands on top of that, screams out of touch.
This is Bud Light or Elon Musk levels of “misreading your customer base”
They could have at least softened the blow by having the Hurricane version release at the same time as the EV. Sure, not perfect since it still isn’t a V8, but that I6 is an absolutely sweet engine and would fix like 90%+ of the complaints about the existing Charger. Oddly enough, the Charger has always been a bit of a good powertrain, meh car; whereas the EV seems to be a good car, bad powertrain, but now obscenely expensive. I’m hoping the I6 turns it into a good car, good powertrain, decent price type package.
I think that would have helped somewhat, but Dodge sold a lot of base V6s because the Hellcat existed as a halo.
I don’t think an EV (or I6) can be a halo car, at least not to the Charger-buying crowd.
I don’t think the lack of a halo car is the reason it isn’t selling. Dodge sold a hell of a lot of Chargers and Challengers well before the Hellcat ever existed.
I think the problem is that several fold–some of which you mentioned.
It’s worse than the predecessors in nearly every way, but it’s a hell of a lot more expensive.
Dodge obviously has never heard the term “know your audience “.
Electric cars don’t do smoky loud doughnuts in the middle of intersections while people are hanging out of the windows and a crowd is cheering them on.
It’s like the people who came up with the Badassador program never talked to the people making actual product decisions. The former know exactly who their target market is, and the latter seem to be completely clueless.
Speaking of base, they’re not even doing that anymore- even the ICE version is going to be exclusively twin turbo, exclusively AWD. Stellantis has some sort of delusion that, because they were able to easily sell a relatively limited amount of Hellcat variants at high prices, that Dodge is now an upscale brand that can command premium pricing across the entire model line
“Beloved” but not really selling.
It’s an electric vehicle = meh.
It’s a Chrysler(Stellantis) product = bad quality.
Lots of electronics in a Chrysler product = more bad quality.
And frankly, it looks very unfinished, like they stopped halfway through the design process and called it a day. The front appears to be missing components, the sides are boring, the back looks ok but worse than the model’s it replaced.
I’ve seen a few on the road, and they do not look better in person than in photos. In fact, they appear utterly forgettable, and will feature in a future Torch column titled “Remember this car? Because no one else does”
No wonder there are so few sales.
Maybe a pair of scallops on the door would help the orange one… just don’t put a Confederate Flag on the roof.
Lewin… that’s a lot, mate.
Right? I owned a Maxima with 265 and my license only barely survived.
The truth is, if you can’t make a 300hp car go very, very fast, you aren’t much of a driver.
I feel like the 200hp I have is more than enough most days, haha!
Yep, my ’94 SHO 5 speed was plenty fast. My old ’96 V8 T-bird with a 4.6 and a Posi plus modified trans could be dangerous. When you can bark the tires on a full throttle 2-3 upshift at 75 mph…
Yup, that’s what my 6-speed Maxima did. I can’t imagine what I would do with 400 or 500 horses in a sub-4,000-lb car.
TBH no street driven car really needs more than 250 to 300hp except for bragging rights. Most modern cars accelerate and merge easily, and will cruise at 80+ all day.
The arms race has gotten a bit out of hand.
It also weighs nearly as much as an Escalade. EV HP is kind of misleading because they just have so much weight to move. Don’t get me wrong, a 12.6 quarter is more than quick enough to be fun and/or dangerous, but my S5 ran a 12.8 in stock form with “only” 340HP. 500HP in a 6,000lb EV just doesn’t go as far.
S5 with traction control and AWD sure makes launches faster.
Very true. It has to overcome all that battery heft.
Adding up the horsepower of the three cars and one running motorcycle in my garage right now comes out to about the same number, and none of them feel painfully slow. (Alright, maybe the Crown does, but that’s more the fault of the lazy 4-speed auto…)
Torque at 0 RPM is a killer app.
Yeah but so is 5800 lbs. And so is 4.7 seconds to 60mph, considering it’s a coupe with 496hp.
This is a glitch, the prices are not accurate on the Deacon listings. So…let’s not inundate the dealership with requests today, lol.
Are dealers in North Carolina required to honor advertised prices??
How so?
Yeah, after reading your comment, I went to the actual dealer website, and that $23,685 car is $56,185, with the only discount off MSRP being $6500 Consumer Cash. Not sure where the huge difference in pricing is coming from, but it doesn’t seem to be real.
yea something must be off, because it’s showing up as 36k for me not 43.
I just commented something similar but it’s in moderation approval, probably because I put a bunch of links in on the cars.com vs. dealer site. If you look at any of the other cars.com listings for Deacon, they all have crazy discounts, like Compasses for $12k. Probably someone hit the wrong button to stack the rebates. Either it already got corrected on the dealer site ASAP because those update quicker, or it only went out in exports to the 3rd party sites, because Autotrader has the same prices.
Looks like prices have already dropped further than this. The Deacon link is now showing for $23k, a full $32,500 off. Brand new for less than 50% MSRP of is legit! I don’t even like these but that’s tempting!
I think the cars.com prices here are glitched.
You’re probably right because the dealer’s site doesn’t reflect the same deals
This tells you all you need to know about Tesla’s chances of attracting MAGA buyers to replace lost sales. If you can’t sell an electric Charger to them you ain’t selling them a Model 3 either.
At least the Tesla is a compelling car. It’s pretty good at the EV stuff. The Charger? Not really.
Average Stellantis buyer isn’t likely worried about being a compelling vehicle in the first place.
I’ve only seen these sitting static on the dealers lots, so I can easily believe they are not moving well. I think the price is certainly part of it, but also the sheer size (why is a coupe so huge?!) and the focus on a demographic of buyers that doesn’t seem to exist. I am curious to see where this goes, if anywhere.
Maybe it’s not groundbreaking news, but recently on my way from Detroit to Ft. Wayne on I-94, I was passed by a new Charger near the Stellantis Chelea, MI proving grounds, and sticking out of the back of the car were two round 3” exhaust pipes. Nice.
The inline-6 model is coming soon(tm)
It’s hard not to view this as the biggest mishandle of a new vehicle launch since the Cybertruck – which granted, wasn’t that long ago, but still…
Launching a niche product with a niche USP (a “muscle” EV with an emphasis on noise rather than speed or range) wasn’t ever going to be a smash hit – but then you give it underwhelming styling and release it with a spritz of culture war bullshit and what do you think is going to happen?
The people who are your traditional customer base aren’t interested in EVs,
the people who are traditional EV customers aren’t interested in playing the stereotypical “rebel” type who just wants to “stick it to the man” without even understanding who the man is,
and the people who want the fastest, most capable EV – the tiny subset of people who’d be cross-shopping Tesla Plaid, Hyundai N or Kia GT etc – are going to buy the faster, cheaper Tesla Plaid, Hyundai N or Kia GT.
I’d raise you 10000 for the Dodge Hornet. Considering how important the small SUV segment for ANY automaker, I’ll never understand why and how they were so unserious about their offering.
Who takes the hit on this? I always thought that the dealer margin wasn’t that big. How can they discount it that much. Is Dodge eating this? I don’t get it…
Unless there are rebates behind the scenes from Dodge to the dealers (which sometimes happens on slow-selling stuff), the dealer is likely eating the cost in order to get more Ram allocations or something.
Thought that may be the case. Choke down eating the cost of this lot poison to get more Rams or Jeeps. Then sell those to make a volume bonus.
I caught a glimpse of one a week ago. Going the other way onto an on ramp, so not much of a sighting.
Not sure if the noise I heard was the Fratzonic or someone else in the area
Thirty or forty grand is right about where the base versions should be. This is just the market adjusting Stellantis’ expectations for them.
UPDATE: Clicked on the link and the price is under $25k! I’m sure there’s a lot of hoops to jump through, but damn, that’s a bargain.
I agree. A $62k MSRP on an R/T is absolutely insane. I’m on I-75 a lot and constantly see truck loads of these things heading South, so dealers are probably doing everything they possibly can to get rid of them.
Dodge sending truckloads of these things to dealers that want nothing to do with them and can’t sell them at 50% off. “The beatings will continue until moral improves.”
I truly dislike Stellantis and feel neutral-to-negative about this car, but $30k plus a tax credit (maybe) for something that’s hopefully fun-ish to drive and costs nothing in gas is mildly tempting.
I actually kind of like the car but I can’t deal with Dodge’s cringe shtick.