The Dodge Charger EV is charging poorly, despite its name
After my first road trip test in an EV, I realized something: range doesn’t really matter. Experienced EV buyers opt for quick charging times and efficient kWh-per-mile ratings. I found the Hyundai Ioniq 5 crossover could charge for 20–30 minutes, then drive for 2.5 hours—thanks to its 800-volt charging system. So I was disappointed to hear Dodge would only offer an 800-volt architecture as a premium option on some future Charger Daytona EVs.
The Charger Daytona available now only offers a 400-volt architecture. That makes it already dated, as brand-new EV models go. Early reviewers say even the 400-volt version is falling short of the charging speeds it promises.
Dodge claimed that on a DC fast charger, the Daytona can get from 20% to 80% charge in just over 27 minutes. That means a Daytona Scat Pack gets 8.1 miles of range for every minute it’s hooked up to a 350-kW fast charger. An R/T gets 9.9 miles per minute.
Testing the real-world Dodge Charger Daytona EV’s charging times
When InsideEVs tried to test a new Charger Daytona’s charging speeds, it found the electric muscle car finicky and problematic. They plugged into a 350-kW fast charging station once the battery hit 15%. The charge rate was a healthy 150 kW until the battery hit 40%, then it plummeted to 2 kW. It came back up, but at 50%, it fell again—to 73 kW—and kept falling until the reviewers called it quits after 47 minutes on the charger.
The reviewers drove to a second charger for another test. This time, getting from 20% to 80% took over an hour.
I take these numbers with a grain of salt. Many chargers have problems. Packed charging stations, with EVs on all the other ports, tend to charge slower. I personally would love to get my hands on a Charger Daytona and put it through a long road trip test.
That said, Dodge can’t afford many abysmal charging reviews. I hope when the automaker engineers an 800-volt architecture for its upcoming Charger Banshee supercar, it upgrades every trim level to the same architecture to increase charging speeds.
