The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks sporty and can go really fast. People like it because it’s good for daily driving but also fun to drive fast. They sometimes have special events where Charger fans meet up and show off their cars.
The Dodge Challenger is a sporty car that looks like old muscle cars and has strong engines to make it go really fast. People who like fast cars often choose this one.
A multi-energy platform is like a car's basic frame that can work with different kinds of engines, like gas engines or electric motors. This helps car makers make different cars using the same parts.
The Dodge Challenger is a cool, fast car that looks like the old muscle cars from the past. Some versions, like the Hellcat and Demon, are super powerful and made for racing. People love it because it’s fun to drive and looks great.
Radford Racing School is a place where people can learn how to drive fast cars safely and have fun doing it. You get to practice driving on a race track.
The Dodge Durango is a big car that can carry lots of people and stuff. It’s also built to be strong and safe, with new technology that helps drivers. People like it because it’s good for families and can go fast too.
An SUV is a type of car that can carry people and stuff, and it can also drive on rough roads like dirt or snow.
LIVE
We're today here with uh we are in Vermont in the O'Neill team O'Neill driving school
with Dutch and with the CEO Matt McLean.
So how are you Matt?
I'm wonderful.
How you doing today?
Good, good.
Thank you.
So thank you.
First of all, thank you for having us here on the third event for the Dutch Charger.
But it makes a lot of sense.
A lot of people were saying like, why are they doing another event for this car?
They already have three, right?
We did.
We did the 670 horsepower Charger Daytona a little over a year ago and then we did the
two door high output scat pack with 550 horsepower and then today is the first time everyone
gets to drive the 420 horsepower RT in the four door configuration as well, which is
terrific for a lot of people to get behind the wheel for the first time.
And this is the first time after we were in Detroit and you were really busy.
I wanted to talk to you, but I mean, people wouldn't let you go because what happened there?
We won the North American Car of the Year award and it was a terrific day.
It was a terrific honor.
I got to accept the award on behalf of so many hardworking people and we're extremely
proud of it and we thank the jury for voting for us.
Two of them are here too, Nicole Wickman and Mark Fillin.
And I wanted to have them here, but they're having too much fun driving.
So let them do that and we have this chat.
But tell us a little about that, like the new generation of the Charger.
There were a lot of people when Dutch announced that Amy wasn't going to be gone and like
people didn't really like the idea, but like, I guess this whole process, these three events,
these three versions of the car really confirms what you've been saying the whole time.
This is a better car, and you can be nostalgic.
You can think about the past, but tell us the reasons why you think you won.
I mean, we can tell you ours, but...
Well, it's ironic.
Anytime a manufacturer in the industry brings out a new vehicle, they always say it's the best ever.
And it should be, right?
It should be, yeah.
It absolutely should be.
Yeah, you're not going to make a new one.
Well, okay, let's break the radio.
So you expect...
Well, some of them don't because they make the volume low.
So that has happened.
And you expect the manufacturer, you expect us to tell everybody that it's the best ever.
It would be sacrilegious if we didn't.
This is what we're paid to do.
But it's another thing when a panel of judges across North America, Canada, Mexico,
U.S. vote for the Car of the Year Award, that it reinforces our message.
And it helps get that message out because it's one thing to say that you are new and
improved, but when you look at what we've done with this vehicle and the vehicles that
they replace from the outgoing charger and challenger, we're talking about all new powertrains,
all new platform, multi-energy platform, battery electric, twin-turbo inline-sixes.
That's a lot to take in for consumers that had so much passion and love for the old generation of cars.
And that's what I saw in the videos that we've done over the past year and a couple months
since the very one was introduced, is that people really said,
I will never dry anything else but that it has to have a hemi.
And I said like, okay, maybe you also want to go to a rotary phone or an online or like a fax machine
instead because, I mean, industries evolve and products evolve.
So I don't know.
I mean, that's why people and the other thing that really surprised me is that a lot of people
complain or talk bad about things that they even haven't even experienced because
the first, when you announced it, they already said, I'm not going to drive anything else.
But now that the car is being on sale for a while or some of the variants,
what feedback are you getting now?
Well, it's, we pride ourselves on having a very engaged brotherhood, sisterhood of muscle.
And it's fun now that we just released our first creative commercial called Misfits a few weeks ago.
And now that the vehicles are starting to show up at dealerships,
people are actually starting to get to test drive those.
And it's funny because they're using the platform of the commercial to engage.
And we had 10 million views of this commercial.
But the exciting thing is 76,000 people engaged with that video,
whether they liked it, they shared it, they commented.
And we read the comments and my team reads the comments.
And it's great to start seeing the people say, I never thought I would do it.
But I showed up at the dealership, this thing's incredible.
It pins you to the back of the seat.
You've got to give it a chance.
And one by one, you start seeing them in your neighborhood,
you start seeing them at the office, you start seeing them at school.
People are intrigued.
This vehicle, thanks to you and your contemporaries for getting us to get the word out there,
it's incredible.
The power and the performance and response and the safety and the technology,
this car is so much that people wanted for so long in the old cars,
we're giving them now and the performance numbers don't lie.
So I keep telling the story when we were in Arizona, December 24.
We were driving a white Daytona on the streets, regular streets.
And then we see an old Challenger.
It was a two door white also.
And it was me and Henry Payne also, not good year.
And we pulled the guy up.
Like we were policers and like you're stopping in this parking lot.
So we parked the two cars together.
We took pictures and we brought him into the car.
He saw it for the first time.
I mean, nobody else besides the media have seen it.
Right.
And I'm not sure that we couldn't let him drive it because we have restrictions on that.
But he saw the car.
He saw the technology.
He saw the interior, the exterior design.
We told him about the suspects, the horsepower of that.
He was, I don't know if we convinced him that day to buy one,
but he was really intrigued and really, I think, started to like it.
He also liked that I gave him the hat.
That was good.
Everyone likes free hats, right?
But that's the point.
I mean, you have to get the people in the car experience it.
In that case, it wasn't the full experience.
But now you're seeing people saying that, okay, it makes sense.
The six cylinder engine is better than the V8.
Absolutely.
And this car that we're here driving this week, the 420 horsepower RT, that's the sleeper car.
This car offers so much at a $49,000 price point that is unmatched in the industry.
And with the all wheel drive for capability across every daily driving habit throughout
the country, whether you're in the north or the south, but rear wheel drive when you want it,
is absolutely something that is unique in this segment.
And we're excited for consumers to get behind it.
I mean, where else can you light up the tires and then take it on a ski trip up to the mountains?
And the other thing when we're driving up here from the hotel, I was driving behind a white one,
a four door that had a rack on the roof with us.
I think there were skis or snowboards, I remember.
But that's the other amazing thing about this car.
I mean, I was thinking this is almost like a muscle car or like an SUV in a muscle car body.
Right.
Because between the platform that gives you more space,
and I believe it doesn't lose any space when you have the two door and the four door.
The interior is exactly the same.
The cargo space is huge.
And then the lift that the hidden hatch design.
So that really the utility of this muscle car.
It makes it almost an SUV, right?
Absolutely.
I've taken it on family road trips for six hours down to see my son at college.
And never would have done that in one of the old cars.
Never would have even thought about doing that.
Wouldn't have thought about it.
And even my wife sitting in the back seat, we had the glass roof.
And she said, it is incredible back here.
Just the spaciousness and the openness of being able to have the light come in.
And we were getting over 27 miles a gallon.
And I wasn't driving responsibly, believe me.
These cars do.
They become something less of a choice and more of,
hey, this is something I can live with every single day all year round.
Yeah.
So this completes again this new phase of this generation.
Because given the experience that you guys did with the previous,
we just squeezed like the last, last drop of that platform for how many years?
Like over 20 years?
And close to just over 16, I believe.
I know.
It was amazing.
That really admirable because the engineering teams, the designing teams and all that,
they came up with, I don't know how many variants and the Hellcat and the Demon and all these kind of things.
So I guess that's not going to be gone.
No.
I mean, you're going to keep improving.
We said it.
For our third time in just over a year and we're taking you on our third powertrain now.
So we've got some more stuff in the works and we're excited.
This car, this platform gives us a lot to work with just like the old one did.
Yeah.
And speaking about another thing that I think people will be very convinced about is the pricing.
I mean, you have a tell us more about it because you have one that starts below 50,
which is pretty amazing for what you get.
Right.
So the two door RT with 420 horsepower and standard all wheel drive starts at 49,995.
And then you step up to 54,995 for the 550 horsepower high output scat back.
And for that $5,000 walk, you go up from 420 to 550, you get a one day driving experience that
are a Radford racing school where you talked about last year, which is extremely exciting for
consumers that haven't had a chance to experience that.
And you also get a lot of technology and other amenities with that.
But that is absolutely the most horsepower available in the industry under 55,000.
We have the most standard horsepower at 420 horsepower of any muscle car.
So we're starting to offer value in ways that maybe we didn't before, but between the performance,
the capability, the fuel economy, the safety, the interior roominess and cargo space,
these vehicles offer something.
And you said it almost SUV like in a muscle car.
Then I like the way you put it out this morning, the presentation, the extra is the two doors,
a thousand each, but I don't think you can get only one, right?
You cannot make it a three door sedan.
But it really comes down to what you like and what kind of egress,
ingress you want to the cockpit.
Because we said the leg room, the interior spaciousness is exactly the same between the two
door and the four door.
I love the four door just having a family.
I think the two door looks phenomenal, but the four door is better for my daily driving.
And nowadays, I was just thinking as we were talking,
you basically don't have any competition.
There's any other muscle car, a four door muscle car in the market anymore.
I mean, unless you go, it's not a muscle car, but you could do European versions of this,
the high end performance from Mercedes or BMW or Audi, but like an American muscle car,
like we're alone now.
No, and we love that.
We love doing something different that stands out in the industry,
stands out in the market and offers consumers something they can't get somewhere else.
We don't win when we build commoditized,
me too, daily driving vehicles that are just point A to point B.
We were an expression of people's personalities and our buyers.
And that's what we strive to do.
And we have a lot of fun doing it.
And as you said before, the community is huge.
I mean, I'm very passionate.
And that's why they hated you for a little bit.
They're coming around.
Yeah, but they exactly, they're coming around, right?
Like again, any other comments or things that you have seen that really said like,
wow, like we got it.
Well, you start seeing these vehicles show up and some of the drag strips and the races
and you start seeing some of the competition they're taking off of the line.
And with the instant hookup with the all wheel drive and the power and the performance,
people are starting to realize this is legitimate and the numbers don't lie.
And they're starting to say, wow, OK, we're not saying V8s are bad,
but we're saying there's a lot of potential here.
Let's move for a little bit with the Dodge Drango, which is another huge tech story for Dodge, right?
Yeah, it's a vehicle that keeps on giving.
And we just had our best year in 20 years from a sales standpoint,
a vehicle that we expanded the SRT Hellcat lineup this year going with the jailbreak.
We're loving people to customize it the way they want with over 13 million combinations,
which is astounding to think that you can build 13 million different versions of that.
We just opened up in all 50 states.
So now the V8 is available everywhere this month in March.
We're just getting ready to reopen for the RT 392,
which is going to be phenomenally priced at $49.9, which is just a fantastic vehicle.
So we're excited to get that out there.
And then we've seen amazing success turning off a dealer lots.
Over 50% turn rate is the GT with the 5.7 liter Hemi.
People can't get enough of that and having V8.
People love the Hemi, we have to say.
Well, and it's the only V8 left in the segment.
So we offer towing capability and performance of larger vehicles
and a package that's easy to park, easy to put in your garage, easy to drive,
seven pass when you want it, extra cargo room with hidden rails from the storage,
a roof rack on top.
It's a vehicle that is easy to live with and looks different again than any other SUV out there.
Yeah. And I saw some of them driving around here on the snow.
Like they move like they can do stuff.
Also, the snow.
Yeah. With all the V8s having standard rear wheel drive, they definitely perform.
Yeah. Well, too bad it's not completely new
because that doesn't make it eligible for an actual award.
But there must be another award out there that you can grab with that one, right?
We're looking forward to it because it's not going anywhere.
Yeah. Well, thank you very much for the time.
And again, I hope to see you soon.
I'm sure you're going to see you soon because again,
like what you did with the old one and what we've seen with this one,
it's just like a trend.
Like you guys don't stop, huh?
Thank you. And thank you for coming out and spending time with us and enjoying the vehicles.
Thank you. I'm going to drive back in the derailleur.
Perfect. Enjoy it.
Thank you.
That's it for today's AI Auto Podcast with Javier Moda.
Hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.
Tune in next time for more on how AI steering the wheel of tomorrow's autos.
Drive safe, stay curious and catch you later.
About this episode
Matt McLean, CEO of Dodge, discusses the evolution of the new-generation Dodge Charger, highlighting its blend of muscle car heritage with modern technology and versatility. The conversation covers the three Charger variants—Daytona, high output Scat Pack, and the 420-hp RT four-door—emphasizing their performance, all-wheel drive capability, and practicality. They reflect on winning the North American Car of the Year award, overcoming skepticism about the new model, and how the Charger now offers muscle car excitement with SUV-like utility and everyday usability. Pricing, community feedback, and future plans for the platform are also explored.
In this episode, we speak with Matt McAlear, CEO of Dodge, about the fully realized next-generation Dodge Charger lineup. He explains why the new Charger family makes more sense than ever, offering customers the choice between a 100% electric powertrain or the Hurricane inline-six gasoline engine, along with rear-wheel or all-wheel drive configurations. 2 or 4 doors and significantly improved technology.
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