Dodge Charger Daytona Spotted With a Weird Button on Board. What Does It Do?

Things moved fast for Dodge. Just as fast as the world's all-electric muscle car would. The automaker unveiled the Charger Daytona concept car last year, announcing that it previewed the brand's first-ever EV. Nobody believed it until they saw it.

"We are just going to use electrification to make it faster, not more politically correct," said Tim Kuniskis, the CEO of Dodge. Back then, we found out that the EV would hit the market as a 2025 model year, but little did we know that it would be unveiled that fast. Teasers prior to the unveiling sparked imagination.

Dodge promised that the production car would look very much like the concept. And they delivered. The EV comes with retro styling and a coupe silhoutte, with both being a tribute to the first-ever production Charger from 1969.

The automaker listened to the crowd that had them labeled as public enemy number 1 for rolling out an EV to replace two lineups with range-topping HEMI V8-powered versions.

Dodge complied, and because they had already phased out the HEMI, they came up with the second best: the Stellantis Hurricane GME T6 engine. The Hurricane is an 182.6-cubic-inch (3.0-liter) twin-turbocharged straight-six, which made its debut in the Jeep Grand Wagoneer in 2022.

So, there they had it. Sitting on the versatile STLA platform, the much-hoped-for ICE version with variants of 420 (426) and 550 horsepower (558 metric horsepower).

Those still lag behind the impressively powered EV, available as R/Ts and Scat Packs with either 496 and 404 pound-feet (548 Newton meters) of torque or 670 horsepower (679 metric horsepower) and 627 pound-feet (850 Newton meters) of torque. That translates into a run from 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 kph) in 3.3 seconds.

Those numbers are a far cry from what Dodge's monstrous Challenger SRT Demon 170 could do. The HEMI-powered model came with 1,025 horsepower (1,039 metric horsepower) and 945 pound-feet (1,281 Newton meters) of torque, which propelled it from naught to 60 mph in just 1.66 seconds. Beat that, Charger Daytona!

One of the Charger prototypes with zero tailpipe emissions was spotted completely uncamouflaged, full of dust, and parked in the street, wearing manufacturer plates. It is obviously a pre-production prototype, because there are certain irregularities on the body.

For instance, the taillights look as if they were just dropped there, with no fit and finish, and the trunk lid seems that it does not close properly. But Dodge probably didn't bother to align the taillights sections on a car that might end up at the scrapyard once the development stage is over.

The video footage shows the electric muscle car rocks black paintwork and rides on multi-spoke, black-finished wheels with SRT-branded big red brake calipers both front and rear. Carbon fiber side mirrors and the R-wing at the front round up the looks of the EV.

But what gets the attention is a button planted into a case installed in the center console, which prompts the YouTuber that films the car to label it as the famous "ejecto seato" from the 2 Fast 2 Furious movie.

It doesn't eject the driver in case of an imminent crash, though. What it does is it shuts off the power supply by disconnecting the battery pack if something dangerous to the car or occupants may occur.

The all-new Jeep Wagoneer S shows up in the video

The footage also shows the prototype driving off silently, followed by what seems to be a Jeep Wagoneer S, the brand's first global EV, that will also hit the American market, unveiled on May 30. The Avenger is a European affair only.

The EV is underpinned by the same platform as the Charger. What we see in the video is a pre-production version. The model will reportedly go into production this fall at Jeep's Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico. Jeep will start delivering the first examples in the final quarter of 2024.

The dual-motor launch version will come with 600 horsepower and 617 pound-feet of torque, which makes it accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. That is just 0.1 seconds slower than the first-ever all-electric muscle car: the Dodge Charger Daytona. So we completely understand why petrolheads complain.

Dodge's choice to convert the Charger nameplate into an EV and a V6-powered model, along with Chevrolet's decision to phase out the Camaro with no successor in sight, leaves the Ford Mustang the only muscle car out there with a V8 heart.