With a name like the Charger Daytona, you’d think that Dodge’s first-ever electric muscle car would be a champ at the charging station. That was not our experience.
When we tested Dodge’s inaugural electric vehicle this spring, we fast-charged it twice at two different Electrify America stations in the Northeast. Both sessions went sideways in peculiar ways, and we never saw even close to the Charger Daytona’s claimed 20%-80% charge time of 24 minutes.
That’s part of why, in his Charger Daytona review, InsideEVs Editor-in-Chief Patrick George called it a “great muscle car” and “a weird EV.” Let’s dig into exactly what happened. And to see the Charger in action, check out our charging test above.
Our first test, at a 350-kilowatt station with plenty of power to meet the Charger Daytona’s 210-kW rating, started off fine. Video chief Mike Roselli arrived with a 15% state of charge. At 40%, the session was cruising along at around 150 kW. Suddenly, the charge rate plummeted to 2 kW, before rising back up to 150. At around 50% battery, the power output fell to a measly 73 kW, trending downward as it reached 80%. The whole session took 47 minutes.
The final result was so far off of Dodge’s claimed charging time that we had to run the test back on a different day at a different location.
Once again, the power rate started off strong, exceeding 200 kW at times, but whipsawed to 2 kW multiple times early on. This made for one of the strangest charging curves we’ve ever seen. The charging session cut out entirely at 36% (which may very well have been the charger’s fault). Once we resumed, the power rocketed up to a healthy 180 kW, but soon dropped to 40 kW, where it remained for the rest of the session.
This time, predictably, 20%-80% took well over an hour.
When we asked Dodge about this, a spokesperson said the charger itself is usually to blame for the slow speeds, and that "the charge speed experience is not due to limitations on the vehicle side."
He can't speak to how widespread this issue is. However, according to YouTube videos, other Charger Daytona drivers have experienced similar issues across EVgo and Tesla Supercharger stations as well. Hopefully this can be solved with a software update.
Do you own a Dodge Charger Daytona? What’s your experience been like overall, and with charging in particular? Let us know in the comments below or shoot me an email.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
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