- Reviewers have found that the Dodge Charger Daytona cannot do a burnout
- The Line Lock function, which disables the entrance electrical motor and locks the wheels, was inexplicably lacking from check vehicles on the launch occasion.
- Dodge would not have something to share about future plans to allow or embrace Line Lock
The Dodge Charger Daytona is out and the primary critiques are lastly hitting the streets. Critics appear to like the automobile, largely, particularly because it’s one of many first efficiency EVs particularly aimed toward roping in gearheads away from gas-powered, tire-slaying, row-your-own combustion vehicles. That is not a straightforward feat, however as lots of those that have already made the change can inform you—the moment torque delivered by an EV will be removed from tame.
However there’s one specific quirk concerning the Charger Daytona that we won’t fairly overcome. Regardless of Dodge advertising the Charger as an electrified muscle automobile, it lacks the power to carry out of probably the most fundamental hooning options that any red-blooded, high-performance American coupe ought to have the ability to do: a burnout.
Photograph by: InsideEVs
Information of the lacking function first got here to us whereas skimming via MotorTrend’s first drive evaluate of the Charger Daytona. Throughout their time with the automobile, MotorTrend observed that (for some unfathomable cause) it was inconceivable to get the automobile to do a burnout. No quantity of fidgeting with the controls and fuel pedal may yield a brakestand.
This is what caught our eye from MotorTrend:
In truth, the Charger Daytona gained’t do a burnout. It doesn’t matter what we tried, the electrical Charger stubbornly rejected our efforts to announce its arrival to the world by way of smoke indicators. It’s in all probability able to doing one with a line lock function, however inexplicably that’s the one toy Dodge did not program in.
Certainly that may’t be proper.
Dodge, the corporate that simply mentioned it was going to save lots of the world from “lame, soulless, weak-looking, self-driving, sleep-pods” by giving the world a battery-powered muscle automobile, would not have made it in order that flagship EV was incapable of spinning its rear tires in a powerful cloud of vaporized rubber… proper?
Possibly there is a good cause for it. Let’s bear in mind right here that the Charger Daytona comes solely in all-wheel drive. Meaning twin 335-horsepower motors on the entrance and rear wheels, making a mixed output of 670 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of on the spot, electrified torque. That is loads of energy for some huge quantity 11s on the pavement.
We dug into this quirk a bit extra to search out out precisely what was happening. As talked about, the Charger Daytona is AWD, so with the intention to do a standard burnout, it will want to chop energy to the entrance wheels—which it ought to have the ability to do since an EV would not must mechanically separate the entrance and rear drivetrains on condition that they’re utterly separate from each other.
Dodge calls this function “Line Lock”—a time period that is been round since mid-century within the drag racing scene. Its identify is sort of literal and refers to locking strain within the entrance brake traces of a automobile to maintain pads in touch with the rotors and forestall the entrance wheels from turning. The motive force can then mash the fuel pedal and warmth up the rear tires earlier than sending the automobile down the drag strip.
The concept is comparable for the Charger Daytona. Turning the function on would disable energy to the entrance motor to stop the wheels from turning, lock the entrance brakes and let the rear motor unleash its full torque output.Hell, Dodge even brags concerning the capacity to “add in Line Lock for smoky burnouts” on the web site for the Charger Daytona.
However there’s only one downside: the Charger Daytona would not have the Line Lock function. In truth, a Stellantis spokesperson confirmed to InsideEVs that Line Lock just isn’t presently out there on the Charger Daytona and that the model did not have something to share relating to any future plans for the function.
Properly, people, I hate to interrupt it to you, however that is the world we’re dwelling in. The Dodge Charger Daytona—the world’s first mass-produced fashionable electrical muscle automobile—cannot do a burnout. At the very least not but, and whether or not or not it’ll get an replace so as to add Dodge’s Line Lock function sooner or later is anyone’s guess.
Positive, it will possibly do different cool issues. Drift mode will get rowdy and even performs the decoupling of the entrance electrical drive motor. That makes it much more puzzling that Line Lock is not out there for this identical perform. I do know this is not the tip of the world, however it looks like such a missed alternative to incorporate a fundamental muscle automobile function on what’s being marketed as the primary fashionable electrical muscle automobile. Possibly that’ll change sooner or later, however for now, I’ll go sit within the nook and marvel what we did to deserve this.
