Mopar Insiders said its dealer sources notified the outlet that the 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona has been delayed 90 days. The alleged culprit is a familiar one, “several electrical issues that surfaced during testing.” No need to be alarmed, this is what a multimillion-dollar fleet of prototypes is for, testing out all of the bugs. Last we heard two months ago, MI’s dealer friends were saying Charger Daytona order books would open on April 22, followed by an online configurator and an allotment search function at Dodge Garage. MI says the order books have been closed, the splashy live presentation originally scheduled for May is now on penciled in for August.
The timing isn’t ideal, but these hiccups will probably be more common as automakers add software and electrical engineering expertise. Volkswagen went through massive teething pains with its ID series, and Chevrolet and Volvo are other recent victims of the same kinds of delays, despite the two being early out of the EV gates with some of the best OEM products on the market. General Motors, in fact, is only just ramping up production numbers for products released for the 2022 model year because of the time needed to get the programming right. Even with that, the otherwise terrific Chevrolet Blazer EV still fell through the cracks.
We’ll hazard a guess that the 90-day delay might mean a debut during Dodge’s Speed Week in August, which happens around the weekend of the Woodward Dream Cruise in Pontiac, Michigan. This year’s cruise happens the weekend of August 16; getting the production Charger Daytonas in public would then would mark one year since the concept debut, Dodge revealing the Charger Daytona SRT Concept just before last year’s cruise. Then we can finally get answers about R/T and Scat Pack trims and the reported five variants among them — two for the R/T and three for the Scat Pack — ranging from 456 horsepower and 404 pound-feet of torque to 670 hp and 627 lb-ft.