Dodge CEO Hints at Second Malaise Era, Blames Regulation

Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis has repeatedly suggested that electrification would be a keystone trait of tomorrow’s automobiles. But he never sounds truly gleeful about the prospect, injecting the level of joy one might reserve when announcing that the trip to the grocery store after noticing spartan shelves in the kitchen. Kuniskis is aware that Dodge’s lineup caters heavily to automotive size queens and that its ability to manufacture those models is swiftly coming to a close.

Despite the former FCA giving the brand the go-ahead to manufacture V8-equipped behemoths like the Hellcat, the newly formed Stellantis auto group may be less inclined to continue those efforts and the freshly installed Biden administration seems wholly committed to doubling down on environmental regulations that were already at odds with high-output automobiles. Kuniskis typically stops short of discussing these issues as the death knell for automotive performance, suggesting instead that electrification will open new doors for the industry while closing a few others. But he occasionally issues statements hinting that he’s not quite so enthralled with or as hopeful about EVs as his contemporaries.

Referencing our current era as the Second Golden Age of the muscle car to CNBC, Kuniskis seemed confident that electric vehicles would eventually surpass internal combustion vehicles in all measurable respects. But he made it clear that this would only happen after the vehicles went down in price, saw their associated technologies improve, and had become commonplace with a robust charging infrastructure that doesn’t yet exist.

“The whole world is going to shift to electrification, right? We know this is coming,” he told the outlet. “The whole world’s going get there and when it does, the price point of that technology is going to come down and … the crazy people are going to take the electrification that has now become accessible from a price point and make that performance-based instead of economy-based.”

But gasoline-reliant performers might become a casualty with no direct heir until electrics manage to achieve a true parity — especially if governments and the industry place the progress desired too far ahead of progress already made. Dodge’s CEO compared 2021 to the period foreshadowing the notorious Malaise Era (1973-1983), where the U.S. Federal Government began requiring new safety improvements (making vehicles heavier) with aggressive efficiency mandates (mitigating fuel usage). This resulted in a bevy of garbage tier performance vehicles and a slew of mainstream models that were often slower than their predecessors and sometimes burnt more fuel.

“1972 was the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of muscle cars,” Kuniskis said. “They went away for fuel economy, for the oil crisis. They went away for safety. They went away for insurance, and they went away for increasing emission standards. It’s kind of crazy to think about we’re getting close to a similar list of things right now.”

President Biden has already issued orders stalling new oil drilling on federal lands and has decided to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline that was formerly under construction. While dismantling the oil industry entirely is unrealistic, the current administration still has lofty environmental goals and most analysts are predicting steadily increasing energy prices. Some of the assumed regulatory changes may also run the risk of ending the United States’ ability to remain energy independent, potentially opening it up to another 1973-style oil crisis.

Kuniskis may not be having nightmares about the Dodge Aspen R/T rising from its grave to seek its slow and inefficient revenge. But he does appear to appreciate what Dodge has managed to achieve ahead of new regulations. By returning to the classic American formula of sticking large motors into big automobiles, the brand has managed to raise the performance bar for both itself and its domestic rivals without needing to saddle its products with six-figure window stickers.

“What Hellcat has done is way beyond what our initial expectations were because it’s way beyond what a traditional, very high-end trim does,” Kuniskis said. “In the last five years or so, we’ve sold well over 50,000 Hellcats. That’s a lot of Hellcats in five years if you think about you know the price point of that car.”

Whether Dodge’s future trajectory will remain focused on maximizing vehicle performance per dollar, Kuniskis believes EVs should eventually be able to surpass all benchmarks set by the internal-combustion engine. But he knows the party is probably ending for vehicles like the Hellcat.

“The days of an iron block supercharged 6.2-liter V8 are numbered,” he confessed during his interview. “They’re absolutely numbered because of all the compliance costs. But the performance that those vehicles generate is not numbered.”

[Image: Dodge]