Dodge’s Late Gas Charger Outsells the Daytona 15 to 1

Stellantis sold 3,446 gas Dodge Chargers in the third quarter and 233 electric Daytonas, nearly 15 to 1. The battery car went on sale first. The Hurricane six that followed a year later now takes almost every order.

Dodge still lists both on the same Charger page and still calls the lineup multi-energy. The first full year of that choice did not add a second buyer pool. It swapped one powertrain for the other and left the nameplate smaller than it was when the electric car did most of the work.

The 1,348 Percent Came off 238 Leftover Cars

The company’s third-quarter U.S. sales report, posted Oct. 1, 2026, splits the Charger into two lines. Charger ICE rose from 238 sales in the third quarter of 2025 to 3,446, a 1,348 percent gain the sales chart prints beside the new number. Charger BEV, the Daytona, fell from 2,776 to 233, a 92 percent drop.

Those 238 gas cars were not Sixpacks. The twin-turbo inline-six did not start production until Dec. 2, 2025, so a gas Charger sold in the summer of 2025 had to be leftover seventh-generation stock. Stellantis counts a sale when a dealer reports a retail delivery from its own lot, which is how a car built years earlier can land on a 2025 line.

The 2026 climb is a different quantity. Stellantis’s first-quarter chart listed 1,672 gas Chargers, and the third quarter’s 3,446 is more than double that sequential base. The percent and the unit climb can both be true because they measure different things: one against leftover old cars, the other against this year’s own ramp.

CHARGER AND DURANGO, Q3 AND YEAR TO DATE

The written Dodge bullets never mention 1,348 percent. They say brand sales rose 2 percent, Charger retail sales rose 22 percent, and the Durango had its best third quarter since 2005. The percent that traveled is the one built on 238 leftover cars.

Both Chargers Together Trailed Last Year

Add the two Charger lines and the third quarter is 3,679 cars, up from 3,014 a year earlier. That 22 percent gain is the figure Stellantis cited for retail. Through September the combined count is 8,796, against 8,943 in the first nine months of 2025, or 147 fewer cars with a gas engine on sale all year.

Gas volume is up 330 percent year to date, 8,029 against 1,868. The Daytona is down 89 percent, 767 against 7,075. The Hurricane car replaced the battery car on the same scoreboard. It did not rebuild the old Charger-and-Challenger business that used to clear tens of thousands of cars in a single quarter.

The electric car’s 2025 third quarter was also a rush into a deadline. U.S. buyers pulled EV purchases forward before the federal new-vehicle credit lapsed, which inflates the 92 percent drop the same way leftover stock inflates the gas percent. Even after that caveat, the live mix in 2026 is 3,446 gas cars and 233 Daytonas. Shoppers with both keys on the board are not splitting the difference.

What the Sixpack Puts on the Pavement

Dodge revived the Sixpack name for the 3.0-liter twin-turbo Hurricane inline-six. The R/T gets the standard-output tune at 420 horsepower and 468 lb-ft of torque. The Scat Pack gets the high-output tune at 550 horsepower and 531 lb-ft, with a claimed 0-60 mph run of 3.9 seconds, a 12.2-second quarter-mile, and a 177 mph top speed. An eight-speed automatic and standard all-wheel drive with a selectable rear-drive mode are part of the package, along with launch control, line lock, and a dual-mode active exhaust.

The Daytona Scat Pack is rated at 670 horsepower from two motors. On paper it is the quicker, more powerful Charger. In the lot it is the one that sits. The gas car makes noise with fuel and turbos. The electric car has been asked to fake some of that theater through speakers, a trick that reads as a bit, and it has not been enough to hold volume once a priced-below Hurricane car showed up.

This is the next big step in the launch of the all-new Dodge Charger multi-energy muscle car lineup with the start of production of the new 550-horsepower, SIXPACK-powered Dodge Charger Scat Pack. The Unifor-represented employees at Windsor Assembly are assembling a new Charger lineup that has already won multiple awards, including Ward’s 10 Best Interiors, Ward’s 10 Best Propulsion Systems and a MotorWeek Drivers’ Choice award, and delivers power of choice through a true multi-energy platform.

Matt McAlear, Dodge CEO, Windsor production launch, Dec. 2, 2025

Power of choice is still the pitch. The order mix is the verdict. Dodge also put the new Charger up as the 2026 North American Car of the Year, an award for the nameplate as a whole, while the battery variant that launched the generation accounts for 233 of 3,679 third-quarter sales.

Ten Grand Separates the R/T From the Daytona

Price does part of the sorting that ideology is blamed for. Dodge’s own Charger FAQ says the R/T starts at $49,995, the two-door Scat Pack at $54,995, and the Daytona Scat Pack at $59,995, with four-door cars $2,000 higher. Those figures exclude tax, title, and destination; destination on the spec sheet is $1,995.

2026 CHARGER STICKER LADDER

• R/T two-door: $49,995 for 420 horsepower, gas, the cheapest way into the new car.
• Scat Pack two-door: $54,995 for 550 horsepower, still $5,000 under the electric Scat Pack.
• Scat Pack four-door: $56,995, the four-door muscle sedan Dodge priced under $60,000.
• Daytona Scat Pack two-door: $59,995 for 670 horsepower and no tailpipe.
• Daytona Scat Pack four-door: $61,995, $12,000 above the gas R/T before destination.

A buyer who wants a new Charger and does not need a plug saves $10,000 before fees by taking the R/T, and still saves $5,000 by taking the 550-horsepower Scat Pack over the 670-horsepower Daytona. That gap is the product plan, not a clearance event, and it showed up in the same quarter the electric car’s federal crutch disappeared.

Federal Help for the Daytona Stopped on Sept. 30

The IRS now states that the new clean vehicle credit is not available after Sept. 30, 2025, for vehicles acquired after that date. The cap was $7,500 under Section 30D. A later delivery can still qualify only if the buyer had a binding written contract and a payment on or before the cutoff. For 2026 walk-ins, the federal check is gone.

The Daytona Scat Pack was already a poor fit for the purchase credit even before the law changed. The IRS capped the credit at a $55,000 MSRP for cars, and Dodge’s electric Scat Pack starts at $59,995. Lease companies had used a separate commercial credit to pass through savings; that path ended on the same September date. A $5,000-to-$10,000 sticker gap then met a $7,500 federal hole.

Stellantis’s other electric nameplates moved with the same cliff. The Jeep Wagoneer S fell to 146 third-quarter sales from 4,163 a year earlier, when the credit still applied. The Daytona’s slide from 2,776 to 233 sits in that company pattern, with a muscle-car twist: a cheaper gas twin was rolling onto the same dealer lots at the same time.

Windsor Builds Gas and Battery on One Line

Both Chargers are built at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario on the STLA Large architecture, next to Chrysler’s Pacifica and Grand Caravan. Stellantis said it had put $1.9 billion CAD into the plant since 2022, including 301 new robots, a dedicated battery cell line, and 410 reworked workstations, so the factory could build either powertrain without a second body shop.

That flexibility was the strategy. The electric Charger launched in 2024. The gas car followed because the brand still needed a Hurricane answer for buyers who would not take a battery. The plant can paint both. The mix now asks it to paint mostly one.

HOW THE TWO CHARGER POWERTRAINS ARRIVED

1. 2024: Stellantis launches the all-electric Dodge Charger Daytona as the first eighth-generation Charger.
2. July 4, 2025: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is signed, setting an early end for the new clean vehicle credit.
3. Sept. 30, 2025: The IRS cutoff lands; vehicles acquired after this date do not get the $7,500 credit.
4. Dec. 2, 2025: The first gas two-door Scat Pack started production at Windsor, with 550 horsepower and first dealer arrivals that month.
5. First quarter 2026: SIXPACK R/T cars and four-door gas Chargers come off the same line.
6. Oct. 1, 2026: The third-quarter chart prints 3,446 gas Chargers and 233 Daytonas.

In December 2025, Stellantis said Windsor would add a third shift and up to 1,500 jobs in early 2026 to cover the Charger lineup and the Chrysler minivans. The minivans matter as much as the muscle car for plant hours. Trevor Longley, Stellantis Canada president and CEO, said at the gas-car launch that the Charger “offers customers the freedom to choose ICE or BEV powertrains to fit their lifestyle.” Freedom of choice is what the line was tooled for. The third-quarter ticket is 3,446 to 233.

Durango Still Carries Dodge’s U.S. Volume

Dodge sold 26,546 vehicles in the third quarter, up 2 percent from 26,120. Year to date the brand is at 71,057, down 3 percent from 73,601. The Charger argument sits inside a much larger SUV number. Durango sales were 22,755 in the quarter, up 14 percent from 20,018, the best third quarter for that nameplate since 2005, and 61,330 through September.

DODGE’S THIRD-QUARTER MIX

• Durango: 22,755 sales, about 86 percent of Dodge’s 26,546 U.S. vehicles in the quarter.
• Gas Charger: 3,446 sales, the second nameplate, still a small slice of the brand.
• Daytona: 233 sales, fewer cars than Dodge moved in leftover Hornets (85) plus a rounding error on the SUV total.
• Brand: 26,546 in the quarter; Stellantis as a whole sold 324,277 vehicles, against 324,825 a year earlier.

Michael Orange, head of U.S. retail sales and network performance, called it a disciplined quarter “supported by our motivated dealer network, which continued to drive our retail business,” and listed Ram 1500, Durango, Grand Wagoneer, and Pacifica among the retail gainers. He did not mention the Daytona. Durango’s 22,755 sales were more than six times the entire Charger nameplate’s 3,679.

Through September, Dodge has sold 8,796 Chargers of both kinds, 147 fewer than a year earlier, when the electric car carried most of the volume. Windsor can still build either one. The cars getting reported as sales are the ones with the Hurricane six.