TEASER: Dodge’s “Deeply Weird” Pitch for Electric Muscle Cars
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***
We were getting ready to record our "Cybertrash" episode with Ed Niedermeyer last month when Ed happened to bring to our attention to this "deeply weird" ten minute-long extended car ad. It's a promotional video for Dodge's new, "Next-Gen Charger," the electric-powered version of the very same "muscle cars" that Doug confronted at the New York International Auto Show in Episode 85 and Aaron rode along with back in Episodes 92 and 96.
The move from gas-guzzling, window-rattling, V8 engines to electric motors has clearly plunged Dodge into an identity crisis. They spent decades building their brand on obnoxiously loud and dangerously sociopathic gas guzzlers. How will they ever convince their loutish loyal customers to switch over to (supposedly) clean, quiet, big government-mandated electric cars?
In this video we get an answer to that question. Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis is going to try to sell his muscle e-cars with rightwing dog whistles and a Make Dodge Great Again pitch. But he barely even sounds like he has convinced himself. A lot like Elon Musk's Cybertruck marketing, the Dodge promo video is simultaneously super weird and extremely revealing about what American car culture is really all about.
We had some extra time with Ed in the studio so we had to talk about it with him. And we put that together for as a Patreon bonus. If you aren't yet a Patreon subscriber of The War on Cars, maybe now is the time! Subscribe for $3, $5, or $10 per month. We’ll send you stickers and you’ll have access to ad-free episodes and bonus conversations like this one. We really appreciate the support. We couldn’t produce the podcast without you.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Look, the bottom line is this is not the electric car that they want the |
| 0:06.3 | Brotherhood to have. This is a Dodge. This is an electric muzzle car that will make |
| 0:11.2 | the rulemakers, the suits, and the lawyers, which they hadn't had a kale |
| 0:14.9 | smoothie for lunch when they launched this thing. |
| 0:18.4 | What's a kale smoothie? |
| 0:21.3 | I don't really know, but you don't want one. What you will want is |
| 0:27.0 | the same thing in the industry. |
| 0:30.0 | Welcome to the War on Cars. I'm Aaron Napaestack here with my co-hosts |
| 0:38.0 | Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear. Hello, hey there. What's up? How's it going? It goes. It's going. |
| 0:44.5 | Okay, so as we were preparing for our cyber truck conversation with Ed Nedermeyer, |
| 0:50.1 | our very good friends at Stelantis Dodge Corporation dropped this 10 minute |
| 0:57.3 | YouTube ad for their new line of electric muscle cars and Ed happened to post it on social media |
| 1:06.6 | noting that this video is quote deeply weird. I will never forgive Ed for posting that. I will now I had to I had to see it. Sorry. We all had to watch it and in some ways it became we were just like why are we even talking about the cyber truck? Why are we not just talking about this |
| 1:23.0 | completely crazy Dodge Ad. |
| 1:25.0 | So it is a rich text. |
| 1:27.0 | It touches on many of the same themes |
| 1:29.0 | as our whole cyber truck conversation. |
| 1:32.0 | So we just thought we wanted to talk to Ed about it and offer it to you, |
| 1:36.1 | our listeners, as a special bonus just for our Patreon subscribers. We think you will enjoy it very much. So Ed what was this video and |
| 1:45.7 | and why was it so deeply weird to you? So on the one hand it's important to say this is |
| 1:50.5 | almost a very normal thing in the auto industry and it wasn't made for |
| 1:55.3 | YouTube what happens is when you know the Detroit automakers announce a new |
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