Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was slow to embrace electrification, but that’s changing now that the company is part of Stellantis.
According to insiders who talked to The Detroit Bureau, there are at least six electric vehicles and one plug-in hybrid at the company’s design studio in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The publication also notes there are even more electrified models in development.
Details are limited, but it appears one of the models is a high-performance electric vehicle which will reportedly be the fastest Dodge ever created. If that’s the case, it would be quicker than the Challenger SRT Demon which featured a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 engine that produced up to 840 hp (626 kW / 851 PS) and 770 lb-ft (1,042 Nm) of torque. It enabled the model to rocket from 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in 2.3 seconds and run the quarter-mile in 9.65 seconds at 140 mph (225 km/h).
At the time, the Demon was claimed to be the world’s quickest accelerating production model with the fastest quarter-mile time. However, the recently launched Tesla Model S Plaid is claimed to be the “quickest accelerating car in production today” with a 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) time of 1.99 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 9.23 seconds at 155 mph (250 km/h). The publication suggests Dodge could be looking to take back its records with the EV, but nothing is official as of yet.
The other electric vehicles remain a mystery, but one of them is believed to be a Jeep. That makes sense as the publication noted Jeep wants to be the “greenest SUV brand on the planet” and FCA’s 2018 Capital Markets Day presentation revealed Jeep was supposed to have four BEVs and ten PHEVs by 2022.
While the company was overly optimistic with those projections, a plug-in hybrid Grand Cherokee is in the works. Furthermore, the Jeep Wrangler 4xe is now available and recently became the best-selling plug-in hybrid in the United States.
