Dodge CEO Says 'Cool And Fun' EV Muscle Cars Are Coming

Kuniskis said the capabilities of EVs will steadily turn heads and gain a following.

When it comes to the EV transition, “everybody’s panicked about it,” Kuniskis told Automotive News. “It is what it is. This is the regulation. This is where the industry is going. This is what we have to do.”

Kuniskis said the industry is in a similar position as it was in the 1970s, when regulations put a shackle on muscle cars. But Kuniskis feels this moment is different. He sees manufacturers delivering fun EVs with plenty of punch for speed lovers.

“There’s tons of potential in this technology,” Kuniskis said. “I get it: Not everybody is adopting to this technology right away, and not everybody will. It will take many years for everybody to, but people will. Early adopters will, and when they see what we can do with this technology, they will start coming along.

“Eventually people will see that this technology can make something cool and fun. It’s probably going to sound different, but people tuning cars, making cars faster and competing against each other will not go away. They say the first drag race occurred the second the second car was built. People are going to compete. People are going to compete to have a cooler, faster, funner car and it’s not going to change.”

Tesla’s efforts are facing early tests as some states start rolling out the funds. The company won a slew of projects in Pennsylvania’s first round of funding announced on Monday but none last month in Ohio.

Federal rules require companies to offer the rival Combined Charging System (CCS) - a U.S. standard that has been preferred by the Biden administration - as a minimum to be eligible for the funds.

But individual states can add their own requirements on top of CCS before distributing the federal funds at a local level.

In June, Reuters reported that Texas - which will receive and deploy $407.8 million over five years - planned to mandate companies to include Tesla’s plugs. Washington state has talked about similar plans and Kentucky has already mandated it.

Florida, another major recipient of funds, recently revised it plans, saying it would mandate NACS one year after standards body SAE International, which is reviewing the technology, formally recognizes it.

DLE technologies vary, but each aims to mechanically filter lithium from salty brine deposits and thus avoid the need for open pit mines or large evaporation ponds, the two most common but environmentally challenging ways to extract the battery metal.

Stellantis, which has said half of its fleet will be electric by 2030, also agreed to nearly triple the amount of lithium it will buy from Controlled Thermal, boosting a previous order to 65,000 metric tons annually for at least 10 years, starting in 2027.

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The company plans to spend more than $1 billion to separate lithium from superhot geothermal brines extracted from beneath California’s Salton Sea after flashing steam off those brines to spin turbines that will produce electricity starting next year.

That renewable power is expected to cut the amount of carbon emitted during lithium production.

In the memo, Nissan didn’t offer suppliers a reason for the life cycle extension, but one supplier briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified, told Automotive News that the previously planned changeover would have come just as the Canton factory is gearing up to build new Nissan and Infiniti electric vehicles.

Nissan doesn’t want “a major model launch during the time that they’re starting up” EV production, the source said.

It is now unclear whether the pickup will receive another redesign, the person said.

One possibility is that the Frontier will reemerge around 2030 as an electric pickup, according to the supplier.

A battery-powered truck could boost Nissan’s drive to reclaim relevance in the EV segment it pioneered more than a decade ago with the Leaf.

A Nissan spokesperson declined to comment on future product plans.