Yahoo Autos Dodge warns that regulations are killing the V8 engine
Dodge carved out a lucrative niche by democratizing high-horsepower V8s during the 2010s, but it predicts engines like the 392 and the Hellcat face a grim future. Although it will need to adopt electrification sooner rather than later, the firm stressed that its looming shift away from the V8 won't come at the expense of performance.
"The days of an iron block supercharged 6.2-liter V8 are numbered. They're absolutely numbered because of all the compliance costs. But the performance that those vehicles generate is not numbered," asserted division chief Tim Kuniskis in an interview with CNBC. Regulations are currently looser in the United States than in Europe, where emissions-related penalties place the Jeep Wrangler deep into luxury car territory, but CNBC pointed out the Biden administration is widely expected to announce stricter emissions regulations in the near future.
Kuniskis clarified that demand for horsepower remains healthy; Dodge has built over 50,000 Hellcat-powered cars since 2014, and it easily filled the 2,000 available Durango SRT Hellcat build slots. Sister division Ram made 702 units of the 1500 TRX Launch Edition and sold them all in 10 minutes in spite of a $90,265 base price. The 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V8 deserves the Nobel Prize in Performance for bringing jaw-dropping horsepower figures to non-exotic cars and ushering in what Kuniskis described as the new golden age of muscle cars.
We've been here before, though. The muscle car's first golden age ended abruptly in similar circumstances.
