The referendum on Trump – which is what the midterms were – probably means the resuscitated Dodge Charger is shortly going to have a pillow placed over its head and this time, it’ll be for good.
As you probably know, the electric Charger was a disaster for Dodge, which over the course of two model years sold about 10 percent as many of them as Chargers with engines were sold back in 2023, which was the final year of availability for the last-generation (pre-electric) Charger. To try to save the car (and itself; Dodge only has three models and cannot afford to have just one, the Durango, that sells well) Dodge hurriedly back-tracked its prior commitment to the electric-only Charger and put an engine in it. Also another set of doors. The 2024 Charger was a coupe only, which exacerbated the problem because sedans sell better than coupes (especially to police departments, which used to buy fleets of the old Charger). The current – 2026 – Charger is available as a sedan and a coupe, which is how it ought to have been offered to begin with. But the real game-changer, at least potentially, was the bringing-back of an engine in place of a battery.
Well, the Blue Douching has probably put the kibosh on that. Why? Because one of the few good things Trump did after he got re-elected is certain to be undone. I refer to the dialing back of federal mandatory miles-per-gallon edicts (CAFE) and the fines for not “complying” with these. Note that – true to Republican form – Trump did not end the federal government’s “role” in issuing edicts that require every vehicle manufacturer to achieve a “fleet average” of “x” miles-per-gallon. The current mandatory minimum is about 35 MPG; it was “rolled back” to that from a pending uptick to 50 MPG. But only rolled back. Not ended. That which is merely rolled back can be rolled forward again whenever the political winds shift.
They just did.
It may not happen right away. Trump can still issue counter-edicts, assuming he is not dragged feet first out of the Oval Office. But the tea leaves are easy for anyone to read.
The 2026 Charger with the Hurricane twice-turbo’d 3.0 liter six does not average 35 MPG or anything close to that. It rates 17 city, 26 highway – which works out to an average of about 21 MPG, which is pretty far off the 35 MPG mark. It is true that this engine “emits” less C02 than the previously available 5.7 Hemi V8 (as well as, probably, the old Charger’s standard 3.6 liter V6) and that rather than miles-per-gallon is the real reason why Stellantis developed this engine to replace the Hemi V8.
Three liters of six “emits” less CO2 than five-point-seven liters of V8, at least when the six isn’t being fed a pressurized air-fuel mix. This mattered a lot when the so-called Endangerment Finding – that found C02 to be a pollutant and so subject to regulation just like the actual pollutants that actually cause or worsen air pollution – was still in force because the only way to reduce the amount of CO2 an engine “emits” is to reduce the amount of air it moves. The cylinders of a small six are usually smaller than those of a big V8 and of course the V8 has two more of them that are always moving air. Of course, when the six is pressurized by its turbos, it moves as much or even more air as the big V8 does but the difference is it’s not all the time. That is why all of a sudden and seemingly for no good reason, you’ve got all these small turbo’d sixes (and fours) under the hoods of vehicles that would otherwise have come with V8s and sixes that didn’t need turbos.
Well, Trump kiboshed the Endangerment Finding and the fines for CAFE non-compliance and kept the CAFE mandatory MPG minimums from rolling up to 50 MPG, as had been decreed by the Biden Thing’s EPA. This made the Charger with an engine viable again. It is almost certainly not an accident that Stellantis announced the Charger would be available with an engine again after Trump’s victory in 2024. This year – 2026 – is the first year the new Charger is available with an engine again.
Better get one while you still can, if you’d like to have one.
The midterm wipeout for the Republicans means that unless something radically changes over the course of the next 24 months, the next president is likely to not be a Republican. It is not unlikely it will be someone like Joe Biden only more likely than he was to use CAFE mandatory miles-per-gallon mandates and fines for noncompliance to punish the manufacturing of anything with an engine bigger than a small four by decreeing that anything doesn’t get at least 50 MPG is going to get socked with heavy fines for “guzzling” gas. A red president is likely to be very green – and to resurrect the Endangerment Finding.
Of course, Trump has already effectively achieved what punitive “gas guzzler” fines would have as a consequence of his decision to attack Iran. The Charger’s price doesn’t include punishing fines for “guzzling” gas but the cost of gas is punishing, due to the war that cost the GOP the midterms.
The ’26 Charger with the 3.0 liter Hurricane six has an 18 gallon tank and premium fuel is recommended. At $5 per gallon – if you can find it that cheap – the cost to fill up a new Charger is just shy of $100. Even if you pump it full of regular at $4 per gallon, it’s still about $70.
This is why Trump lost the midterms – even though he wasn’t on the ballot. It is why the GOP just lost control of Congress.
It is also why we may lose Dodge, because the engine’d Charger can’t survive $4 unleaded, at least not as a volume-selling car. And Dodge may not be able to survive as a brand that sells just a few thousand Chargers every year and (other than the Durango) not much else.
. . .
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The Empire had a pretty good run until the self-proclaimed demi-gods took full control.