Dodge Charger Daytona EV Hits 60 MPH Quicker Than a 797-HP Hellcat

Yahoo

10-03-2025

We put the through its paces, and it beats the Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye to 60 mph, but it's close after that.
The Charger's results neatly overlay the , but with almost 900 extra pounds, the Scat Pack doesn't like to turn as well.
Despite its significant mass, the Charger EV had shorter stopping distances than the Bimmer and a .
Welcome to Car and Driver's , where we zoom in on the test numbers. We've been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test ).
There's not a single set of cars that the new Dodge Daytona Scat Pack competes with. It's a hulking two-door electric coupe, which is a pretty unconventional thing. And when we say hulking, we mean it. On our scales, it weighed five thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds. Yes, we've written it out like a check because it underlines the gravitas of the situation. That's just shy of three tons. For a two-door car.
Yet, the 670-hp Daytona Scat Pack's 60-mph time of 3.3 seconds outruns the 797-hp Challenger Hellcat Redeye's time of 3.6 seconds. Of course, the Scat Pack has the advantage of an all-wheel-drive launch, while the Redeye tries to hook up only its rear tires to do the deed. It's hardly fair, despite the Challenger's relatively trim 4514-pound mass. Besides, after that, the story is mostly Redeye, as 100 mph comes in 7.8 seconds versus the Scat Pack's 8.0 seconds. The quarter-mile goes to the Scat Pack—barely, 11.7 to 11.8 ticks. But the velocity is all Redeye, 125 mph to 119 mph. That's because the Daytona poops out at 136 mph, while the Hellcat is good for a claimed 203 mph. For those keeping tabs, we tested a second Challenger Hellcat Redeye on the same surface as the Daytona and its 60-mph time was slower at 3.8 seconds, but its 11.6-second quarter-mile at 128 mph outgunned the electric two-door.
Maybe the Hellcat Redeye isn't the best foil for our electric Daytona Scat Pack. Perusing our results, the 536-hp all-wheel-drive BMW i4 M50 seems like the better fit. In fact, they lay right on top of one another. All the metrics are the same. 60 mph? Check. They both need 3.3 seconds. It's the same for 100 mph at 8.0 seconds flat. The quarter-mile is a tie too, at 11.7 seconds—although the Bimmer does pip it for velocity, 120 mph versus 119 mph. You have to dig deeper to find the differences. The 30-to-50-mph time is 1.5 seconds for the BMW, but 1.8 seconds for the Daytona. Ditto the 50-to-70-mph times: 2.0 for the Bavarian and 2.4 seconds for the Dodge. Any of these times are good enough to compress the air out of your lungs, but it does get us wondering.
Our 5-to-60-mph rolling-start test removes any launch-control shenanigans. In this test, the BMW needs just 3.5 seconds to complete that run, but the Dodge requires 4.1 seconds. They both have launch control, but the BMW doesn't deliver any more power in that mode. The Daytona, on the other hand, delivers its full 670 hp in launch mode, but that drops to 630 hp unless you hit the overboost PowerShot button on the steering wheel. Forty horsepower likely isn't enough to cover that spread. At 630 hp, the Dodge Daytona has an equal weight-to-power ratio to the BMW i4, both at 9.4 pounds per horsepower. That can only lead us to believe that it comes down to software, and the BMW is quicker to unleash all of its power.
And that brings us back to mass. You'd think that would work against the 5925-pound Scat Pack in the braking department, but you'd be mistaken. From 70 mph, the Dodge stops in 151 feet. This slightly beats the i4 M50, which weighs 5063 pounds and does the deed in 154 feet. It even bests the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which needed 153 feet and only weighs 4849 pounds. Up the stopping speed to 100 mph, and those gaps grow. It's 297 feet for the Charger Daytona, 304 feet for the Ioniq 5 N, and 308 feet for the i4 M50. It's worth noting here that the BMW and Hyundai wear narrower Pirelli P Zero PZ4 Elect summer tires on 20- and 21-inch wheels, respectively, while the Daytona sports chunky 20-inch Eagle F1 Supercar 3 tires, sized 305/35ZR-20 in front and 325/35ZR-20 in back.
On the skidpad, all three are within a hundredth of a g. The Dodge and the Hyundai each score 0.96 g, while the BMW narrowly beats them both with 0.97 g. However, what those numbers don't highlight is the three cars' behavior at their handling limits. The lighter BMW and Hyundai take it in stride and exhibit good orbital balance, but the Scat Pack seesaws around the circle at its limit with excessive understeer.
While there's no getting around the impact that the Daytona's size and girth has on its at-the-limit handling behavior, this is still an impressive machine that delivers massive straight-line thrust and serious levels of grip. Not only can it run with two of our favorite performance-oriented EVs, it's quicker off the line than any of its internal-combustion predecessors we've tested.
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