Nilu & Charger Daytona Pricing

Happy Saturday. There are two stories I wanted to address this week and they fit very different kind of car people.

1. The New Dodge Charger Daytona

2. The New Nilu Hypercar

Dodge Charger Daytona: Earlier this wee Dodge unveiled the pricing for the new EV.

• The Charger Daytona R/T will start at $61,590, almost $14,000 more than the 2023 gas-powered R/T.

• The Charger Daytona Scat Pack will carry a $75,185 price, over $20,000 higher than a 2023 Scat Pack with a V-8 engine.

Given the electric muscle car is the only one of its category so far (both electric mustangs and eventually electric camaros are going to be SUVs for some reason) its hard to compare that price to anything else in the market but if you compare it to the new generation of mustang GT considering it really has no direct competitor now its a pricier jump for the EV. The new Dark Horse version of the mustang starts at $60,000 and the normal GT starts at $40,000.

In order for this new charger to be successful 2 things need to be done correctly given how expensive these will be:

1. It needs to be very fun to drive (not just fast because that’s an easy thing to do for an EV)

2. It cannot be a pain to own. Many EVs have a problem having a very tedious process of connecting to a charging network (especially when Tesla is the only one who has a relatively well established charging infrastructure).

Now my dislike of EVs is something I have brought up before I don’t want to harp on this too much. I am all for a company making a good product that people enjoy and I do sincerely hope those who get this vehicle do enjoy it. I personally do not enjoy the idea about what I want to drive for fun being further dictated by the government for the least common category of vehicle on the road. I envision many problems coming out with these cars as the Ford Lightning did. A lot of hype and a lot of quality control issues. Although for the sake of those who purchase this car I hope I am wrong.

The Nilu 27: Now some of you might have heard of this car but this is wild. And it is polar opposite to the charger.

The Nilu 27 is a mid-engine hypercar that comes with a 7-speed gated manual transmission and a 6.5 L V12 engine that produces 1070 horsepower at 11,000 rpm. I could have learned nothing else about that car and I would have told people to “take my money!”

Much of what I learned from this vehicle comes from the motor trend article that can be found here.

I don’t believe if I were to see this vehicle in person this picture would do it justice. The company who produced the engine is named Hartley Engines based out of New Zealand and this product is apparently inspired by the formula 1 engines of the 80s and 90s. Their design included some 3-D printed parts allowing for the wild exhaust design as shown coming to a point in the back.

There has been no official word on pricing or production numbers yet but I have to address the comments that were made by the founder of this project, Sasha Salepnakov who also designed cars like the Lamborghini Huracan, Bugatti Chiron, and Koenigsegg CC850 and Gemera in case his credentials were up for question.

“0-60? Don’t know. Downforce? Don’t know. It has a 1070hp and a manual transmission.”

It makes this car far more driver dependent and I hope to see more cars produced in the future that are thought of in this manner rather than just “how can we be quicker around a track than last year” as that seems to be the focus of most sports car manufacturers.

Hope you all have a good weekend and I brought some interesting news to you.

Thanks,

Steven C