Author: EVAI

The U.K.’s Ineos continues to showcase the versatility of its Grenadier off-roader with the reveal on Wednesday of the Grenadier Quartermaster Kaiju, a wild overlander built to conquer Australia’s harsh terrain. The Grenadier Quartermaster is the pickup sibling to the Grenadier SUV, and the new Kaiju version—its name derived from the…

The Tesla Cybertruck is being recalled again, this time because its tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) light may not stay on, preventing drivers from seeing warnings of low tire pressure.

This recall includes not only the 2024 Cybertruck but also 2017-2025 Tesla Model 3 sedans and 2020-2025 Tesla Model Y SUVs, for a total of 694,304 vehicles. A software update pushed to these vehicles inadvertently reset the TPMS warning light so that it does not reappear after the car is cycled off and back on again, according to the NHTSA.

Tesla Cybertruck

Driving with improperly inflated tires increases the risk of a crash, which is why TPMS is federally mandated. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) number 138 requires that TPMS warning lights stay illuminated whenever the vehicle is on until the tire-pressure issue that triggers them is corrected.

Tesla estimates that all recalled vehicles have this issue, and it’s aware of 76 related warranty claims. However, the automaker is not aware of any collisions, injuries, or fatalities connected to the issue.

Tesla Cybertruck

Tesla released an over-the-air update to correct the problem around Nov. 12, so owners don’t have to take their cars to service centers for recall work. The automaker will also follow up with owner notification letters, which are due to be mailed Feb. 15, 2025. Owners can also contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752. Tesla’s reference number for this recall is SB-24-00-018.

This is the seventh recall of the Cybertruck since deliveries began, and not all have involved software fixes. The last recall, for loss of drive power, required replacement of inverters in the affected trucks. Other recalls have addressed busted windshield wiper motors, accelerator pedals that became “trapped” by trim pieces, and rearview cameras with image delay issues.

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A pair of California-based companies plan to unveil a prototype electric RV at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next month.

The vehicle, officially styled as an “AI Transformable Home” (AI-TH), was announced at CES 2024 this past January by startup AC Future. That firm has since partnered with Hydra Design Labs which, says it specializes in design, fabrication and prototyping for the auto industry to move the idea closer to production readiness.

Rendering of AC Future AI-TH electric RV

The vehicle is designed to provide 400 square feet of living space with a slide-out section similar to conventional RVs, along with “complete off-grid capabilities, including solar charging, water generation, and internet connectivity,” the AC Future said.

The prototype being shown at CES 2025, which was built by Hydra Design Labs, will be a more refined version of the initial concept that debuted at the 2024 show, according to AC Future. But the startup still hasn’t confirmed a production timeline.

Rendering of AC Future AI-TH electric RV

Other companies are working on electric RVs. RollAway, for example, aims to rent out luxury RVs made from General Motors BrightDrop electric vans. But RVs also face steeper range and charging challenges than electric cars, due to both the need to extract lots of range from an inefficient package and the lack of high-power charging infrastructure at campsites and RV parks.

Plug-in hybrids might be a better solution, something Airstream’s parent company Thor Industries is already investigating. Battery-powered travel trailers that can help propel themselves, such as the Lightship AE.1 Cosmos Edition due to start production in mid-2025, can also help make zero-emission camping more practical, albeit with the need for a tow vehicle.

Toyota is due to receive $4.5 million in federal funding for research into automating the teardown and rebuilding of used electric vehicle battery packs for eventual reuse.

The funding comes from the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), under the Catalyzing Innovative Research for Circular Use of Long-lived Advanced Rechargeables (CIRCULAR). That project aims to help foster a domestic circular supply chain around EV batteries, according to Toyota.

Circularity in supply chains emphasizes reuse and recycling of materials wherever possible. When it comes to EV batteries, Toyota claims the primary bottleneck for reuse is a slow process of battery pack disassembly and sorting of materials, including classifying battery cells by degree of degradation.

2025 Toyota bZ4x

With this research project, which will be overseen by the automaker’s Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA), Toyota aims to create an automated pack disassembly process, diagnostic tools to classify recovered cells and modules, and a re-fabrication process that will turn those components into “new energy systems.”

Toyota is one of 13 recipients of CIRCULAR funding, and one of several seeking to automate the process. Others include the University of Colorado, which received $1.8 million to test the use of humanoid robots and robot arms to disassemble battery packs, and BMW, which was awarded $4.4 million to develop a battery pack “designed for rapid, robotic disassembly” without compromising structural integrity or energy density.

Getting batteries out to reuse in second-life uses before they need to be recycled for materials will help lower the CO2 footprint of products and potentially cut the environmental and dollar cost of everything along the way. Batteries from everything from Nissan Leafs to Porsche Taycans are already being sent to secondary uses.

2024 Lexus RZ

Toyota’s partnership with Redwood Materials is part of this push, too. And it’s resulted in a coordinated effort to help recycle Prius batteries through automotive recyclers—junkyards or salvage yards—around the country.

Redwood itself is receiving a massive $2 billion Energy Department loan, making this Toyota effort look a bit small—but necessary—clerical work. If this project makes for easier-to disassemble future EV battery packs, it could benefit both reuse and recycling.

Dodge, perhaps alone among contemporary automakers, has seen immense success in translating the archaic 20th-century Muscle Car formula into the 21st. It has done this by stuffing increasingly outrageous iterations of its modern Hemi V8 into nearly every vehicle in its product line. Its fervent Hellcat-ing has been enough, surprisingly, to maintain steadily vigorous sales of its Challenger coupe and Charger sedan, 20-year-old cars aping 55-year-old designs and riding on platforms developed more than 30 years ago.

But those vehicles are finally going away. They will be replaced by flexible-powertrain two- and four-door models, both called Charger, that will be motivated, at launch in early 2025, solely by a 100.5 kWh battery pack and a pair of electric motors. (And if you’re a Mopar nut but are committed to internal combustion, your muscle-car future means an inline-six engine, as if you were one of those guys whose entire wardrobe consists of ///M apparel. Can you imagine?) So how does Mopar’s methylized muscle-maker plan to convince potential consumers to buy into such a blasphemous switcheroo?

To get enthusiasts’ “butts-in-seats” and assist with this electron baptism, Dodge is planning a whole series of events in the upcoming year, said Matt McAlear, the brand’s CEO. It will take its new EV muscle cars on tour in the first quarter of 2025 to train its sales and dealership staff and demonstrate the vehicles’ capabilities. It is launching a courtesy transportation program wherein it will send EVs to dealers to use for short-term consumer test drives, or as 96-hour loaners when customers come in to have their vehicle serviced. It will host consumer-facing “Thrill Ride” drive events at upcoming Mecum and Barrett-Jackson classic car auctions, and at its drifting/drag racing “Roadkill Nights” live events in the summer–—prime sites for the gathering of Hemis of all vintages.   

“Dodge is always best as a brand when it does something different,” McAlear said, referencing the automaker’s marketing slogan from the 1980s and 1990s, Dodge Different. And he’s certainly right about convincing people with actual seat time and not just ads. Study after study indicates that once people experience EVs for themselves, or hear from friends and family who do, they’re far more likely to pull the trigger themselves.

Plus, he said, this EV has the bona fides. “This vehicle, it’s a muscle car first. If you look at the specs, the design, the capability, and take powertrain out of it, it’s a better muscle car on paper than the cars it replaces,” he noted. “So while there is a polarizing, controversial aspect to this—that it happens to have an EV powertrain as one of the powertrains that’s going to power it—no one can argue the battery electric technology enables terrific performance, and that’s what we’re bringing to market with this.”

To enunciate this point, McAlear pointed out that even after Dodge introduces ICE-powered iterations of the Charger in the second half of 2025, gasoline power will represent “the entry-level vehicles from a performance standpoint.” So if a potential consumer desires a car with the quickest acceleration (0-60 in 3.3 seconds) they’ll learn that that capability is a battery-only option.

This powertrain rollout and hierarchy is a stated part of Dodge’s strategy for muscling the muscle car faithful toward EVs, according to McAlear. Another prong in this program is to focus on added utility and daily drivability, to create what Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles called “emotional alibis” to lead consumers toward acceptance of this new product.

McAlear listed a suite of capabilities that can provide such cover for what amounts to a highly irrational and emotional purchase. “All-wheel-drive, for instance, helps us compete more in the North as a daily driver,” he said, referencing its all-weather capability. “A hidden hatchback capability gives you amazing cargo space that you didn’t have in your old vehicle. The new Charger two-door now has more rear-seat legroom than the outgoing four-door,” he said. “So this becomes much more of a daily driver than any of the muscle cars that we’ve had prior.”  

Will this litany of added functionality convince Dodge die-hards, who will receive a defeatable synthetic exhaust note that is as boisterous as that of the outgoing car, but no scent of unburned fuel or ability to smoke the rear tires from a standstill? 

“Probably not immediately out of the gate,” McAlear said. “It’s going to take some time. It’s going to take them seeing one on the street. It’s going to take them going in for service and testing one while they’re getting an oil change. But I’ve seen those people get behind the wheel and come out with changed opinions.”

However, convincing the faithful may not be the ideal tactic for furthering this car’s market penetration. “Though a muscle car and an electric vehicle seem diametrically opposed, there is an opportunity for electrification to magnify the idea, benefits, and aspirational nature of the muscle car,” said Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision, a Southern California automotive research and consulting firm. “However, the conversion of those from the past, I do not believe is the best strategy. Instead, a new generation of muscle cars can find success with younger folks who think they like muscle cars.”

As it turns out, Dodge has just such consumers in its targets. “If you look at our current demographic today, we have the youngest demographic in the mainstream auto industry,” said McAlear. “We have the highest percentage of Gen Z and Millennials. And those customers have the highest propensity to be willing to adopt electrification. So that sets us up.” 

Dodge might be onto something here. Though muscle car seems like an anachronistic category to anyone who isn’t a Boomer, research shows that these vehicles have and maintain broader appeal. “The interesting thing with those cars, I think, is they’re far more long-lived than cars like tri-five [1955-57] Chevys, or other American cars of the era,” said Brian Rabold, vice president of valuation for Hagerty, the world’s largest insurer of collectible vehicles. “There are a lot more entry points for younger generations to become interested in them—through driving video games, through movies like the Fast and Furious franchise.” As Rabold notes, pop cultural exposure conjures interest and desire, and translates into purchases, whether those be old Polaras and Road Runners, or more recent Fox Body Mustangs and fourth-gen Firebirds.

Still, rumors have persisted that interest in Dodge’s new muscular EV is less robust than the brand initially suspected and that it is thus rushing the inline-six-powered iterations to supplement this engagement. McAlear denies this categorically.  

“That’s what you call an urban legend,” he said. “Someone put one thing on the Internet. And if it’s on the Internet, it’s true, right?” He laughed, underlining his sarcasm. “We’re always trying to bring every new vehicle to market as quickly as possible,” he continued. “It doesn’t do us any good from an R&D and a capital expenditure standpoint to hold sales any longer than we have to. So nothing has changed with our timing.” 

Overall, once both powertrains are on the market, McAlear expects the mix of Charger buyers to segment about evenly: half electric, half gas. This aligns with Dodge’s current mix of high-test Hemi- versus lesser-powered Challengers and Chargers. “If we look historically at our V6 versus our performance V8, it was roughly 50/50,” McAlear said. “So I still think there’s an opportunity, over time—as adoption continues to happen, and as infrastructure comes in across the U.S. in terms of charging capability—I think there’s the ability for this [EV] to beat a 50/50 mix.” (Dodge officials declined to address questions about demand or pre-orders, but said they plan to remain flexible in terms of production based on consumer demand.) 

If any marque is positioned to succeed with an electric muscle car, it seems to be Mopar’s performance brand. “Consumers who own the Charger and Challenger usually love their vehicles,” said Edwards, whose firm conducts hundreds of thousands of in-depth psychographic surveys with new car buyers annually. “Even those who never buy a Dodge can often agree that Dodge is an exciting brand that has a lot to offer. If Dodge takes the position that they are innovating excitement, then this next step could be a doorway for Dodge’s electric future.” He added one further provision. “They just have to get the messaging right.”

McAlear and his teams seem to be thinking about this carefully, calibrating their messaging to entice purchasers who may be simultaneously powertrain-aware and -agnostic. “People buy a muscle car for so much more than just what powers it. They buy it because of how it makes them feel. It’s an extension of their personality. It puts a smile on their face. They have fun being in it. They have fun being seen it,” he said. “So I think that’s what this vehicle does. And it opens this up to a much larger demographic and audience.”

After spending some time in the Daytona Charger EV, recently, I felt like it succeeded in charting a freshly charged path into the moribund world of muscle cars. So Dodge seemingly has the product right. And it has a history of creating memorable messaging.

We’ll see if it can find a magic recipe that yields results from a youthful audience open to this surprisingly compelling and venerable category.

Brett Berk is a freelance automotive writer based in New York. He has driven and reviewed thousands of cars for Car and Driver and Road & Track, where he is a contributing editor. He has also written for Architectural Digest, Billboard, ELLE Decor, Esquire, GQ, Travel + Leisure and Vanity Fair.   

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