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2020 Dodge Challenger 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition puts on a Smoke Show

To celebrate the semicentennial of the Dodge Challenger this year, last November the muscle car brand announced a Challenger 50th Anniversary Edition. Available in seven of Dodge's high impact colors, Dodge said production would be limited to 1,960 cars, being 70 examples in each of the seven colors. Keeping the good thing going, the brand has just announced another 50th anniversary special, this one a Commemorative Edition with no cap on build numbers. The Commemorative Edition can be ordered on three 2020 Challenger trims, the R/T, R/T Scat Pack, and R/T Scat Pack Widebody, omitting the rear-wheel drive V6 GT model that can be configured as a 50th Anniversary Edition.    The Commemorative car is nearly identical to the Anniversary car. Outside, that means a Satin Black, hand-painted hood and black-wrapped roof and decklid, the Hellcat's air intake headlights, Satin Black fuel filler cap, Gold School-colored wheels, Gunmetal-colored brake calipers on trims that come with red Brembo brakes, and tons of badging all over from the illuminated "50" logos in the headlamps to the Satin Black Dodge logo in the taillamps. The interior gets sepia stitching on the heated and cooled performance seats, more sepia thread on for the Alcantara door bolsters, white gauges with yellow accents, berber floor mats, real carbon fiber trim pieces, and a bunch more badging. Paying homage to its elder, on startup a 1970 Challenger appears in the gauge cluster animation. Dodge says dealers will begin taking orders for the new celebrant this month, with deliveries to commence in the fall. The optional package adds $4,995 to the price of a 2020 Challenger R/T, $5,495 to the price of the R/T Scat Pack, and $5,495 to the cost of the R/T Scat Pack Widebody before the $6,000 cost of the widebody package itself. Whereas the 50th Anniversary car came in any of Dodge's eye-candy colors — F8 Green, Frostbite, Go Mango, Hellraisin, Sinamon Stick, TorRed, or the all-new Gold Rush — the Commemorative Edition is limited to the tamer end of the color palette, available in Granite, Indigo Blue, Octane Red, Pitch Black, Triple Nickel, White Knuckle, and the new Smoke Show hue. That latter color replaces Destroyer Gray, and can be ordered on the Charger as well. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Chrysler investing $20M in Toledo plant to support 9-speed auto production

In 2011, Chrysler announced a $72-million investment in its Toledo Machining Plant to modernize production of the eight- and nine-speed torque-converters for automatic transmissions made there. That upgrade work won't be finished until Q3 of this year, but Chrysler has already announced a further $19.6-million investment to increase production capacity for the nine-speeders.
The extra units will be necessary because the nine-speed transmission they'll be mated to is going into three popular models: it will debut on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, then go into the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart. The company predicted that this year alone it would sell 200,000 units equipped with the nine-speed tranny, and it is spending some $374 million in addition to the investment in Toledo to upgrade production capacity for it.
The work attached to this new investment won't begin until Q3 of 2014, and it will be finished by the end of that year. There's a press release below with all the details.

Stellantis aims to eliminate separate inverter, charger to improve EV efficiency

Stellantis has announced that, in collaboration with French battery company Saft and French National Center for Scientific Research, has made significant progress in eliminating two major components of an electric vehicle powertrain: the on-board charger and the power inverter for the motor. The company claims that doing this will allow for better space use in vehicles, as well as improvements in efficiency, cost and reliability of components. As a quick primer, also explained in the below video, the on-board charger and power inverter are sort of translators to get the right current to different parts of the electric powertrain. The on-board charger takes AC power from the grid and converts it to DC to charge the batteries. Then when power goes from the batteries to the electric motor, the power inverter converts that DC power back to AC. These components aren't exactly small. Frequently you'll find them packaged somewhere under the hood. What Stellantis and its cohorts have developed, and have been using on a test vehicle since last summer, are small power inverter boards that can be mounted very closely to the battery packs. They can handle both conversion needs, for charging and discharging, instead of needing two separate devices. The most obvious perk to this is that you can do away with those traditional components and free up more space, either for making smaller vehicles without losing interior volume, or adding space to a vehicle that wouldn't have had it otherwise. There's the additional benefit of reduced weight, something that EVs struggle with. Stellantis also claims improvements in efficiency, reliability, and cost, however, it didn't go into detail as to how this setup would do that exactly. We'll try to get in touch with representatives from Stellantis in order to get more information. We're still a ways out from seeing this technology in production Stellantis vehicles. The company said it aims to apply it to vehicles by the end of the decade. Saft is also looking at using it on stationary battery systems as well. So maybe we'll see it on a 2029 Ram 1500 REV, but for now, we'll be living with traditional chargers and inverters. Related Video: Green Alfa Romeo Chrysler Dodge Fiat RAM Technology Electric