2010 Dodge Challenger Srt8 Coupe 2-door 6.1l on 2040-cars

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Stellantis launching at least 25 EVs for America by 2030

Stellantis has announced a wide-ranging plan for the company through 2030 covering everything from product to financials. The product plans are what really caught our attention, particularly for the surprise reveal of the first electric Jeep, as well as new teasers of the electric Ram 1500. But the company also provided more broad details on what we'll be seeing in the future including both electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. All of the plans are in service of the Stellantis goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2038. On that way, it plans for all European vehicle sales and half of all American sales to be electric by 2030. It will launch 75 new electric vehicles by that year, and at least 25 of them will be coming to the U.S. The first of those electric cars will be the aforementioned Jeep in 2023, but many Stellantis models will follow close behind. The electric Ram ProMaster will launch in 2023 as well. In 2024, we'll see the electric Ram (and its plug-in hybrid counterpart), two more Jeeps (an off-road model and a family-oriented model) and the Dodge electric muscle car. We'll get a preview of the Dodge with a concept this year. Then in 2025, Chrysler will launch its electric car, likely based on the Airflow concept. Stellantis has previously announced Chrysler will be fully electric by 2028, and it further announced that Alfa Romeo and Maserati will be fully electric by 2030. Stellantis is also working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, mainly for commercial use. For the U.S., it plans on offering a large, ProMaster-size hydrogen van in 2025. That year or a little later, it also has plans for a hydrogen heavy-duty pickup truck, presumably Ram 2500 and 3500. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares noted that among the benefits of hydrogen for large and commercial vehicles is being able to avoid compromising payload capacity, since hydrogen powertrains are lighter than giant batteries. Hydrogen filling times are quick relative to charging, too. The company will continue working on and offering advanced driver aids. This year it will offer hands-free cruise control like GM's Super Cruise and Ford's BlueCruise. In 2024, the company intends to introduce a system that is hands-free and won't require the driver to be watching it the entire time. The technology is being developed alongside BMW. These are, of course, broad plans, and they could change as time goes on. Expect more details as we get closer to individual product releases.

Detroit automakers observing 8:46 of silence to mark Juneteenth

GM Executive Vice President of Global Manufacturing Gerald Johnson, right, talks with employees at the Fairfax Assembly & Stamping Plant in Kansas City, Kansas. (file photo - GM)     All three Detroit automakers are observing Juneteenth, a day commemorating the end of slavery, on Friday by observing 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, among other companywide efforts to advance the causes of social and racial justice and equality. Juneteenth marks the date, June 19, in 1865 when Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived at Galveston, Texas, and announced the Civil War had ended and enslaved African Americans were to be freed. President Abraham Lincoln had officially ended slavery more than two years prior via the Emancipation Proclamation, but Union forces didn't reach Texas until that time, so there was virtually no enforcement. The 8:46 timestamp is significant because it was the length of time that a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on the neck of George Floyd during an arrest, ultimately killing him and sparking waves of protests across the U.S. and overseas. Autoblog asked automakers about their plans to mark Juneteenth, what they were doing to advance the cause of social justice for Black people, and how many African Americans they employ in both blue- and white-collar jobs. We heard back from GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and Honda but not from Nissan and Toyota. General Motors GM’s U.S. workforce is 17.2% Black and 69.2% white, according to its most recent corporate Diversity and Inclusion Report. GM's total global employment is 173,000, and it says women and minorities represent 40% of its team of corporate officers. For reference, the Census Bureau says African Americans make up 13.4% of the U.S. population of roughly 328 million people. White people constitute 76.5%. As previously reported, GM planned to pause production at its factories on each shift today and observe silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The company will also have a digital countdown clock atop the GM's headquarters in Detroit for the moment of silence. Additionally, Chairman and CEO Mary Barra has said she will lead a new Inclusion Advisory Board made up of people from within and outside GM to suggest areas for change and hold the company to its commitments to fight injustice and racial inequality.

2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon First Drive | Don’t fear the Demon

"If you're not hurt, we'll be really pissed. If you are hurt, we'll still be pissed, but not quite as pissed." These are the words from Jim Wilder, the vehicle development manager of the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, that echo through our head as we slide behind the wheel of the car for the first time. He was warning us about driving beyond our abilities, and keeping the car out of the wall. With 840 horsepower and 770 pound-feet of torque on tap from its supercharged, 6.7-liter V8, the Demon does 0-60 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds, and 0-30 mph in a second flat. If something does go wrong, it'll happen quickly. Following that talk, we had our guts sloshed as a passenger in a blurry eighth-mile run, giving us a taste of the G forces (the Demon can pull 1.8 G in a straight line) we'd feel when we got in the driver's seat for our own pass down the drag strip. We're already sweating. It had rained - you could describe it as torrential - the day before. The grassy parking areas surrounding Lucas Oil Raceway were still flooded, but any water on the pavement had evaporated and hung in the air. Combined with the heat, we were sticky and uncomfortable. In Drag Mode, the Dodge Demon's air conditioning turns off. Any condensation that it could leave on the track would be a problem, plus we need to reduce parasitic power losses for a faster run. The system is still working, though, the refrigerant diverted to the chiller system cooling the air coming into the engine. There's still condensation, but the Demon collects it on a catch pad to keep it from ending up on the pavement. We're also required to roll the windows up when entering the drag strip. For one thing, it helps keep the smoke out of the cabin during the pre-staging burnout. So, yeah, it's hot as Hell in the Demon. We pull through the water box and run through the sequence – which involves holding the "OK" button on the steering wheel usually used to navigate menus, and applying a specific amount of brake pressure before getting on the throttle to initiate the burnout. This gets any crud off the rear tires and heats up the rubber. There are multiple ways to launch the Demon. We had an instructor sitting in the passenger seat as we pulled up to the beams that trigger the Christmas tree at Lucas Oil Raceway. He walks us through the most complicated of the three he had explained to us just minutes before when we were in the passenger seat.