The End of American Muscle Cars
A 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT-8 with a 6.4 L V8 engine that makes 485 horsepower (Photo: Alexander Migl).
America has been associated with loud, fast sports cars since 1953 when General Motors (GM) unveiled the Corvette. Now, 60 years later, American auto corporations have been phasing out these cars in favor of electrical vehicles.
Ford has stated that while the Ford GT will be discontinued, the Mustang is here to stay. In 2019 Ford produced an all electric Mustang SUV called the Mach E. The name is a play on the Mustang Mach 1 performance cars. The Mach E was booed by the car community. The Mach E was too expensive, had many electrical problems and it was a fake Mustang. Production of the Mach E is being slowed down and Ford has recently released the new generation of the Mustang.
2021 Ford Mustang Mach E (Photo: M93/Wikimedia).
Recently Dodge and Chevrolet have announced that they are discontinuing their iconic sports cars. The Dodge Challenger and Charger have always been over the top, loud, fast cars. The 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona was the first consumer vehicle to go 200mph. Dodge engines have actually been banned from NASCAR for being too big. Dodge tried to replace the Challenger and Charger with the all electric Hornet and Banshee. The car community had a field day ripping on the two ev’s.
The Chevrolet Camaro has been a motorsports legend for decades. The Camaro has 851 NASCAR wins and it even raced in the 2023 Le Mans race. The Camaro has also had a career in Hollywood as “Bumble Bee” in the Transformers movies. Chevy is planning on replacing the Camaro with an all electric 4 door sedan. Much like Ford and Dodge, Chevy got bashed by the online car community.
The cooler, older cousin of the Camaro, the Corvette, is an even more iconic American sports car. As stated before, the Corvette was the first American sports car. Corvette has always been toeing the line between sports cars and supercars. The new C8 Corvette looks like something straight out of a Ferrari factory. Thankfully, GM will continue to make hybrid and gas powered Corvettes.
According to MIT Climate Portal, electric cars are much worse for the environment than gas or diesel powered cars. Lithium mining is much worse for the climate and Earth than extracting fossil fuels. The production alone of a Tesla can put out upwards of 17 tons of carbon. To put that into perspective, the carbon footprint of an undriven Tesla is equivalent to driving 120,000 miles in a normal Honda Civic, 50,000 miles in a Mustang or 30,000 miles in a Lamborghini.
Other manufacturers like Toyota, BMW and Porsche have announced that they are going to keep their combustion engines, including hydrogen and synthetic fuel powered cars. Hopefully GM and Ford will continue to make their sports cars and more people will realize that electrical vehicles are not our future.