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Tesla Model S P85D shows 707-hp Dodge Challenger Hellcat how to drag race

Street Car Drags hosted a bang-up event at the Palm Beach International Raceway last weekend, with a list of massive horsepower ICE cars going up against one another and a trio of Tesla Model S P85Ds. One of those duels pitted the 691-horsepower Tesla against a 707-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, and the result was an old-school beatdown and a world record for electric cars. The Model S P85D ran the quarter in 11.6 seconds at 114.6 miles per hour, the new mark for BEVs at the drag strip. Proving its pace, it ran three more times in 11.69, 11.72 and 11.76 seconds. It got from the start line to 60 miles per hour in 3.1 seconds. The Hellcat, well, it wasn't a race, really. It was the Hellcat's driver's first time at a drag strip and his first time trying to launch it, so after an excellent burnout ahead of the lights, he rolled to the line, almost jumped the start, balked at the real start and spun his tires for the first 100 feet down the strip. The theory is that he overheated his street tires during that burnout, and the resulting greasy rubber did what greasy rubber does. By the time he got to the other end 17.46 seconds later the Tesla driver had showered and was enjoying a funnel cake. When things go right, though, Dodge estimates the Hellcat will do 11.2-second runs on street tires and it has been clocked at 10.85 seconds at 126.18 mph on street-legal drag radials. There's video of the not-quite-a-race above, and Drag Times says there'll be a rematch between the two in a couple of weeks. News Source: Street Car Drags via YouTube Green Motorsports Dodge Tesla Coupe Electric Luxury Performance Videos Sedan drag racing dodge challenger srt hellcat

Dodge lets us drive 100-years' worth of history [w/videos]

A raft of important production models from the last hundred years were available for me to either drive or ride in.
Dodge is 100 years old this year. So, as happened on Ford's recent centennial, the 50-year birthday of the Porsche 911, and others, the company has an excuse to trot out the highlights of its history next to its upcoming model lineup, and declare that "these are the fruits of the Dodge Boys' tree whose roots have grown strong." Or something like that. Never so hampered by marketing skepticism that I'll pass up the opportunity to burn someone else's rubber, I was happy to drive out to Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, MI - former grand estate of the Dodge family - to hear the spiel.

China-FCA merger could be a win-win for everyone but politicians

NEW YORK — Fiat Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne has said the car industry needs to come together, cut costs and stop incinerating capital. So far, his words have mostly fallen on deaf ears among competitors in Europe and North America. But it appears Marchionne has finally found a receptive audience — in China. FCA shares soared Monday after trade publication Automotive News reported the $18 billion Italian-American conglomerate controlled by the Agnelli family rebuffed a takeover from an unidentified carmaker from the Chinese mainland. As ugly as the politics of such a combination may appear at first blush, a transaction could stack up industrially, and perhaps even financially. A Sino-U.S.-European merger would create the first truly global auto group. That could push consolidation to the next level elsewhere. Moreover, China is the world's top market for the SUVs that Jeep effectively invented, so it might benefit FCA financially. A combo would certainly help upgrade the domestic manufacturer; Chinese carmakers have gotten better at making cars, but struggle to build global brands, and they need to develop export markets. Though frivolous overseas shopping excursions by Chinese enterprises are being reined in by Beijing, acquisitions that support the modernization and transformation of strategic industries still receive support, and the government considers the automotive industry to be strategic. A purchase of FCA by Guangzhou Automobile, Great Wall or Dongfeng Motors would probably get the same stamp of approval ChemChina was given for its $43 billion takeover of Syngenta. What's standing in the way? Apart from price (Automotive News said FCA's board deemed the offer insufficient) there's the not-insignificant matter of politics. Even as FCA shares soared, President Donald Trump interrupted his vacation to instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to look into whether to investigate China's trade policies on intellectual property. Seeing storied Detroit brands like Jeep, Chrysler, Ram and Dodge handed off to a Chinese company would provoke howls among Trump's economic-nationalist supporters. It might not play well in Italy, either, to see Alfa Romeo and Maserati answering to Wuhan instead of Turin — though Automotive News said they might be spun off separately. Yet, as Morgan Stanley observes, "cars don't ship across oceans easily," and political considerations increasingly demand local manufacture of valuable products.