Photo: SpeedKore via Bring a Trailer
When he joined Chrysler as a trainee, Timothy Kuniskis didn’t have a clue that he would rise through the ranks this high. As the head of Dodge, the Rochester-born executive has also been given the difficult job of reimagining the muscle car with one eye on fuel efficiency.
“The days of the iron-block supercharged 6.2-liter V8 are numbered,” he told Autoblog.com about the current state of affairs. "They're absolutely numbered because of all the compliance costs.” The Biden administration is expected to announce stricter emissions regulations for new vehicles, which is why the Hellcat V8 can be considered a future classic.
"1972 was the beginning of the end of the golden age of muscle cars,” which had to go away over the oil crisis, Environmental Protection Agency, and so forth. “It's kind of crazy to think about we're getting close to a similar list of things right now," Kuniskis told the cited publication.
But fret not. The all-American V8 is not going away and it probably won’t get a twin-turbo setup to the detriment of a supercharger or natural aspiration. The most important man at Dodge let it slip that electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains are in the pipeline, yet he stopped short of giving any details.
“Without that technology, without electrification, this is 1972 right now, and this thing is going to end," said Kuniskis, probably referring to the eight-speed automatic transmission with a built-in electric motor produced by ZF Friedrichshafen. The American automaker and German supplier went public about this piece of hardware in July 2019 when Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ordered hundreds of thousands of transmissions.
The fourth-generation ZF 8HP will enter production in 2022 and it's codenamed 8HP60 and 8HP80 depending on the matching electrical system. Compatible with conventional, mild-hybrid, and plug-in applications, the torque-converter automatic transmission can supply as much as 160 kW and 450 Nm of torque in the case of the 8HP80PH PHEV in P2 configuration.
Those figures translate to 215 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque on top of the engine’s ratings, which should give you an idea about the output ratings of the next-gen Challenger and Charger muscle cars. The future of the American V8 doesn’t look so gloomy after all, right?
"1972 was the beginning of the end of the golden age of muscle cars,” which had to go away over the oil crisis, Environmental Protection Agency, and so forth. “It's kind of crazy to think about we're getting close to a similar list of things right now," Kuniskis told the cited publication.
But fret not. The all-American V8 is not going away and it probably won’t get a twin-turbo setup to the detriment of a supercharger or natural aspiration. The most important man at Dodge let it slip that electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains are in the pipeline, yet he stopped short of giving any details.
“Without that technology, without electrification, this is 1972 right now, and this thing is going to end," said Kuniskis, probably referring to the eight-speed automatic transmission with a built-in electric motor produced by ZF Friedrichshafen. The American automaker and German supplier went public about this piece of hardware in July 2019 when Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ordered hundreds of thousands of transmissions.
The fourth-generation ZF 8HP will enter production in 2022 and it's codenamed 8HP60 and 8HP80 depending on the matching electrical system. Compatible with conventional, mild-hybrid, and plug-in applications, the torque-converter automatic transmission can supply as much as 160 kW and 450 Nm of torque in the case of the 8HP80PH PHEV in P2 configuration.
Those figures translate to 215 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque on top of the engine’s ratings, which should give you an idea about the output ratings of the next-gen Challenger and Charger muscle cars. The future of the American V8 doesn’t look so gloomy after all, right?
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