Dodge recently announced that it would host Dodge Speed Week in August, during which it will make three important announcements.

On the first day, it will announce upgrades to current models. On the second day, it will tell us more about gateway muscle car models. To us, this sounds like a possible hybrid or plug-in hybrid model.

On the third day, Dodge will announce its future muscle car plans. It's not hard to guess what that means, especially since Dodge's brand chief executive officer said it's going to be an "electric summer" for Dodge.

In July last year, Dodge's CEO, Carlos Tavares, also confirmed that the Challenger and Charger are going electric.

The internet nearly lost its mind. Surely an EV muscle car can't be a thing? What about the noise?

I've spent the last two weeks thinking about the concept, doing some light reading, and finally concluded that EV muscle cars will be sensational. Before you head to the comments section below to call me a libtard being paid by Dodge to force propaganda down your throat, allow me a minute to explain.

When it comes to the history of the muscle car, there are multiple origin stories. But before we get to that, let's look at the definition of the muscle car, as written down in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "Any of a group of American-made two-door sports coupes with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving."

According to that definition, John Delorean was responsible for the first while he was the head of engineering at GM's Pontiac division. He asked the engineers to shoehorn a 389 V8 under the hood of a Pontiac LeMans.

The brass was skeptical and chose to offer this new model, called the GTO, as an engine option rather than a standalone model. For $295, you could have a more powerful V8 engine. It was an instant hit and earned DeLorean multiple promotions. In 1969, he was put in charge of Chevrolet, GM's flagship division. His history after that is well documented, but the main point here is he made the muscle car so famous that it received its own definition and segment.

The definition has changed over the years, but not by much. It's still very much the same, but I think it's safe enough to say we can also include four-door cars in that definition.

One crucial muscle car characteristic was left out, however. Muscle cars were designed to go fast in a straight line. They've never been particularly good at corners, not counting the cars modified for track driving duty. I'm talking about the Mustang Shelby GT350 and the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

The problem with these track specials is that they miss another crucial muscle car characteristic. A muscle car should be cheap. You can save money by giving a vehicle a substandard interior and leaving out driver assistance features, as long as it has a big V8.

At this point, I'd like to point out that I'm not a huge fan of muscle cars, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate them. I'm more of a Colin Chapman fanboy, which is why I own a Miata.

Muscle cars, to me, are one-trick ponies. They go fast in a straight line, and that's about it. There's nothing wrong with that, and I will fight to my dying day defending a person's right to buy a gas-guzzling muscle car. I believe in different strokes for different folks, and I do not doubt that a muscle car buyer gets as much pleasure from their car as I do from my tiny, lightweight sports car.

But why the hesitancy to move over to electric? (Don't worry, we'll get to noise in a little bit.) There isn't a single muscle car on sale today that can beat the Tesla Model S in a drag race. In fact, you'd struggle to find a muscle car capable of destroying a Rivian R1T.

EVs are insanely good at the straight-line thing, which is why I thought muscle car owners would be stoked about the idea of an EV Challenger.

Just imagine the possibilities. A dual or tri-motor setup sending roughly 1,000 hp to all four wheels. Because the front and rear motors aren't mechanically linked, decoupling them would require nothing more than a few lines of coding. You can still smoke the rear tires and reconnect the front axle for a 0-60 mph sprint time of 2.5 seconds and a quarter-mile time of well below ten seconds. If Lucid can get a luxury barge to complete the quarter-mile in less than ten seconds, imagine what Dodge can do with all its years of drag racing experience…

An EV muscle car will likely cost more but think of all the savings. It doesn't require regular servicing, and filling it up with electricity is much cheaper than gas. I'm not going to pretend EVs are more environmentally friendly because they just aren't. EV drivers like to be smug about not emitting any gases while conveniently forgetting that the power from the plug must come from somewhere. Not to mention the mining of materials needed to make the batteries, etc.

I'm looking at this purely from a performance standpoint, and EVs have ICE cars licked. At least over a short distance. If you're racing from New York to LA, even a 2.0-liter turbocharged muscle car will win.

But imagine a Friday night legal drag race. You could pitch up with a stock standard Challenger EV and beat everyone else in near silence.

And that brings us neatly to the sound issue. I love a V8 engine as much as the next guy, so the big question is whether we'd be willing to give up that noise for a faster car. That original definition never said anything about noise. It just mentioned a potent powertrain, and they don't come more powerful than electric.

At this point, I have to mention a conflict of interest. Would I be interested in a Miata EV? Heck, no. Not even slightly. The feeling of changing gears at 7,000 rpm while spitting a little flame out the rear is enough reason for me to give that idea a hard pass. We don't even need to cover battery weight.

I simply think muscle cars, like high-end luxury cars, would benefit from electric powertrains. More power, better performance, low running cost, and the designers will have more freedom thanks to the EV skateboard design. And don't come at me with the whole EV fire thing.

More ICE cars burn per year than EVs. EVs are just harder to put out, but the government is in the process of prepping fire departments to handle these fires. EVs are also moving over to solid-state batteries, which are more power-dense, lighter, and much less prone to catching fire.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a hit piece. I'm genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts on EV muscle cars and why they won't work. Is it just the noise? Because that's not a compelling argument against the many upsides of going electric.