Rumor has pegged the Saltillo plant’s Hurricane twin-turbo-straight-six output at 200,000 or more engines per year—but is that enough? It depends on whether the Hurricane engine series will replace the Hemi V8.
The Hurricane beats the Hemi in peak power and torque, low-end torque, and fuel economy. Its 10% boost in fuel economy is a big deal, since Stellantis wants to stop buying efficiency credits; and it’s unusual to gain 10% in economy just by swapping to a more powerful engine, with the same transmission, body, and such.
Regardless of how you feel about replacing the Hemi with the Hurricane, the switch could require more engines than Saltillo can supply. FCA US, a/k/a Chrysler, already has plants which could switch over to the Hurricane without having to tear their fixtures out of the concrete. It could still take the better part of a year to convert an existing engine plant to Hurricanes, so this isn’t likely to happen tomorrow (if at all). What’s more, it’s possible the 6.4 “truck Hemi” isn’t going anywhere for a long time yet.
We are still at the “speculation and hints” stage (and FCA US had no comment). None of this is definite, and “what if” plans sometimes hit the grapevine. Stellantis could simply add more Hurricane capacity to Saltillo if needed; or, if battery-electrics and 4xes are popular enough, they might never need more Hurricanes than they can make now.
Has anyone really listened to the wording of what Stellantis has been saying about electrification? The more I listen to it, the more clear it’s becoming that Stellantis ,especially the American brands, minus Chrysler, are still going to be very much focused on ICE Vehicles. While it seems (and would make sense) that the Chrysler brand is where the company is truly going to focus it’s full BEV electric mainstream, Stellantis has been slapping the “Zero Emissions” moniker on alot of hybrid vehicles, more specifically the 4XE powertrain. Most of us are familiar with the 370hp/475tq specs of the 2.0L 4XE powertrain, but has anyone really paid attention to it? I’ve been combing the internet for every shrivel of information on the Hurricane and only mildly paying attention to the 4XE, except for power output potential until I saw a line of an article on another Mopar page that said about the 4xe powertrain being a zero emission powertrain and I was like OMG there it is. While yes, we are all aware that an electric muscle car is coming with either two or three electric motors set to destroy Tesla or maybe even three trim levels (an all electric RWD single motor, an all electric dual motor AWD and an all electric tri-motor AWD version) above the regular ICE and ICE hybrid vehicles, I’ve mentioned before I do believe that a version of the 4XE 2.0L Powertrain will, in fact, power the next generation Dodge Charger, Challenger, Durango and Dakota, while the two non-hybrid Hurricane engines sit in the middle and just above that a hybrid hurricane powertrain will sit between the ICE vehicles and the BEVs. That’s five trim levels of Non-emissions capable vehicles. While that’s all well and good, that’s only part of the story. The hybrid drivetrain and 2-seed differential would truly give the AWD vehicle blistering acceleration along with assisting in bad weather. Not to mention with an all electric mode, the vehicle will have zero emissions and on top of that the ability to really save money on fueling costs. Ram trucks already have hybridization as it with the E-Torque systems so throwing the 4XE system in a ram truck coupled with the 3.0L Standard output will still give plenty of power but also a huge gain in low end torque. I’m sure a High output version will grace the Rebel and TRX with hybridization options as well, but overall coupling the 4XE system with the Hurricane engine family is going to seriously open up alot of doors, not only for fuel economy, but for the enthusiasts out here as well for both on road muscle car enthusiast, the Jeep Wrangler crowd and the Ram 1500 crowd. We already know the next gen muscle cars will have SRT technology infused into them without the SRT name and Direct Connection will be right there so honestly the company is putting out alot of information, it’s just that we have to piece it all together.
Ok so lets look at this real quick by the numbers.
2.0L Turbo: 270hp/295tq
2.0L 4xe: 375hp/470lb-ft torque
3.0L GME-T6 “Hurricane” (Standard Output): 420hp/468lb-ft torque
3.0L GME-T6 “Hurricane” (High Output): 510hp/500lb-ft torque
hypothetically speaking, that would make a 3.0L Hurricane H.O have specs of 615hp/675lb-ft
lets compare
Charger 3.6L Pentastar: 295hp-300hp/260tq
Charger 5.7L Hemi: 370hp/390tq
Charger 6.4L Hemi: 475hp/470tq
Charger 6.2L Hellcat: 717hp/650tq (797hp Redeye)
If in fact, the next gen charger will be on a very much improved platform with an improved drivetrain and more performance oriented AWD systems, These cars will truly out perform nearly every single trim level of the current charger on the road today. Granted the sound of them Hemi V8 will be absent, but the next gen-car will be a big improvement over the near-perfect Charger we have today. Stellantis’ top brass have already said they are committed to performance and alot of the SRT tech will trickle into the next-gen vehicles so I’m figuring the SRT AWD systems, suspension, brake systems, etc will make their way into the next gen cars along with alot of that old school SRT-4 type technology seeing that the new Hurricane 3.0L Inline-6 Twin Turbo is based off of the 2.0L turbo-4. Not to mention Direct Connection is already heavily into tuning it’s factory forced-induction vehicles and I can only imagine what these new hurricane engines are going to be like tuned. Vehicles like the Charger, Challenger, Durango, Grand Cherokee, Wrangler/Gladiator, Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer, Ram 1500 and possible Dakota are definitely going to be the recipients of these powertrains along with the electric performance powertrain that will be replacing the Hellcat/Redeye/Super Stock/Demon/TRX class vehicles with power levels reaching 840+hp and in some cases upwards of 1200hp to destroy the Tesla Plaid vehicles. With GMC returning the Hummer as a super-powered electric vehicle, I would suspect Ram to switch the 2500HD Power Wagon to an electric powertrain capable of dethroning the Hummer’s alleged 11,500lb-ft torque & 1000hp, all while introducing an electric Ramcharger SUV to tackle the Hummer electric SUV. I truly believe that these are the types of vehicles we are going to see from the American Stellantis brands in the next few years, along with Chrysler really becoming the full Electric arm of the American Stellantis brand with Jeep playing a close second fiddle with a heavy switch to full BEV for most of it’s more pedestrian models such as the Cherokee and other smaller Alfa-based vehicles with all of those types of vehicles having a 4XE hybrid option as their sole ICE vehicle option. I don’t see them making the mistakes that Ford made with the MAch E and Lightning and yet I do see certain heritage names making a comeback as electric but not in the disrespectul way that Ford did.
that last liine with the 3.0 Hurricane specs of 615hp/675tq was actually for a hybrid setup based on the 4xe