The 2024 Dodge Hornet R/T Is An Italian-American Plug-In Hybrid With Muscle Car Vibes
When it comes to compact SUVs Dodge hasn’t really had a great track record in this ever competitive space the last time we saw a vehicle even compete in that segment it was the caliber which as you guys know was just ill- faded and unloved when it was finally discontinued
Several years ago now for 2023 Dodge finally introduces an allnew vehicle to the States known as The Hornet and as you guys can see the Hornet is a new compact SUV that shares a platform heavily of course with the also new alfha Romeo tonali now I already had a
Chance to drive the GT version of The Hornet which technically has an engine that you can’t get in the alpha however this week as you can see Dodge has loaned us the top spec of the Hornet known as The Hornet RT which means we
Have a 1.3 l turbo under the hood it’s a plug-in hybrid vehicle offering up to 32 Mi of electric only range and nearly 300 horsepower so if you guys have been looking for a slightly more spicy compact SUV that offers some all electric range how does the brand new
2024 Dodge Hornet RT stackup stay tuned to find out Now before we start talking about the exterior styling of this particular Hornet RT I thought I’d pop the hood and show you guys what’s powering this thing now here in America Dodge offers the Hornet with two available engines the GT version which has just a 2 L turbo
Non-hybrid or this RT version which has a smaller 1.3 l turbo gas engine with two electric motors now arguably the RT is probably going to be the more interesting option because this is the same power train that we find under the hood of this car’s platform mate the
Alha Romeo tonali which means we have that 1.3 l turbocharged single overhead cam four-cylinder paired up with two electric motors it has an electric motor in the front and it has a separate rear electric motor giving this vehicle standard all-wheel drive all Hornets of course are standard with all-wheel drive
Even if you go for the base engine but this model here has a slightly different system because the rear motor the rear end is powered solely by an electric motor it all goes out through a six-speed automatic transmission so three less gears versus the GT version however this is different versus like a
CBT that you’re going to find in some competing cars uh in terms of the power output the gas engine on its own delivers around 177 horsepower the electric motor also delivers around 121 horsepower combined with the poot feature engaged you get a maximum of 288 horsepower and 383 lound feet of torque
That is more horsepower versus what you get in the tonali which is interesting to me how the Dodge version actually has more power versus the alpha uh and Dodge claims you should get to 60 in around 5.6 seconds with the poot feature engaged that apparently shaves off 1 and
1 half seconds compared to if you don’t have the system engaged uh the electric motor draws its power from a 15.5 K battery pack about 12 Kow is usable which means you have an all electric R range of up to 32 mil you probably won’t get that of course in these freezing
Conditions as you can see as you can see with the snow around me um Dodge says this car has a top speed of around 128 mph and in terms of the fuel efficiency you should get around 29 MPG combined when you have it running in hybrid mode
With some electric uh with uh without any uh electric only range in the actual battery pack now uh in terms of Towing this vehicle is an SUV you still can tell up to 2,000 lb and as this car sits it weighs in at just over 4,400 lb it’s
About 3 300 lb heavier versus the non-hybrid version of The Hornet known as the GT Model but let’s go ahead and close up the hood which as you can see has some functional Hood openings which is nice the exterior color of this model is called gray cray it’s an extra 500
Bucks I apologize for how dirty the car is however as you can see with the snow everywhere and the salt all over the road it just didn’t seem you know it see it seemed pointless to me to get this car washed cuz it would instantly get
Dirty the moment I drove it over here to film it for you guys but you can see the styling of this car reminds me a lot of the discontinued Dart in fact there are so many times where I wanted to call this thing a Dodge Dart SUV I had to
Remind myself constantly it’s called a hornet you can see the front end has the Dodge corporate look LED headlights are going to be standard although I don’t like how Dodge uses a reflector style uh housing as opposed to the projector style you get in the tonali you can see
You have an integrated LED turn signal daytime running light LED low and high beams no fog lights down here which is disappointing you do have some integrated parking sensors there’s the sensor radar sensor for the adaptive cruise you have the newest Dodge logo with a front camera of course some
Functional air intake openings and overall let me know what you guys think of the styling of this vehicle I personally prefer the look of the tanali I think the front end in the tanali looks a little bit more premium and also consider the fact that it’s not that
Much more expensive to go for the alpha when you’re looking at this top RT trim now moving around the side profile The Hornet has an interesting place in the segment because it’s very much a tween your vehicle at 178 in long this is bigger versus something like a Subaru
Cross trck but not quite as big as something like a Subaru Forester or a Toyota RAV for it has a 103.8 in Long wheelbase this car is exactly the same size of course as the alpha which puts this into the subcon compact SUV segment although it’s almost approaching compact
Territory you can see the GT version has these kind of painted wheel Arch trim moldings you also have my tester also has the track package which includes these 20-in black finish Wheels which look uh slightly white right now because of the snow and the salt that’s covering
It’s on a michelin’s Pilot Sport 4 allseason Tire which is definitely appreciated in these colder conditions uh you have upgraded brakes on this car as well uh you have a a 13 1 12 inch rotor clamped down by a four piston Brembo caliper the tire size is a 235x
40 R20 there’s also an 18-in wheel if you guys don’t want to go for this package uh but the 18-in wheel for me personally looks a little bit too small I do actually think I like the wheels more on the Alpha version which you can
Get a 19 or 20 this car also has a four-wheel independent suspension with adaptive Coney dampers that’s included when you go for the track package the RT version also has around 6.1 in ground clearance so it’s about 2 in lower in ground clearance compared to the GT trim
So keep that in mind now you can see I actually really like the Hornet badge here that you’re going to find on both fenders they’re also black painted when you guys go for the uh black top package the mirrors are also black painted The Roof is also um not black painted but my
Tester for some reason is missing the sunroof it should be included on this trim but it’s uh instead Dodge gave us like a $600 uh credit for not it not having a sunroof you can see moving around this angle here this is where the car really starts to remind me a lot of
The tanali that the two vehicles actually look almost the same from this angle because they have similar Silhouettes uh you can see open up this door this reveals the charge port which as you can see it’s a plug-in hybrid so you have the j1772 plug this vehicle has
An onboard 7.4 kwh charger which means it’s going to take you between 3 to 4 hours to fully charge this vehicle uh via a level two charger that I have at my home for example it’s a little bit on the slower side but it’s actually a
Little bit faster than most of the other plug-in hybrids like the Toyota raav 4 Prime you can see looking at the rear of the car again it looks a lot like an alfar roale with the full length light blade tailights I also like the three-dimensional look the Dodge has
With the tail lights it’s a full LED design the RT trim also has a nice looking dual Outlet exhaust system which gives this car again a more sportier Vibe I kind of wish that Dodge gave it a little bit more of an aggressive spoiler on the back you can see there’s a rear
Wiper uh that works really well obviously in these cold conditions the rear camera is located right here uh which does start to collect dirt and whatnot so that’s something that you might want to clean off if you guys you know need to see out of the back when
You’re driving in Winter conditions but opening up the trunk the RT version does give up some cargo space compared to the GT you get uh just under 23 cubic feet of space with the seats up fold down the and you’ll expand it out to a little
Over 50 cubic feet it’s a reduction of around 5 cubic feet compared to the GT version that’s courtesy of the battery pack underneath here you can see there is some underfloor storage no spare tire you just get a fix a flat kit there’s the level two or level one mobile
Charger that the car comes with but overall as you can see because this car is a little bit on the smaller side it doesn’t have quite as much cargo space as a uh compact SUV but you’re also going to find more cargo space in something like the Subaru cross trck so
Now let’s go ahead and step inside the interior of this 2024 Dodge hornet RT before we get inside however let me show you guys the key fob you can see this is an older Dodge key that we’ve been seeing for years in fact you can see it
Feels a little bit cheap it looks a little bit rental car grade but it has your usual buttons on the outside that you expect like the lock unlock lock power lift gate and a remote start and panic function I don’t believe Dodge offers a phone as a key function as of
Now uh but you should be able to access this vehicle through your UK connect 5 system if you guys are an owner of the car you can see on the outside traditional door handle if I push the lock button here that also electrically Folds the mirrors in which is nice if I
Want to unlock the car just touch the back of the door handle that’ll unlock the door for you now again I apologize for how dirty the car is uh it has been snowing and just really really cold the past couple days uh here in the South
Central PA area but I hope you guys like a black interior because this is your only color combination that you can get if you guys want the track package Dodge does offer a red leather um however if you guys want the track package with the 20-in wheels you have to stick with this
Kind of Alcantara black with a two-tone red contrasting stitching and suede these seats are also three Lev heated you got a heated steering wheel Dodge deletes the ventilated seat option if you guys go for the track package which is not something that you can have to or
That you have to deal with in the Alpha version Alpha off also offers different colors and you can get the cooled and heated or heated and cooled seats with the you know performance upgrade package uh Dodge again kind of limits you there in terms of the door panel materials you
Can see there’s a slightly padded soft touch area up here although it’s uh a little bit more hard touch for me this material here feels a little bit on the cheaper end you have an aluminum accented door handle padded area with more Le leather and contrasting stitching the window controls they feel
A little bit on the cheaper side don’t love the feeling of that the windows switches also are only one touch down not one touch up you have a 14 speaker Harmon Cardon stereo and then the track package also includes the metal accents for the pedals which definitely is a
Nice touch now getting inside the Hornet the RT trim definitely feels lower versus the last Hornet that I was in because it’s nearly 2 in lower in terms of the ground clearage as I get in and shut the door the door does have a solid sounding thk remember this is built on a
Heavily modified platform that it shares with the Jeep Compass uh which is kind of surprising to say to think of that but starting the vehicle up the start stop button is down here uh which is different versus the alpha alpha puts it here on the steering wheel but Dodge
Instead puts your drive mode selector there so push that button here you can see the vehicle kind of just wor to life because remember this is a plug-in hybrid vehicle so you won’t have that traditional engine starter noise when you first turn the car on um if you guys
Want to turn the engine on you basically just have to kick the accelerator pedal past the click point that will turn the engine on and it will it’ll even tell you high acceleration requested it switches to hybrid mode I will say that the gas engine does not sound very pleasant when it’s
On it just sounds really tiny it sounds cheap uh it’s a really unrefined noise and I have to say a lot of hybrids don’t sound good when their engines come on but this is probably one of the worst for me so I don’t particularly love the
Sound there now in terms of the dash there’s also a slightly soft touch injection molded plastic up here there’s some contrast red stitching on this part of of the dash with some kind of faux leather covering it you have an all digital 12.3 in display here which is
Nice you can kind of um you know show a tachometer there you dodge even lets you kind of push this button here you can change the way the gauges look if you guys want to uh adjust the way that looks you can see that’s theut the look
That I kind of prefer there’s also kind of like a calmer look that’s the sportier looking gauges with the traditional two dials you can see the steering wheel has a manual tilt and telescoping function it’s basically the same Alpha Romeo Ste steering wheel with a flat bottom design you also have the
Alfaromeo pedal or paddles you can see these are massive alloy pedals that are mounted to the column uh and they definitely get in the way of you know the actual turn signal stock or wiper stocks but they definitely give this car A sportier vibe there’s no heads-up
Display on this vehicle uh the horn it sounds good it sounds appropriate not puny like what you’ll find in something like the Toyota Corolla cross for example and then over here you can see all Hornets are going to come standard with their 10.25 in UK connect 5 head
Unit so you can see here this is their latest software with wireless carplate Android auto and over there updates you can see there’s my phone connected via the carplay which looks nice I like the fact that there are some actual buttons here to the side I will say that the
System the software behind the system for the most part works well but there were times when you first boot the system up that it’s really slow to respond you can see there’s the hybrid function performance it takes a second for it to load which I don’t particularly love the heated and cooled
Seat control is also buried into the screen you can see to turn it on you push these little buttons over here to turn it on I really hate how Dodge removes the cooled function if you guys want to go for the track package and also I also noticed when I’m switching
The drive modes here it also is kind of slow to respond so I’ll push the button here you can see it takes like a good like second or two for it to actually acknowledge that I push the button and switch the drive mode so I don’t love
That I think that the software there could use an improvement there’s a separate sport button here if I push that it actually turns the engine on and then it tells you you’re in sport mode that’s where it adjusts the dampers for you as well when I put the vehicle into
Reverse you can see there’s your backup camera which has good quality resolution it has trajectory it has parking sensors it has a full top down 360 view where you can look at whatever camera you’d like of course and the resolution quality I think is good although again I
I showed you guys back there that the camera does get dirty and when it is dirty it is going to obviously block your view there’s no rear camera washer which is slightly disappointing the embedded GPS in this car looks pretty much what you expect it to look most of
You probably won’t use this anyways you’ll probably end up just using uh the GPS that’s in your phone uh there’s a wireless phone charging pad over here you have two USB charging ports you have Dual Zone climate control I like how the vents uh they are pretty simple and
Traditional to use they the buttons here for the climate controls they also are nice in terms of being real buttons and they have a nice know tactile feel to them um the shifter you can see is a traditional shifter come all the way back to go to drive there’s a manual
Mode here in addition to the paddles you can see your parking um switch your parking sensors you can turn on and off here with a stability control this vehicle also has an automatic parallel park feature there’s a volume knob over here which is nice you have some silver
Painted plastic trim here and some non- glassy black plastic which is nice how it’s not glossy you have your cup holders here padded center console this also slides forward and back open this up you can see it’s a little bit it’s deep it’s just not very wide uh but it
Is a pretty usable space the seats you can see are very aggressively bolstered they hold you in place nicely because of the Alcantara you have an eight-way power over here with two-way Lumber and three person memory that’s included of course when you go for this uh plus trim
This seat here is just a four-way power adjustment uh which again um the seats themselves look like they were pulled from an Alfa Romeo the glove compartment you can see is Big it’s damped uh but not lined with felt it’s very usable you have an auto dimming rearview mirror and
Then my tester without the sunroof really makes this interior feel really dark but it does give you a little bit more headro you have some Led map Lighting in here but no actual LED ambient lighting that’s something you get a little bit more of in the tanali I
Believe but overall the interior uh definitely feels more upscale than what you’re going to find in vehicles in this space I just noticed there were a couple of squeaks and rattles and some trim pieces didn’t fit together the best uh and some of the Window Control switches
For example they just feel a little bit on the cheaper side now they are I’m sorry I want to correct myself these are OneTouch up down but there’s no click point on them you just kind of have to hold them for a second and then you pull
Up uh and then hold it for a second again that’ll go up and down which is nice but the window switches to me feel a little bit on the cheaper end but let’s go ahead and hop into the back seat so I can show you guys the space
Here now Alpha says you have around or sorry Dodge says you have around 38 in of leg room back here although I will clarify that number I got from the alfar Romeo page Dodge doesn’t list an actual leg room figure for the Hornet which is a little bit disappointing how you can’t
Find that on the consumer site you can see back here you just have a hard touch injection molded plastic more of that cheap plastic trim here it’s slightly padded over here uh and then in terms of the back seat space here you can basically fold this seat down however
You can see it doesn’t create a completely flat floor because of that battery pack which is eating up into the space the seat also doesn’t offer any kind of a recline function and then you have to be careful when you’re putting this back because the seat belt can kind
Of get stuck and wedged in between there and let me go ahead and get back here and show you guys the space now once I’m back here and shut the door you can see the leg room is pretty good I mean 38 in seems like a lot this car feels more
Like like 36 in to me this is where I have the seat to drive I can cross my legs but you can see it’s a little bit of a tighter you know feel the floor is not completely flat back here so the middle passenger will definitely have to
Deal uh with you know the hump and what not you do have USB ports you have a vent back here no heated rear seats however uh you do have two storage Cubbies the seat themselves the bench feels a little bit flat um and you can see you do have the Alcantara and the
Red carried over but it would be nice if they had heated seats if I want to open this up you can see there’s cup holders with a little pass through uh with a nice armrest in terms of the Headroom space you can see Headroom is also pretty good um although the sloping roof
Does eat into your actual Headroom space as well for taller folks but overall you can see the back seat is usable I probably say if your friends are over 6 ft tall or if you need to put a child seat back here it’ll be tight but it certainly is a comparable with other
Vehicles in the sub compact SUV space so with it being a little over a decade since Dodge launched an allnew product it’s been well overdue because as you guys know Dodge doesn’t really have very many vehicles left in their AR Arsenal and with the discontinuation of the charger and Challenger we’re going
To get a new version at some point uh this Hornet is again the freshest product in the Dodge lineup now I already had a chance to spend a full week with the GT version however this time Dodge has loaned me the RT model which is essentially the the same
Powertrain as the Alpha Romeo tonali which means we have a plug-in hybrid powertrain um with a 1.3 l turbo 4 with two electric motors the rear axle is only primarily powered by an electric motor this model however offers more power versus the alpha which is interesting because this is the cheaper
Option and it’s non not a luxury brand it’s it’s a you know mainstream although slightly more performance oriented brand now we’re starting off this review on a full charge this vehicle showed around 31 miles of range on a full charge which is a little bit less than the epa’s uh
Number but it is very cold outside it’s like 29° out as you can see we just got hit with 6 to 8 Ines of snow over the weekend um so again not the best testing conditions but this car gets to 60 supposedly Dodge claims in 5.6 seconds
When you use the poot feature now to activate that you have to be in sport mode you have to pull both of the paddles toward you and hold it until you see the little poot icon once you see that you basically just kind of break torque it and uh or just floor It but for some reason we only got 6.43 seconds there which isn’t wonderful um so I want to see if I can redo it at some point uh because I believe I do need to break torque it to get the maximum power although what’s weird is
When I when I tried to brake torque it the poot icon disappeared which told me that uh the car wasn’t actually in power shot mode but we’ll try it again uh a couple more times to see if we can get closer to that 6 point or 5.6 because as
You guys know when I tested the the GT version the nonhybrid with just the 2 L turbo it did 5.6 on that same stretch over there so that’s a little bit disappointing to see that kind of right off the bat and it definitely felt pretty lethargic off the line but this
Car’s all-wheel drive system is an interesting one which I’ll talk about later on when we go into the driving scene because the all-wheel drive the rear axle is powered primarily by the uh electric motor um which means that this car is essentially rear wheel drive when you’re
Driving it in EV only mode but let’s go ahead and try it here this time it’s in poers shot let’s brake torque it all right we got 6.5 there which again isn’t great the car is kind of struggling for traction um I’m hoping up ahead there I can try it on my other
Stretch of road and see if we can get a better time if not I’ll try keep I’ll try again to see what we can do you can see the roads are still kind of covered with salt and snow and ice so uh it’s probably not going to be able to give us
The very best 0 to 60 time which is disappointing because of the weather conditions that’s kind of out of my control um but I actually did notice that the Power Shot stayed engaged that time and I could see it kind of building the Boost the little icon turned uh
Green when I started to break torque the vehicle so I knew at that point it was engaging itself so the first 0 to 60 run we just go ahe and say that that was the time without power shot without you know brake torquing it uh and Dodge says that
PO shot can essentially shave a second and a half off the 0 to 60 time which I’m skeptical that it can actually shave that much time off because when I last tested this vehicle uh about 8 months ago when I was driving the car in North
Carolina I think I got the low 5sec range uh for the RT model which is actually about a half a second faster than what Dodge claims so I know this vehicle is capable of that keep in mind I also got 5.5 seconds in the tonali which has essentially this power train
Just with a little bit less power which is again super weird to me that the alpha is less powerful versus the Dodge but the beauty about the Hornet and this chassis is it’s even though it’s built off of a heavily modified chassis you know shared with the Jeep Compass uh
It’s surprisingly sporty to drive which is you know not what you tend to expect to find in the subcompact SUV class this vehicle’s a segment is known for not having very much power also for not being the sportiest vehicles to drive what’s interesting about uh the Hornet
Is the fact that it’s kind of a tweener vehicle in the sense that it’s in between the subc Compact and the compact SUV space now as you can see we’re on snow covered roads here so I I want to just kind of test out the awh drive system I’ll just put my foot
Down you can feel it’s primarily more rear drive biased um which is interesting that it does does it that way because this is more of a family oriented vehicle but see the road here is pretty snow covered you can see the back end definitely enjoys stepping out a little bit
It’s still spinning the tires the traction control is kind of trying to cut in and intervene to keep it from uh spinning out the wheels but put my the one thing I noticed about this car is every time I’m hitting the brakes ever so slightly even on snow covered roads
On you know just where it’s a little bit uh slushy or whatever slippery the back end tends to step out a little bit too much than I’d like it that all has to do I believe with the way the regen breaks work uh this car is on Michelin Pilot
Sport 4 allseason tires so not the best you know tire for these conditions although the Pilot Sport 4 is one of the best tires you’re going to find on the market but uh I’ve just been noticing this car doesn’t give me quite the confidence that I was expecting it to
Give me in these snower conditions but hey it’s been a really good test of the all-wheel drive system in this car again I’ll try to hit the brakes here this time it didn’t actually step the rear end which is nice but you can feel this car with its
Adaptive dampers I have it in sport mode now it definitely feels a little bit firmer if I take it out of sport mode sport mode it will kind of um feel a little bit softer because it has the adjustable dampers that help with the ride quality but overall driving the
Hornet RT is pretty much the same as driving the tanali I I really sense very little differences between the two two vehicles I mean to be sure I’d have to drive them exactly back Tob back I drove the tanali about three four months ago
When I had one for a full week to test um I’m just not entirely sure I’m sold on the refinement of the pav powertrain with the six-speed Auto this car definitely feels more conventional with the turbocharged engine I have it in hybrid mode now you can see it just kind
Of accelerates like a traditional gas car with the actual shifting and whatnot you can also switch the drive modes between a hybrid mode which I had it in there’s also an eave mode uh which tries to save charge in the battery and then there’s also an electric mode now the
Electric mode um tries to keep it an EV only for as long as it can unfortunately anytime you go past the pedal click down point it will turn the gas P engine on I also noticed it’ll turn the gas engine on when it uh doesn’t really need to
Turn the gas engine on but the electric motor only delivers around 1821 horsepower on its own so this vehicle to get the full 288 you need to be in hybrid mode it’s just not to me quite as seamless of a transition or in its refinement as the you know hybrid
System you’re going to find in something like the Toyota Rav 4 Prime you could technically compare the two vehicles although the Rav 4 is technically in a class above the Hornet because it’s a larger vehicle although the cars are pretty evenly matched in terms of price
Uh the rav is just a lot more practical because it has more space in the trunk it has more space in the back seat uh as well uh but overall visibility out of the Hornet is pretty good you have a good view out of the front although this
Pillar here is a little bit on the chunkier side for me I don’t really like that um The View out of the rear is also decent Dodge does not offer a digital camera review mirror which is something that I wish that they would offer on this car because the view out of the
Back the window does feel a little bit you know squinty compared to some competitors that have you know less aggressive styling versus this car um but driving this car it’s it’s pretty Pleasant and it feels a lot more like I’m driving a hot hatch which I really appreciate as an Enthusiast uh
But I think that you know for most people you’re going to probably just get in this car and just drive it to and from work and you’re not going to really notice the Improvement in the handling Department compared to some competitors but let’s try it here really quick
Because the road is a little bit more dry here we’ll try brake torquing it Again Power Shot is engaged but again I’m struggling for traction I got F 6.1 seconds there so unfortunately that might be the best that we’re going to get because of just the road conditions we’re dealing with I’ll see if I there is an opportunity to do it one more time
But overall um I think that this car’s performance seems a little bit lacking to me especially if you guys are just comparing it to the regular GT Model uh in terms of the actual ual range uh in my weeks worth of testing in these very cold conditions I averaged around 25 to
28 mil of all electric range remember it’s rated at 30 uh 32 but you know in these typ types of conditions I may not be able to get that kind of range obviously so we’re kind of dealing with real world testing and my week’s worth of driving in terms of the fuel
Efficiency I actually did average around 29 MPG which is actually pretty good considering you know this car is not really designed to be more of an efficient vehicle the per the plug-in hybrid part is more about uh performance which I kind of appreciate so the fuel economy there is
Decent in terms of the range for the gas engine uh you’re looking at around uh just under 300 Mi of range which isn’t great because the fuel tank on this car did shrink compared to the uh regular GT Model but in reality I’m struggling to recommend the RT especially considering
The $10,000 price premium I think that for most people the GT will just kind of make more sense you’ll save a lot of money now obviously if you lease this car it does qualify for the full $7,500 tax credit but if you plan to buy the car I probably would skip buying this
Just get the GT however if you’re planning to lease that’s where you know the leasing Factor may come into play that will make the RT model seem a little bit more favorable so I wasn’t too pleased with the 6.1 second time that we got so I gave myself another opportunity to try
The run a final time I think this is like my fourth try uh we are again still in sport mode we still have it in hybrid mode it still has close to a full charge uh and I’m going to try to re-engage the power shot however this time I’m going
To really stomp on the brake so it tries to hold the car because earlier it was literally not break or was not holding the vehicle when I was break torqueing and so to activate parot pull both of the paddles until that icon comes comes to live and we’ll really hold the brake
Hard all right that felt quicker 5.7 seconds there so again there’s a little bit of wheel spin because of all that torque that Dodge says you’re going to get all that torque basically off the line but that time almost basically matches the claim that Dodge says at 5.6
However it is a good de deal slower versus when I first tested this car out in North Carolina where I got 5.08 so that time is disappointing because it’s a little bit less uh slower versus the GT Model that I tested on that same stretch so kind of keep that in mind if
You guys are shopping the two models you may not necessarily get you know a quicker acceleration Time by going with the RT which is sad not a good thing considering the Hefty price pre premium that Dodge charges for this engine so when the allnew Dodge Hornet
Went on sale in the US in the middle of 2023 this was a big deal for Dodge because it finally gave the brand a compete a competitor in the always competitive subc compact to compact SUV space in fact Dodge says that they sold a little over 9,300 units in the US in
2023 of course that represents half the year and it also represents a time where Dodge was trying to ramp up production of this vehicle remember this car is built built in Italy alongside the alfar Romeo tonali now in terms of the numbers this car actually out sold the alfar
Romeo tonali about almost 5 to one which is kind of crazy to think because the alpha to me seems like the better deal but it doesn’t surprise me at all because the Dodge is going to be the more affordable option and after spending some time driving the RT
Version of this car the strengths that I saw of course in the GT are pretty much present this car is one of the best handling Vehicles you’re going to find in this segment it has an interior that feels a lot like the ALF rale it feels a
Lot more premium than what you kind of expect uh in the a vehicle in this space it also feels a lot more sporty which is nice I especially love the seats which have fairly aggressive bolstering the rear seat also has a pretty decent amount of space the cargo area is on the
Small side you’re going to find more space from a competitor like the Subaru cross track and of course if you guys need to go off-roading this is where Dodge doesn’t offer any kind of option for that because this vehicle while it does offer all-wheel drive doesn’t really have the ground clearance that
You’re going to want if you guys actually plan to go off-roading so I would probably just say look at the GT version stick with the smaller 18-in wheels and you could have a vehicle that has a little bit more off-road capability but again this vehicle is really more like a hot hatch that’s
Lifted up to give you again that higher seating position now the RT version as you guys saw I struggled to get a 0 to 60 time that was faster versus what Dodge claims at 5.7 seconds it’s quick enough but the tonali I tested on that same road in this kind of less harsh
Conditions like now got 5.5 seconds it is a lot slower versus the 5.1 that I got in this car about 8 months ago when I first tested it in North Carolina so for me personally I probably would just stick with the GT trim of this car because it’s a lot more enticing and
Also will get to 60 and about the same time 5.6 seconds versus the 5.7 I got that I got with this vehicle the interior of this car um in terms of the tech features it does use you connect 5 which I really appreciate with the wireless car plane Android auto uh I
Just noticed the interior of this car felt a little bit you know a little more squeaky a little more rattly it help it felt kind of more rental car graded and I especially don’t like how you can’t get a different car color versus this kind of black with the suede alcantar if
You guys want the track package you’re stuck with that black interior with the red contrasting Accents in terms of the price this is where the RT model really starts to fall in its face compared to the GT version because you can get a GT with standard all-wheel dve for a little
Over $31,000 which sounds like a bargain because it has almost 270 horsepower with all-wheel drive the RT however is going to cost you about $10,000 more so it’s going to cost around 40 Grand to start around 43 44,000 if you guys want the plus trend my tester here with the
GT uh track or with the track package with the black top package with the driver Assistance Plus package and the gray cray exterior color with destination this car here comes into just over $52,000 I know almost 53 grand for a vehicle like this that wears a Dodge
Badge at that point you could get the alfro mail for about three or $2 to $3,000 more and at that point for me I would personally get the alpha because you get the better dealer services you got a luxury brand you got a more uh expressive an attractive looking vehicle
On the outside for me personally uh keep in mind if you guys do lease this car it will qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit but that’s only if you lease it because if you guys want to buy it it doesn’t qualify for the tax credit at
That point if you guys plan to purchase this car I probably would just save the $10,000 go for the GT trim uh however you will be giving up that you know electric only capability but at the same time I find that other competing systems have just a better transition point when
You’re switching from gas to electric so I think that’s something that Dodge and Alf Romeo continue the or need to continue to work on as we progress and move forward more forward into the year where everything is probably going to be going electric by the year 20130 but
With all that said hope you guys have enjoyed my full overview on this 2024 Dodge Hornet RT if you’re also looking to see the latest cars I’m testing be sure to follow me on Instagram at Redline reviews like us on Facebook and as always guys please keep subscribing
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At long last, the #Dodge brand has a brand-new vehicle after nearly a decade since the introduction of the Dart. The 2024 #DodgeHornet returns as a hot hatch style compact SUV borrowing its platform from the #AlfaRomeoTonale. The #HornetRT is the #PHEV version and it has a turbo 4-cylinder plus a electric motor to give this spicy little SUV nearly 300 HP and 32 miles of all-electric range.
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