Ramcharger Takes A Belt And Suspenders Approach To Electric Pickup Trucks

There are two sorts of pickup truck drivers — wannabe cowboys who satisfaction themselves on trying highly effective behind the wheel and those that make a residing by hauling stuff and towing stuff. Ram is conflicted about how you can soar into the EV revolution with its pickup vans, so it has determined to hedge its bets with the all new Ramcharger.

Final spring, Ram responded to the Ford F-150 Lightning and Chevy Silverado EV by saying it too would have a battery powered pickup truck coming alongside quickly — assuming 2025 matches your definition of quickly. Referred to as the Ram 1500 REVolution, it guarantees a 229 kWh battery and 500 miles of vary. However let’s be sincere. Carrying a ton of stuff within the load mattress or towing a journey trailer knocks the hell out of any vary declare.

It’s the identical for standard pickup vans. I’ve a colleague who drives a Ford F-150 with the EcoBoost V-6 engine. He claims to get 22 mpg on the freeway. However when he hooks up his 32′ journey trailer twice a 12 months, he’s fortunate to get 8 mpg with a tailwind. So let’s not faux these pickups you see hauling stuff and towing stuff are getting nice fuel mileage. They’re not and if their homeowners let you know they’re, they’re mendacity.

Nonetheless, that 500 mile vary assumes ideally suited circumstances — delicate temperatures, stage floor, a prime pace of 55 mph, a full battery, and a willingness to empty the battery right down to zero earlier than recharging. In the actual world, driving 75 on the superslab and leaving a 20% cushion for the sudden, most drivers can be fortunate to go 300 miles earlier than recharging. Now 300 miles is nothing to sneeze at if you end up driving a car that has the aerodynamic effectivity of a storage door, however hook a trailer as much as it and watch the vary meter sag towards the 150 mile mark — or much less, relying on terrain and temperature.

Meet The Ramcharger

That’s the truth and it’s why many potential pickup truck patrons are skittish about shopping for a battery electrical mannequin. For these folks, Ram has give you an excellent resolution — the Ramcharger 1500. It’s constructed on precisely the identical chassis because the REVolution 1500 besides as a substitute of 500 miles from a 229 kWh battery, it has a projected vary of 145 miles from both a 98 kWh battery (Autoblog) or a 71 kWh battery (Car and Driver).

However right here’s the large information in regards to the Ramcharger. It is going to include the tried and true Pentastar 3.6 liter V-6 engine, a model of which is a part of the Pacifica plug-in hybrid package deal. That engine shouldn’t be related to the wheels. It’s sole job is to energy a 130 kW generator that feeds electrons to the battery whereas driving. That’s why Ram says the Ramcharger has a projected vary of 690 miles, or as Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis says, “Vary nervousness, gone.”

The Ramcharger makes use of 400 volt electrical structure and might cost at as much as 145 kilowatts, which Ram says can add 50 miles of vary in 10 minutes. At house, most individuals will use the truck’s Stage 2 (240V) charger rated at as much as 11 kilowatts. It additionally has a cell charging station with bi-directional functionality that gives a most of seven.2 kW of exportable energy. Accessible via the cost port or the ability panel within the cargo mattress, the Ram’s onboard generator is like these discovered on the Ford F-150 hybrid and F-150 Lightning pickups.

Huge Energy And Towing Capability

The Ramcharger isn’t any wimp. Ram says its new electrical pickup truck will produce 663 horsepower and 615 lb.-ft of torque. That must be adequate to propel it to 60 mph in simply 4.4 seconds — which is simply 0.2 seconds slower than a Dodge Challenger Scat Pack. Energy comes from twin motors. The entrance unit produces 250 kW (335 horsepower) and the rear one other 238 kW (320 hp).

However wait, truck followers. It will get higher. The Ramcharger has a most tow ranking of 14,000 kilos. The present Ram 1500 is “restricted” to 12,750 kilos. The utmost payload is 2.625 kilos. Put all of it collectively and you’ve got a severe pickup truck for severe pickup truck drivers, one that may out-work, out-haul, and out-tow nearly every other gentle obligation pickup truck available on the market. It simply occurs to have a “no excuses” all electrical powertrain.

Ramcharger Is A True PHEV

In impact, the Ramcharger is a grown up model of the Chevy Volt — a full fledged plug-in hybrid with sufficient battery-only vary to make driving on electrons as a substitute of molecules  potential — assuming folks hassle to plug it in repeatedly.

Right here at CleanTechnica world headquarters, we are likely to view pickup vans with a jaundiced eye. We simply aren’t pickup folks, however the Ramcharger will get us excited. Sure, we all know. It’s silly, wasteful, and inefficient to have each a battery and an engine. But when that’s what it takes to get some fuel hog pickups off the street, we are saying, “Don’t let the right be the enemy of the nice.”

Significantly when a divide is growing between drivers in purple states and drivers in blue states on the subject of the EV revolution. What a chance that is for individuals who are skeptical about EVs to expertise for themselves the otherworldly energy and torque of an electrical car, the fun of regenerative braking (particularly when towing a trailer), the pleasure of decrease gas prices, and the satisfaction of diminished upkeep bills.

Ger a few of these EV skeptics right into a  Ramcharger and allow them to unfold the phrase to different pickup truck homeowners that they’ll have all of it — huge energy with no vary nervousness. Name us loopy, however we predict the Ramcharger can be a transformative car, one which lastly silences all of the critics who say the phrases “electrical” and “pickup truck” ought to by no means be utilized in the identical sentence. In reality, we predict this plug-in hybrid from Ram might show to be extra essential than the Tesla Cybertruck.

Why? We all know plenty of folks will disagree, however the Ramcharger (similar to the Silverado and F-150) has been rigorously honed to fulfill the wants and needs of pickup truck patrons. Tens of hundreds of hours have been invested in market analysis.

The Cybertruck breaks each rule. Some can be attracted by these variations however most truck patrons desire a car that’s acquainted. For those who didn’t know the Ramcharger was a PHEV, there’s nothing about its seems that offers away the key of what lies beneath that rugged exterior. In reality it seems virtually equivalent to the common Ram 1500. Just some distinctive exterior touches determine it as one thing particular.

If we labored at Ford or Basic Motors, we’d be severely nervous in regards to the Ramcharger. GM particularly must be embarrassed that it did not capitalize on the Voltec PHEV package deal that made the Volt such a superb automobile. That’s so typical of GM, which over and again and again comes up with marvels of engineering that get disappeared by senior managers who’re too timid to boldly go the place no automobile firm has gone earlier than.

We predict the Ramcharger will run the desk and go away the competitors — together with the Cybertruck — within the mud. Will that occur? “We’ll see,” mentioned the Zen grasp.