Could this be the future of Electric Pickup Trucks?
Dear Readers,
I just saw this on Car and Driver yesterday, and I think the 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger needs a full review as soon as I can get a loaner vehicle. Read their full article HERE.
What is it?
This is a Plug-In Hybrid pickup truck from RAM that will go head to head with the Ford F-150 Lightning as well as their F-150 PowerBoost. Read my towing review of the F-150 PowerBoost truck HERE.
Here’s the basics
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger is the brand’s first plug-in-hybrid full-size pickup truck. It shares a platform with the electric Ram 1500 REV.
A 70.8-kWh battery provides an estimated 145 miles of electric range and feeds a 663-hp all-wheel-drive powertrain, with a V-6 spinning a generator as a backup.
With a full battery and fuel tank, Ram is targeting up to 690 miles of combined driving range; it can also tow 14,000 pounds and handle a 2625-pound payload.
Wait… there’s more!
I also has a 7.2kW inverter generator that’s rated to power your house in the event of the power outage. Note that Ford doesn’t promote or recommend using the ProPower generator in the PowerBoost truck to power your house. They only promote that for the F-150 Lightning, which I think is a bad idea. That’s because after a few days of powering your house in an emergency, you’re left with a truck that has no battery power. How do you recharge it when the local power grid is down?
Why is a Plug-In Hybrid truck a good idea?
All EVs and EV trucks suffer from range loss (as much as 70%) when towing an RV trailer of any size. That’s a real downer when you reduce your 300 mile range to less than 100 miles before recharging is needed. Read my ID.4 towing tests from last year HERE.
A Plug-In Hybrid pickup truck would offer the best of both worlds; electric battery power for most day trips, and gasoline power for towing and long trips without range anxiety.
I’ll do a full electrical review later…
I’m asking RAM for a loaner truck so I can test it for towing range as well as using the onboard 7.2kW generator to power one or two RVs while boondocking. Plus I’ll see how it works for emergency backup house power. So stay tuned!
What do you think?
Please leave your comments below. Could this be a great truck for towing small or medium RV trailers? Would you consider it for home backup power? How about using it to boondock for a week without bringing a portable generator?
Let’s play safe out there… Mike
I agree that the plug in hybrids are a good choice however the current administration seems to be going in a different direction. Currently many of the 100% EV’s are sitting on the lots, manufacturers are having trouble selling them at or below cost.
It will be interesting to see how far the Ram truck can tow an average size RV on battery, I won’t get my hopes up that it will be earth shattering.
The idea of the RAM plug-in EV truck is that it can be used on battery only for most daily driving, but switch to gasoline power while towing for any distance. But the problem of reduced EV range while towing is really due to RV manufacturers not caring about aerodynamics. It also happens with ICE trucks when you lose half of your MPG, but it’s much easier to refill a fuel tank compared to EV charging. I think that pure EV trucks are a bad idea right now. but that’s just my educated opinion.
I’m not interested in any of the electric stuff that is being shoved down our throats by the fed. All those EV’s that are sitting on dealer lots unsold (as Joseph mentions) are because nobody wants them. And because they are too expensive, even with all of our tax dollars being used for rebates,
I can see EV’s niche in the future, but EV’s cost and the infrastructure to support them have a long way to go before the general public will embrace them. Along with the initial cost, wait until the repair bills start to mount on the batteries and other systems. Whatever you save on fuel will probably be offset by the cost of repair.
Personally, I pull larger trailers and need the transmission, brakes and power of a diesel and I certainly don’t buy it for fuel economy. It will be a long time before anybody will convince me to buy an EV truck.
The 145kw charging rate is impressive, but what will frequent charging at this rate do to the battery life?
I see only a niche market for these trucks. Maybe when batteries come with a 150k mile/15 year fully transferable guarantee, or a reasonable cost to replace the battery.
I tow, and this is not for me at this time. Even if you could charge @ 30 miles/10 minutes (towing), that’s still unacceptable. It’s still well over an hour for 200 miles. Every mile you are using gas not only defeats the purpose, it adds a lot of dead weight.
Sorry. All this EV stuff forced upon us by the Feds/WEF/WHO is smoke and mirrors. Designed to limit our travel and program us to be happy in their 15 minute cities. And own nothing. Until there is a quantum leap in technology, I’m out.
Plug-in Hybrid, now that’s technology. That’s the best way to go. More automakers need to adapt to this technology, in more models. But as long as it is affordable.
Small trailer yes
Home backup absolutely not
Boondocking absolutely
This is the first electric pickup (partially electric) I would even consider. Right now I drive a leased 2021 RAM 1500 with a 5.7 L Hemi, both as a daily driver and for towing my 5,000# camping trailer. The lease is up in 2025. If the price is not too outlandish compared to another ICE powered truck, it could work for me. Right now, the various EV pickups currently offered are interesting to read about, but too costly and not capable for the type of traveling and camping I want to do. My RAM does fine, as did my previous 2008 F150.
Interesting, isn’t it? I’ll know more once I can get my hands on one to try.
I’ve wondered if an auto manufacturer was ever going to do this – have a PHEV with a primarily EV drive train rather than what all the other PHEV’s have, a primarily ICE drive train. It’s certainly not a new idea. Locomotives have been this way for a long, long time.
Hats off to Ram. It appears that this is the full size truck response to the Ford Maverick Hybrid. In my estimation EV’s have limited applications. They are great solutions for urban driving, busses, cabs, etc but really suffer when it comes to payload and cross country driving. Hybrids seen to address this while also reducing overall CO2 and reducing fossil fuel use. Let’s see how it actually performs in real testing.
If I can get a loaner for a few weeks I’ll test the crap out of it! 😁
EV – NO! Hybrid – YES! I don’t see EV’s as realistic as truck power for many years. But hybrids make much more sense. Honda made a Civic hybrid 20+ years ago, which could run all day long at 60 mph at 50+ mpg! A hybrid truck makes much more sense. VW’s diesel Jetta got 55 mpg and was killed because of the mpg scandal but 55 mpg was great! Hybrids are the way to go right now!
I love the idea of including an efficiently designed generator in an electric pickup to give the extra range that is needed with towing. I have several friends that have had EVs for 5-10 years and they report very low maintenance costs. Batteries have improved rapidly and many car makers are switching over to LFP batteries which should last 10-15 years (we’ll see). We’ll see how the RAM does with Mikes towing test. I got to test a Rivian 1T with my T@B 320 S Boondock teardrop and it got 1.9 miles / kW hr with a projected range of 246 miles which was way better than i expected. I was going 35-50 mph on mountain roads so I expect the range will drop when towing on the freeway due to higher wind resistance. I hope to repeat the test at freeway speeds and find out. My test did include going up and down some pretty steep hills. What was amazing was the towing power and regenerative braking ability. Most gas powered ICEs can’t come close to the performance of properly designed EVs. When I go over long and steep grades on mountain passes with my ICE truck, it really struggles particularly at high altitude and braking is always a bit dicey coming down long and steep grades. Altitude doesn’t phase an EV. We’ll see if the new RAM really cuts it and if it has the issues others have pointed out but the day I see a properly designed, reasonably priced, fully debugged, reliable, towing vehicle that gets EV mileage on short trips and has 900ish mile range, I for one, would go for it in a heartbeat. How long we will have to wait, is really the issue.
I’m already talking to Chrysler/RAM Media about seeing one in the flesh and scheduling a loaner so I can do a real-world towing test.
Please Stand By…
I wonder what 2025 really means in terms of when it will be really be available? We are still waiting to see the Tesla Cyber truck although I did see one in the freeway the other day. 🙂
I’ll try to get more info from RAM Communications on actual availability. I hope it isn’t vaporware… 😁
They should be able to do it and I hope they do!
If in fact this truck will be driven by a totally electric drivetrain, either by a battery and / or an IC E with generator, it will be interesting for sure.
That’s what RAM says. You can have your cake and eat it too!
What is such a vehicle really good for? How is it better than more available, conventional alternatives?
It’s not just the total possible range but the cost of that range. All a manufacturer needs to do is to install a larger fuel tank, more lithium batteries, a generator and so on. But all of these increase the mass of that vehicle, which is the most important factor in determining the fuel cost per mile. A smart buyer will need to consider the purchase price of the vehicle plus the cost to operate it and not just the range, which can always be increased by the manufacturer. If the cost to charge all of those batteries away from home equals the cost of liquid fuel per mile for a comparable, non-EV vehicle, then there’s no significant EV advantage other than lower maintenance while contending with much longer fueling times and dramatically higher tire costs.
If it works as advertised, I would consider it. Having to keep my portable generator exercised and serviced is an item I usually forget.
John Nicholls