The Ram brand is finally taking an electrified approach, and by resurrecting the Ramcharger name, no less. Alongside the new 2025 Ram 1500, the company has unveiled the new 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger, a new plug-in hybrid that Ram touts as offering “unlimited battery electric range.”
The new truck is one of a number of electrified trucks, the most well-known of which include the fully-electric Ford F-150 Lightning and the new Chevrolet Silverado EV. But instead of being fully electric, the 1500 Ramcharger is a plug-in hybrid, meaning that it has an electric motor and battery, and a gas tank and engine.
The plug-in approach
It’s perhaps a smart move. Electric trucks show a lot of promise — but they start to falter a little when it comes to things like towing and hauling heavy loads. Keeping the 1500 Ramcharger a hybrid means that with no load or light ones, the truck can zip around town on electric power — and when necessary, it can switch the engine on to tow or haul. It could well be the perfect combo for many truck owners who at least occasionally need that extra oomph, but who still could stand to save some cash — and go a little easier on the environment – when simply driving around town.
The approach to building the truck is pretty innovative. Instead of switching directly between the electric motor and gas-powered engine, the truck instead uses the generator to charge the battery or to supply power to the electric motors directly — which means that the truck can always deliver that immediate electric zip. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily have much of an impact on fuel consumption — or at least, no more than any other hybrid. But it does impact overall performance.
According to Ram, the new truck offers a 92-kilowatt-hour battery pack with an onboard 130kW generator, which powers the 250kW front motor and 238kW rear motor. All this combines into a truck that can reach 60 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds, thanks to its 663-horsepower performance and 615 lb-ft of torque.
But while the truck itself is innovative, the marketing around it is … misleading. In an era where customers are trying to find ways to beat range anxiety and comparing vehicles based on their range and charging speed, instead of their horsepower and fuel efficiency, marketing a vehicle as offering “unlimited electric range” isn’t really fair, or accurate. After all, the vehicle still has to be charged or filled regardless — and you certainly can’t drive it forever without filling the tank or charging the battery. Ram notes the truck as offering a range of up to 690 miles, which obviously include making use of the generator.
So what about the actual range? Well, unfortunately Ram doesn’t mention what the battery can deliver on a single charge. It does note that customers will be able to add 50 miles of all-electric range in around 10 minutes at the maximum charging speed of 145kW. We also don’t know if it’s even possible to use the truck in an electric-only mode (though we assume you can).
Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing we don’t yet know about the truck. We also don’t know how much it’ll cost, and when it’ll be available for purchase. Interested customers can reserve a place in line to preorder the truck.
Everything else
Apart from the powertrain, there are some additional details we do know about the truck. Based on the images from Ram, it seems to offer a relatively modern interior, with a 14.5-inch infotainment display and a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster. It even has a 10.25-inch passenger screen, which will make riding in the passenger seat a little more comfortable.
The truck offers a Klipsch audio system, which is made up of an impressive 23 tuned speakers dotted around the interior. That includes a 12-inch subwoofer and two one-inch titanium dome tweeters.
Editors’ Recommendations
Source link
