With the debut of the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Chevy Silverado 1500 EV, only one member of the Big Three was left without an electric pickup truck. Ram plans to remedy that problem with the upcoming 2025 Ram 1500 REV, but it has just announced a second electrified option: the 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger. However, this new offering for the electric truck market isn’t actually an EV––pull back the marketing, and it’s really a plug-in hybrid. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing will depend on your point of view, but there is no doubt that Ram took a unique approach to the problem of electrifying a full-size pickup truck without sacrificing range and capability.
Changing Names and Managing Expectations
While Ram might be late to the electric pickup game, the brand has been talking about an electrified Ram 1500 for years now. Early rumors were made official back in July 2021, when Ram announced during Stellantis EV Day that it was planning to deliver an electric trunk in 2024. Two years later, it pulled the covers off the Ram Revolution Concept at the CES in January 2023. The Revolution was a futuristic-looking truck with animated lighting and suicide doors. The all-electric powertrain was equally advanced, with 800V DC fast charging at 350 kW and four-wheel steer––two features that are set to become increasingly common with future electric trucks.
However, hopes that Ram would leapfrog Ford and GM in the electric truck market soon cooled when the 2025 Ram 1500 REV concept appeared at the New York Auto Show in April. Unlike the Revolution, the REV looked a lot more like a typical Ram 1500, although it kept some hints of the concept’s sci-fi lighting elements. However, the powertrain still looked promising, with Ram claiming the truck would come with a standard 168 kWh battery for 350 miles of range and an optional 229 kWh battery for 500 miles of range. There were also reports of a future Ram 1500 REV XR with “class-shattering range,” which many interpreted to mean a gasoline range extender.
It’s a BEV. It’s a PHEV. No, It’s the Ramcharger!
Now, that future model is here, and it’s been renamed the Ram 1500 Ramcharger. Although billed as a “Range-Extended Electric Truck,” that’s really code for “plug-in hybrid.” The Ramcharger pairs a “small” 90 kWh battery pack (although that’s only 8 kWh smaller than the base battery in the F-150 Lighting) with the proven 3.6L Pentastar V6 gasoline engine. However, unlike most PHEV options on the market, which are “parallel hybrids” where the gasoline engine and electric motors both directly power the wheels, the Ramcharger is a “series hybrid.” That means the gasoline engine is used purely to recharge the battery, while a pair of electric motors provide all of its propulsive force.
Ram is far from the first brand to adopt this strategy––several early EV models like the Chevy Volt and BMW i3 were series hybrids with small range extenders––but it is the first to bring it to the current electric truck competition. Ram seems to be using the same electric powertrain with dual motors in both the REV and the Ramcharger, simply shrinking the battery and installing a V6 generator in the PHEV version. The result is that the Ramcharger is claimed to offer 663 hp, 615 lb-ft of torque, and a zero to 60 mph time of 4.4 seconds. It also has a targeted towing capacity of 14,000 lbs and a payload capacity of 2,625 lbs, putting it in line with gasoline half-ton trucks.
Ramcharger vs REV
With two electric truck options from Ram soon to hit the market, both offering similar performance, which one should you be considering? Well, it’s difficult to say one way or the other before official pricing is revealed, as that could well make or break these two models. The Ram 1500 REV is a promising fully electric truck that claims to offer best-in-class performance, range, and charging capabilities. On the other hand, the Ram 1500 Ramcharger provides the convenience of being able to fill up on gas rather than wait to recharge (although you will have to fill up since it can only recharge at a rather disappointing 400V and 145 kWh).
Still, it is difficult to see the Ramcharger being a compelling offering. The 90 kWh battery pack is huge for a PHEV, and the truck will probably be priced accordingly. More importantly, this combination is projected to be incredibly inefficient. Ram estimates the Ramcharger will have around 145 miles of electric range and get around 20 MPG when the V6 is running, which somehow makes it less efficient than many traditional gasoline trucks. Overall, it looks like buyers will be paying a lot of money to have the “convenience” of guzzling gasoline whenever their relatively short-range EV runs out of charge. There may be a use case for it, but unless Ram pulls out a miracle when it comes to pricing, you’ll probably be better off with either the Ram 1500 REV or the new 2025 Ram 1500 with its Hurricane engine.
