Having just indicated that it’s not willing to sit out the EV truck wars, Ram debuted the Ram 1500 Revolution concept merely months ago. This was a three-row wondertruck from CES that was pointed at the future and packed-to-the-gills with cool tech. The production version is out and the company is calling it the Ram 1500 REV. Here’s everything we know.
What Is The Ram 1500 REV?
First of all, the new RAM 1500 will be built on the STLA Frame platform developed by parent company Stellantis. This means we knew all along the Ram would maintain a fully-boxed frame that’s typical of full-size pickup trucks.
The one trick to this platform is that the battery pack appears to be built between the frame rails, similar to the Rivian R1T. This means that the battery pack probably plays a structural role and is also used to absorb crash energy.
You can see the front drive unit here in this image from Munro & Associates, which took a closer look at the STLA Frame earlier this year. Ram hasn’t released any specs or told anyone we know of how this thing actually works, so we’re going to rely heavily on information from this Munro tour.
This tour revealed that the STLA Frame can support a battery pack with a minimum capacity of 159 kWh with a maximum size potentially above 200 kWh. That would help give the RAM a target range potentially up to 500 miles. Ram hints that it’ll out-class at least its arch rival Ford F-150 Lightning (which tops out at 320 miles) and potentially the GMC Sierra EV (400 miles max range).
Here’s the Super Bowl ad where the drunk dad from “The Flight Attendant” makes fun of Ford for “premature electrification” and then goes on to hint, via unsubtle ribald humor, that you’ll actually be able tow things with the RAM 1500 REV without losing a huge amount of range.
Unsurprisingly, the RAM 1500 REV uses a front-mounted motor that seems to leave a lot of room for a frunk and combines that with a rear motor to create an AWD truck (there’s also a big 4×4 badge on the back, which is a pretty good clue). It’s possible that RAM also offers a RWD-only, long-range model. Again, so far the brand hasn’t revealed much about the vehicle.
How The Ram 1500 Looks
If you forget the fantastic Ram 1500 Revolution concept, I think the production Ram 1500 REV is exactly what I’d expect and seems to take a lot from the F-150 playbook, which subtly altered the basic formula to create something notable but not too notable. Unfortunately, we loved the concept, and so this is a bit of a disappointment relative to that. Let’s just say that Adrian had some thoughts this morning when he saw the actual reveal.
Here’s the concept:
Here’s the production version:
Let’s focus on the obvious things first: They definitely kept the concept of the front grille with the light-up logo that seems like one unit.
Ram is also doing the thing that all EV truckmakers are doing which is to make the taillights bigger, as if more taillight indicates more electricity? It’s a weird, car-fins-getting-bigger moment in car design but we love taillights here so I guess no complaints.
There are no interior shots of the new Ram and I seriously doubt it’ll carry over the third-row feature of the concept, but I suspect we’ll get a big, juicy frunk similar to what we saw in the concept:
Here’s a photo of the RAM 1500 Revolution’s concept dashboard:
I do not think we’re going to get most of that, but assume some heavily toned-down version of it will end up on the production model.
In the rear you can clearly see the 4×4 badge as well as the outline of the RAMBOX, which is nice I suppose.
Overall Initial Thoughts
To say that this was a disappointment would be an understatement on the level of saying the film “Foodfight!“ was slightly underbaked. But Ram hasn’t told us anything about range, capabilities, it hasn’t show the interior or any of the toys.
We’ve got a truck that looks fine, I guess, but is many orders of magnitude less interesting than the concept. And we’ve got a bunch of thinly veiled dick jokes. It’s not my job to make decisions for car companies, but why even show the concept if the truck is going to be so plain?
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The 2022 Ford Lightning Is Just A Standard F-150 With An Electric Powertrain And That’s Why It’s Going To Change The World
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The Rivian R1T Outperformed America’s Best-Selling Trucks In Crash Tests Because Of Its Headlights
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This Is The New GMC Sierra EV, Which Will Start Around $50,000 After Launching As A $108,000 Pickup With Over 750 HP, 400 Miles Of Range, And A Midgate
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Tesla’s Claim That The Cybertruck Can Pull “Near Infinite Mass” Is Hilarious Bullshit
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The Ram 1500 Revolution Is A Three-Row EV Wondertruck For The Future
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Photos: RAM, Munro & Associates
“why even show the concept if the truck is going to be so plain?”
Umm, Premature eTruckulation?
I know it is unrealistic, but would have been nice to see the three-row with a minimal or nonexistent frunk. That would differentiate them from their competitors without making the vehicle overly long. And it’s not taking something away from the normal pickup if you manage the same bed length and no frunk. And you still get more interior space.
The rest of the move away from the concept makes perfect sense. They took the familiar pickup and went electric. I see their bed side storage and all that still there. It works.
That said, if they hit that 500 mile range, they’ll probably sell a ton of these. That’s a number people are going to feel better about. Though I wonder about charging speed, highway range, and the like. But numbers sell, and 500 is a good number of miles, efficiency be damned. They were slow to announce and decided to beat the competition on the metric that matters to the most people. It’s the smart move.
We definitely need more cab over and cab forward vehicles in the US, and with a 3 seat front bench seat I wouldn’t need more than 1 row but I could understand why others would, which is why we need pickups to be BOF to allow for more than one bed and cab configuration.
Wow. This is the first time I actually agree with pretty much everything you say. I feel like I need to buy you a beer or something. Great article. ????
Now about that BMW…
Yeah. That was a good choice too.
Those question marks are supposed to be a thumbs up emoji.
What is the purpose of the full-width vent under the grill? I can’t unsee it now and it looks like a neck beard.
Another crew cab, short bed, plus sized pickup?
How Brave!
Great I guess? Another $100,000 truck that wont be available in any volume for 6 years? Not sure why every EV truck needs to be “halo class” You could probably make 3 EV mid-sized trucks with the massive battery packs they are throwing into some of these. Just put a bed on the back of a Bolt already!
There’s no footprint rule for BEVs so there’s no reason why they can’t make smaller BEV Trucks. This is just a way to save some costs, that being said I agree that it’ll probably be overpriced and made in low volume.
If these companies really want to reduce pollution the key is volume. For every 1 F150 Lightning BEV Ford makes they could make at minimum 86 battery packs for their Maverick Hybrids and Ford currently can only make 35% of the order for the Maverick Hybrid currently. 86 People driving Maverick hybrids has a greater effect on reducing exhaust pollution than 1 rich guy driving a 5 Seat crew cab short bed F150 Lightning (the only configuration available for the F150 Lightning).
Same logic applies to making BEV Pickups and BEV Pickup Trucks. With the Ram 1500 REV you can make almost 4 40kWh battery packs at the minimum for every 1 Ram 1500 REV. The Nissan leaf can get 149 miles of range with a 40kWh pack and that’s with passive cooling for the battery (which is terrible for performance). With active battery cooling even with the aerodynamic losses from going with a pickup configuration Ram could easily make 4 small BEV Trucks that go just as far as the Leaf with less than 40kWh.
Keep the price low, and make enough of them and they’d sell like hotcakes, worst case if somehow no civilians wanted them then auto parts stores would buy them enmasse to replace their tired fleets of (actually small) Ford Ranger Pickups. They’re already doing so with the Maverick Hybrid, and a BEV should be much more practical for their use case since it’s mostly maintenance free.
The key is bringing back the Body on Frame configuration and having the cab and the bed separate. Most businesses don’t need crew cab pickups and honestly don’t want them. I guarantee that all the auto parts stores buying Maverick Hybrids right now would buy 2 door long bed ones if they could, but since Ford decided to go with a unibody design it is extremely unlikely there will ever be a 2 door variant so the companies are buying the fuel efficient small pickup while they still can.
I can’t wait for an edit button -_-
Crew cab, short bed pickups are the hotness in the market right now and those buyers are accustomed to seeing $100,000 price tags. Let them foot the bill and be the beta testers. Short cab, long beds will come soon enough.
That commercial is the best part of the whole thing. Even my wife enjoyed it… which I’m not sure how to take.
The only really weird thing is that the actual truck came out so soon after the concept. I guess they want to start the pre-ordering process, and perhaps people are less likely to drop $100 on the promise of a concept.
If we look at all the concept to reality transitions, this is exactly how it’s done most of the time. Definitely if you’re Subaru.
It looks like yet another EV truck that’ll drive the Cybertruck towards complete failure too.
It’s possible that RAM also offers a RWD-only, long-range model.
This won’t be intentionally long-range; Ram’s core market is work/fleet trucks. The RWD-only version will be the Tradesman equivalent. (The current HFE version is only available as a 4×2 with the 3.6 eTorque in black or white.) Which is the cheapest Ram 1500 you can get – starts more than $5k less than any other model.
Eliminating the front motor would be a cost-reducing measure to get to there.
Those tail lights, jesus, and I thought the foot high chrome ‘RAM’ badging was bad. They need to fire everyone in the styling department and start over. Seriously. And collision – they can’t even manage to stock the current LED taillight assemblies! Took my neighbor over 5 months to get those for a repair. And it ain’t like Rams are uncommon or the styling changes often.
And forget the headlights. Your brand new RAM REV is going to end up totaled out the second you hit a deer. That’s easily $6k+ to replace one side’s lighting. And they haven’t even shown us the LED foglights which are gonna be another $1.5k+ each.
We won’t even dignify that ‘dash’ with a comment beyond “lolno.”
Lordstown it’s delivering trucks already.
https://electrek.co/2022/11/29/first-batch-of-lordstown-endurance-ev-pickups-out-for-delivery/
I agree with others that showing the concept and this pre-production version a month apart was bizarre. The commercial shows the pre-production interior near the end, and it’s a 5th gen interior with an extra screen over the upper glove box, as well as a slightly revised center infotainment center. The interior is pretty great in the RAM (it’s the reason I bought a 2021 after owning only GM products for the past 20 years or so), but it’s also going to be almost 6 years old by the time this comes out in late 2024, probably as a 2025 model.
The real selling point for the REV for me will be if they have a range extender option. So far, they are still talking about including it. As someone who has owned a Volt and also uses their truck to tow a camper, I’m not buying an EV Truck without a range extender. At least not until charging infrastructure is better. I just want something I can commute to work in on EV and then can tow my camper with, without having to worry about charging infrastructure. I go to a lot of places with my camper that don’t have a lot of opportunity for charging (like the UP of Michigan). I hope they remove some battery capacity when you get the range extending option too, so that the weights and payload are similar. I only need 50-80 miles of all electric range for commuting if they can give me a range extender and a decent size gas tank
It will absolutely have a range extender, that was the whole point of the SB ad. What do you think REV stands for?!?! Range Extender Vehicle.
Car companies really seem to miss the effects of showing way out, fantastic, creative concepts, and then delivering the real product that has none of the sizzle. If you hadn’t seen the concept, the new Ram 1500 would be fine.
But, as it is now, there is a sense of being led astray by an outrageous concept, then being offered an essentially conventional looking truck. I seem to remember someone writing about how the essentially normal Ford is the way forward. But now, after seeing the concept, the real deal disappoints.
I’m not a truck guy, so my opinion is meaningless, really.
Do carry on
It used to be car companies would show us a fantastic concept, then build a Dullmobile BUT with the knobs off the radio. Now we don’t even get the knobs with all the controls going to the touch screen.
Buick owners are use to this with every “Wildcat” concept ever made.
This looks like more or less what the people are buying now to deliver kids to school or commute to work. Makes sense to keep that part of the winning formula and electric also makes sense for that application. So I see this all as good.
If you haven’t watched Jason Jones in “The Detour” you’ve missed out.
Do I see a slight move towards a smaller nose? Or are we calling that the glans these days? Not sure. Anyhow, to this non-pickup-driving normie, any emsmallening of the proud front end, we could almost call it the man-hood? comes as a relief. Could the cosplay Kenworth big-boy truck situation be softening?
For REALS. I like that this and the F-150 Lightning are using electrification as an excuse to clean up the front end. I hate hate hate the wall-o-chrome design trucks have gotten as of late. It’s dumb and makes seeing in front of you a total nightmare. Truly fashion over function—the ultimate sin in my books.
Thanks Stef. Looking again, it still has a dang hood bulge.
Baby steps, man. Baby steps. They’ve gotta wean the truck bros off of it gently, haha.
Yeah I’m gonna have to disagree here. I thought the concept was absolutely ridiculous looking inside and out and just swung for the fences with little or no direction. To echo my friend v10omous, we have enough “more is more” looking EVs as is. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, especially when lots of us (myself included) are interested in EVs that more or less look, feel, and operate like normal ICE vehicles.
IMHO this is the best looking of the American electric trucks so far. I think the Lightning is a little too all over the place with how it haphazardly throws EV differentiators onto a normal F150 and the Silverado looks like an unlicensed truck from a video game set 20 years in the future. There’s enough here that you can differentiate it from a normal RAMs but it still looks timeless and carries on the design cues that make their other trucks attractive.
If it’s actually going to have 500 miles of range and be able to tow for a substantial distance they have a winner on their hands. I’ve often been critical of Stellantis (who hasn’t?) but their slow and steady approach to electrification may serve them well in the long run. While Ford was first to get an EV truck on lots, this looks like a much more finished product. I’m excited to see what the battery technology gets passed along to. A fully electric BOF Jeep or even an EV Charger/300 type sedan would be really cool.
Not only was the concept ridiculous looking but it was ridiculous practically as well.
Stellantis: ‘Lets Take an already oversized pickup and give it the longest traditionally opening doors ever put on an automobile so that if you’re in a parking space with two empty parking spaced on either side they’ll still door ding people!’
I agree about a BEV BOF Jeep. The original Jeep Magneto concept was great and it should have gone into production because it was basically a factory BEV swap, it should have been cheap and easy to bring to production. Instead they blew ~$800K on a one off Magneto concept with custom everything including a custom length frame and then announced 3 separate unibody 4 door independent suspension all around having BEVs with Jeep badges and fake Jeep grills slapped onto them as the first mass production civilian available “Jeeps”. If Jeep did a BEV conversion of a bunch of Suzuki Jimnys, stuck Jeep badges on them, and sold them in the US they’d be more of a Jeep than ANY of the BEVs that Stellatis is slapping Jeep badges and fake Jeep grills on.
Any thoughts on whether this platform or the same battery-between-the-frame-rails concept could be used a future full-electric wrangler?
Let’s see:
Ford
GM
Hummer
RAM
VW
Toyota* (in a year or two)
Rivian
Tesla* (someday)
Lordstown* (someday after the Sun in our solar system dies)
And three or four even less likely from startups.
Exactly how big do they think the market for EV pickup trucks is ?
Trucks are some of the best selling vehicles in the American market so it makes sense to go after this sector rather than, say…try to make an EV wagon or something.
I’m thinking the same.Trucks are a massive market,but the vast majority of buyers fit in one or more of the following categories: Affordable,dont beleive in climate change,traditional,want to be able to fix it themselves,need the range, etc
I definitely think there’s money to be made on the 3-row pickup truck form factor. It seems so obvious now. But did anybody REALLY think Stellantis had the money to develop that concept into a production vehicle?
FCAtlantis made €15.3 billion in profits in 2021 on revenue of €152.1 billion.
So, yes. They do have the money.
Wow. Usually delivering a disappointing production version of a vehicle after a stunning concept, is GM’s move.
Nah, GM’s move is building a stunning concept that everyone is chomping at the bit to buy. And then saying “nah, fuck that, here’s some completely unrelated shitbox nobody wants.”
The year of the El Miraj concept, the only reason I went to the Chicago Auto Show that year, was to see that thing in person. The ONLY reason. It was worth it.
I live in an apartment, and if I buy real estate it will be of the pay-others-for-maintenance type, so basically a condo, which is a glorified apartment. Not sure condo garages are yet wired for charging EVs, so I rarely comment on EV articles.
That said, the ad pics here remind me of car commercials in general. They always present their vehicles in front of Stunning! Architecture! or on wide open scenic spaces with no other traffic or obstructions around.
Watch the Superb Owl and take a drink for every car ad you see with a skyline, cable-stayed bridge, or gorgeous coastline in the background. Two drinks for a wide open empty inner city street.
Right? I always found the GMC commercial where a husband buys himself and his wife trucks for Christmas in front of a 3-4 million dollar glass palace to be hilarious. I…don’t think many folks at that type of income level are rushing to by body on frame trucks, but then again putting two attractive people and the trucks in front of a mansion is easier on the eyes than showing the real world situation of a guy who makes 50k a year rushing to sign up for a 10 year loan at 11% APR to drive a Sierra to the mall and back…
It’s been done, and, with fantastic cinematography and at the cost of two Super Bowl minutes, got great buzz. Too bad the car sucked so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eno1MOmPZE
I bet that ad sold a few of those things. Eminen famously won’t film anywhere but Detroit.
I also bet it did. They tried it a year later with Clint Eastwood and “Halftime In America,” but it didn’t work for me.
I know. I just watched that ad again and I want to drive a Chrysler right now for some reason.
Announcing these a month apart is so bizarre.
I have to disagree here. I think it looks great because I want these electric trucks to look normal. Personally, I want them to look identical to the ICE models and this is pretty close. Ford and RAM seem to get it. The GM models don’t do it for me.
I was looking at hybrids for a while, and the industry still has vestiges of the “they should look a little quirky” phase. The Toyotas I’d looked at seem normal, at least, but prices scared me away.
Make your regular models, and badge ’em for the differences. We’ll know.
This take is bizarre.
The concept was a concept, and incredibly impractical. It was gigangtic even by dually truck standards. The actual truck looks like something that anyone in the Midwest would drive.
Also, the target demographic for ram trucks and the Superbowl loves dick jokes.
They are trying to avoid fighting a culture war with their American truck buyers. They know how to sell trucks. Let them do it.
Al
This is a totally fair take. I think in absence of the concept it’s good and probably sells more trucks. But… I would have liked to have seen a bit more fun.
Yeah, the concept went Too Hard for me, TBH. Lots of neat features, sure, but that short, sexy greenhouse looked like a visibility nightmare. The overall vibe was too Nü-Hummer for me and if you’re electrifying your bread-and-butter volume truck, you’ve gotta focus on function over fashion.
I like that this is a pretty normal but less absurd looking truck. Like the electric F-150, it’s a nice step back from too much chrome and too much grille towards a cleaner, sleeker pickup design.
This. The concept is clearly not even close to production-ready so the real truck was never going to do any more than take a few design cues from it.
I also find it rather hypocritical to complain about dick jokes on a site that until very recently ran a poop joke article daily. Plus, given the target demographic of Super Bowl ads, spoofing an ED commercial probably isn’t the worst idea in the world. I don’t know how it went over with that crowd, but give them a little credit for knowing their audience.
Kids: We want that hot concept from CES
Ram: We have that at home
The truck they have at home:
Can’t wait for that new commenting system!
We have a commenting system at home.
So do I – my wife …
Nah, normalize EVs that don’t look weird. We’ve got plenty of those already.
Yeah, fair
I agree but at the same time we should make more cab forward and cab over BEVs. Driver’s visibility seems to be only getting worse with time and BEVs are the best option for making cars with better visibility since they don’t have a big engine up front and they don’t have to meet MPG and emissions requirements than require A pillars with massive sweep that create massive blindspots.
Honestly someone with an F-150 lightning needs to make a frunk lid out of lexan and let people drive it with the regular non see-through frunk lid then the lexan frunk lid. Even with that vehicle which is not optimized for driver visibility I bet the difference in driver visibility would be pretty obscene.
Front-end crash testing doesn’t favor cab-over trucks, unfortunately.
If Smart could pull it off any major automaker can pull it off.