Waiting often sucks because time is the one thing in life we can never get back. Think about how the internet’s responded to the Grand Theft Auto 6 delay for a recent example. However, sometimes waiting happens for a good reason. Ram’s Ramcharger range-extender hybrid has been delayed to early 2026, and before you get too disappointed, think of the positives.
See, the Ramcharger isn’t just a critical product for Stellantis, it’s critical for the entire concept of range-extender hybrids in America. Aside from the Chevrolet Volt which isn’t a true series hybrid because its gasoline engine can drive the wheels, we haven’t seen anything in this genre that isn’t a tiny hatchback or a low-volume luxury car (and even the Volt was a small car in a big-car market).
As a result, virtually nobody in North America knows what an Extended Range Electric Vehicle—commonly referred to as an EREV—is, and with Ram set to be the first with a mass-market EREV, it needs to be good. Stellantis knows exactly the sort of pressure it’s under, as seen by this statement:
Stellantis continues to reassess its product strategy in North America to align it with our competitive advantage with the Range Extended Ram and in light of slowing consumer demand for half-ton BEV pickups. Our plan ensures we are offering customers a range of trucks with flexible powertrain options that best meet their needs. We also are extending the quality validation period for the Range Extended Ram to support a successful launch and the highest build quality for segment exclusive REEV technology.
While “extending the quality validation period” may seem like Stellantis is having a more difficult time ironing out the Ramcharger than expected, isn’t a longer wait and more development better than a rushed launch? We’d all hate to be sold an unfinished car as a daily driver, and there has been a trend over the past decade or so of automakers rushing launches and compromising the reputation of vehicles.
Perhaps the most glaring example in recent years is the Toyota bZ4X, that brand’s first mass-market electric vehicle for North America. Right as everything was kicking off, Toyota had to issue a stop-sale on the model because wheel bolts were coming loose on media drives. That’s the sort of problem that should’ve been solved well before the model entered production, and one that’s particularly embarrassing to be in the public’s eye.
After a series of expensive buybacks and loaner car offerings, Toyota implemented a fix of new wheels and new wheel bolts that featured washers. While the problem has since been fixed, it’s a red mark on what was an incredibly important product for Toyota.
At the same time, Stellantis’ North American brands do have some history of launching certain products before the paint is dry, so to speak. Remember when the 2014 Jeep Cherokee was delayed at the last minute due to issues with the ZF 9HP automatic transmission, and once Jeep tended to the problems, the resulting transmission was still not sorted enough to avoid class-action lawsuits? How about the chronic pressure plate issues in 2018 to 2023 Wranglers that, in extreme cases, can result in hot metal going full Kool-Aid Man through the transmission housing itself?
We’re looking at an automaker that doesn’t have a perfect history of launch quality developing an absolutely critical vehicle. It should be able to take all the time in the world to get it right, and provided it does actually get the product right, the wait would be worth it. When 2026 rolls around, it’s reasonable to expect a finished product, one that’s fully functional and has the quality and durability needed to be an attractive choice.
Oh, and speaking of delays, the Ram REV electric pickup truck has been pushed down the road to 2027, which makes a lot of sense. Demand for pure battery electric pickup trucks still isn’t massive, so delaying a more niche product like that is an entirely reasonable decision. In the meantime, set a reminder in your calendar for early 2026, when we should know what the highly anticipated Ramcharger is really like.
[Ed Note: I’d just like to reiterate how important this launch is not just for Ram, but for the auto industry at large. This is the very first EREV offered in a high-volume car in America. This is effectively the market launch for a new technology, and one that has potential to become the standard. Or it could become a dud if automakers don’t launch it properly or price it too high. On that note: A Ram representative told me a few months back that the company was debating whether to price it lower or higher than the BEV, since it technically offers more capability. I think charging more for the EREV — a technology whose key benefits include the potential to be cheaper than a BEV — would be foolish.
Ram, please get this right. As someone who knows the joys of EREV technologies, I want my fellow Americans to experience the happiness that I do when I’m driving electric 99% of the time with a gas generator in my back pocket instead of an extra 50 kWh worth of heavy battery. -DT].
Top graphic credit: Ram
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Goes and buys f150 hybrid instead.
I did!
Fingers crossed…we’ll see if they pull it off. Stellantis is the last brand I want leading this new tech off the line but so it goes…
The series hybrid / rex/ erev makes sense for ram and the truck market as a whole. They have been plagued with problems with the wagoneer s and charger as well as the hurricane so maybe best to get those refined before sending to the masses. They probably should take a page out of gms book and do fleet testing to work out some of the kinks before sending them to dealer lots. The hurricane might not be the best choice as a rex either the 3.6 or the 2.4 could probably do it fine until there is something a bit more refined.
They announced some time ago it was going to get the 3.6 as it is short enough to house the generator between it and the firewall.
So the announced Jeep Wagoneer 4xe EREV (which shares a lot of tech) is also… delayed?
IMO, this market segment (full-size trucks and BOF SUVs) are perfectly suited for PHEV/EREV tech.
As much as I love this truck, there is no way I am buying a Stellantis product on the cutting edge of technology. Or if I’m being honest, any Stellantis product.
Signed, 2 times Chrysler Corp vehicle owner.
The ads aren’t intrusive enough yet?
I’d really like to see a Dakota EREV in a few years, so I want them to get this one right, sell a bunch, and expand the product line.
Ram’s Ramcharger Range-Extended Ram Charges’ Range Extended.
I’ve often seen the Volt’s ability to directly power the front wheels with the engine portrayed as a negative, and I’ve never really understood why. In certain operating conditions it is more efficient to directly power the front wheels with the engine. Shouldn’t that be the goal?
One reason is the extra weight and complexity of including both a transmission and generator attached to the ICE. A pure EREV only needs a generator bolted to the crankshaft, and simpler is lighter and is usually more reliable.
A second reason is if the ICE only needs to spin a generator, it can be designed using the Atkinson cycle for a narrow powerband, allowing it to be more efficient. However, I know Prius already uses Atkinson-cycle engines and they still drive the wheels, so this may not be as big a deal. But you might be able to get away with a smaller ICE if there is no need to drive wheels directly.
The Volt does not have a transmission. The direct to wheel connection happens through a clutch, which isn’t known for failure or complexity. It also runs the Atkinson cycle.
It’s not a negative, people just like to rant about things being ‘impure’ even if it gives you a better product. I’ll happily take the extra 10-20 highway miles per tank from the ‘impure’ EREV.
It offers a different benefit, but I do think it drops it out of erev and back into hybrid territory.
The major benefit in my eyes to a “pure” erev is packaging – you can stick the engine/generator wherever is easiest and the only connection needed is cables.
Series/parallel hybrids like the volt, Honda hybrids, and Toyota hybrids have to keep the crankshaft at least reasonably close and in line with the driven wheels/traction motor.
The Scout packaging, for example, isn’t possible with a series/parallel setup because you’d have to put the entire engine/traction motor into the solid axle which would never work.
On the Volt, due to it’s platform, the engine was always going to be front mounted and transverse. That’s just the reality of the price point it lived at-it was built off of an existing platform, using as many existing parts as possible. Even with the Ramcharger, a dedicated EV platform, the engine is still going to be in the same place, in the same orientation engines have always been in full size pickups. Even with todays battery technology, if Ram could find an easy way for the engine to drive the rear wheels, I’d bet they’d jump on it.
I’m also extremely skeptical about a lot of the things Scout is promising – the engine hanging off the back and the rear motor mounted to a solid axle being up there towards the top, along with the price. Even with current technology, placing an engine ‘anywhere’ only works if you can make the engine small enough to truly be a backup, and even Ram is betting that American consumers are too stupid for that. Unfortunately, I think they are right.
I think “Americans (or any other user) being too stupid for it” is exactly why it’s so critical to distinguish EREV’s that are purely series hybrid from PHEV’s (including the Volt) that have mechanical propulsion.
Even in Jay Leno’s video of the Scout he keeps saying “I like that you can just put gas in it and go if you want,” which is not the case at all if you want to have a usable vehicle.
We know Americans are terrible at charging PHEVs, but all that means is they lose some efficiency and performance. You can actually run a lot of PHEVs purely on gas all the time if you want; it’s just not that smart.
EREV’s, on the other hand, are a different ballgame. We need to have high consumer awareness that this is a product you need to charge just like an EV and only occasionally use gas as a backup. I think that’s one reason the i3 is often seen as a failure since if you never charge it it’s a terrible car.
Market it as an EV first and make it definitively clear that the gas generator will only extend the range but isn’t capable of being the primary energy source.
Yeah, GM, Honda and Nissan have all stated that a series hybrid is not as efficient as a mechanical connection. The mfgs claim 2-4% on the HWY from what I’ve read. One of the reasons to have that gas backup is long distances/road trips that often take place at higher speeds. That of course is why GM made the Volt able to drive the wheels mechanically and why the Honda Hybrid system only operates as a series part of the time and uses purely mechanically in other situations. A PHEV is also cheaper to produce and is more efficient to package.
It’s only more efficient to package if you can put the crankshaft in-line with the electric drivetrain like you can with a 4-cylinder engine and front wheel drive.
With the Ramcharger especially, not having a mechanical connection makes the overall package much sleeker since there’s no need for driveshafts from the front to the rear. The Scouts are an even better example in that there’s no way to mechanically connect the engine to the E-axle without either complex drive shafts or directly mounting the engine on the e-axle which is a non-starter.
The light duty hybrids can do it easily since you can easily package the crankshaft in-line with the drive axle and just add an additional input to the drive gear in the “transmission”. That’s just not feasible with these larger, RWD or 4WD vehicles.
It is absolutely possible with RWD or AWD. I’m not aware of any modern RWD vehicles or RWD based AWDs that have their crankshaft centerline inline with the axles. They are at 90 degrees for one thing. Which brings up the beauty of doing it like in those FWD vehicles you can use the same axles and in the case of AWD the same transfer case as used on a pure gas vehicle.
Before the world went crazy for EV all the things and Ford decided they had to build the LIghtning they had planned to make a PHEV F-150 using the same basic transmission as the standard Hybrid version, which uses the same basic transfer case and axles as the ICE version.
It would also work great with the Honda style direct drive Hybrid set up or even the Ford/Toyota planetary eCVT system.
The eAxle as planned for the Scout is just a bad design for a light truck EV.
Correct, it’s possible to connect a gas engine to the driven wheels, but when you already have motors capable of providing the needed power for driving then all of that stuff is redundant and inefficient.
The beauty of the Honda/Toyota PHEVs is that they add the engine, but don’t require separate drive shafts in addition to what’s already there for the EV drivetrain to run the gas parallel hybrid option. I do agree that’s an efficient design since you can drive the wheels via gas engine “for free” since everything is already there, you just have to be smart in packaging it.
It’s definitely possible to have both EV and gas systems, but the more complexity needed to do that the less efficient the whole thing becomes. That’s the promise of EREV’s – it’s better than a PHEV because you’re not carrying two redundant drivetrains around all the time.
You are not carrying around two redundant drive trains with a PHEV, since the final drive and power distribution are shared. With an EREV such as the proposed Ram you are carrying around two redundant power sources and the result is a vehicle that is less efficient when operating as a standard hybrid, takes up more space, requires more parts and is generally more expensive to produce.
“less efficient when operating as a standard hybrid” – sure, but that’s kind of the point. Many PHEVs prioritize hybrid operation at the expense of EV efficiency, even when 90% of vehicles mileage may be in EV mode. The ideal use case for an EREV is that the vast majority of miles are driven in EV mode, with only rare trips or use cases requiring the generator.
Both EREVs and PHEVs are carrying redundant power sources, and for a PHEV (capable of parallel hybrid operation), the drivetrain will be more complex than a comparable EV drivetrain with a motor/generator and no mechanical connection of the ICE generator to the wheels. The Hondas and Toyotas do a pretty good job minimizing this complexity and still maintaining parallel hybrid operation, but lots of PHEVS still have a full-on 8 speed transmission and drivetrain in addition to a medium sized battery and large electric motors.
Take your example of the F-150 PHEV concept that just plunks a battery and drive motor into the ICE drivetrain. Now, when you’re driving in EV mode (which will likely be something like 90% of miles driven) you’re suffering mechanical losses through the driveshafts and especially the differential, where power has to make a 90 deg turn. In addition, when running in EV mode you’re also propelling the weight of the gas engine and potentially transmission, which in this case will be larger to be able to propel the car in a depleted battery state. Overall, that decreases your miles/kwh for 90% of driving just for the sake of “having a backup”.
Now take that same F-150 and build it as the most efficient EV you can (no multispeed transmission, no 90deg gearing, electric motors directly in line with the driven wheels, etc). And then add a small ICE (that’s not capable of fully powering the vehicle) with a generator.
Now, for those 90% of miles driven in EV mode your miles/kwh go up since the drivetrain losses are minimized and the weight of the redundant power source has been reduced. Sure, in the 10% of miles driven using the range extender you’re getting fewer miles/gallon of gas, but that is made up over lifetime by the efficiency gains during the EV miles.
In theory, this can even be more efficient than a large pack EV, since carrying the extra weight of the pack also reduces your miles/kwh on all the drives where you didn’t need that excess capacity. If the range extender weighs less than the battery weight reduction for going from a 300mile+ pack to a 120-150mile pack, your miles/kwh go up.
For some cases, hybrid operation might be needed far more and therefore the hybrid mode efficiency is more critical. But for the vast majority of vehicles, we should prioritize EV efficiency and only provide enough of an ICE backup to extend the range to eliminate range anxiety for the less frequent long-range trips or towing (and without needing such a massive battery pack, either).
And I think this fundamental misunderstanding of phev vs erev is what could potentially kill erev technology, despite its promises. It’s only the best choice if a vast majority of your trips can be done in full ev mode and you charge it just like a long range ev, but you still need a car that can go 300-500 miles without stopping for a long charge.
If you only need short trips and never do long trips, get a short range ev. If you have to do a ton of long range or high output driving, get a hybrid or large pack EV. But if like most people you do a lot of sub 100 mile drives during the week then take road trips on the weekend and don’t want to stop for an hour to charge, an erev (if you charge it regularly) is the most efficient way to do that.
And because I’m comically committed to this at this point, I looked up the losses for the i3 rex as an example. That generator has a 94% efficiency, so 94% of the power generated by the engine is converted to electric. The inverter should be close to 97-99% efficient, so overall loses are pretty low. Couple that with the ability to vary engine rpm as needed rather than being directly linked to drive speed, and I’m actually not convinced a phev parallel hybrid mode will be more efficient than an erev generator, especially if you’re running the engine power through a drivetrain with multiple shafts and a 90deg direction change.
I guess I’ll reply to the last one in regards to all.
You are correct that stuffing a motor in a traditional umpteen speed trans mission is going to suffer those additional losses of the AT when operated in EV mode. I agree it is not the best solution, but counter with the fact that many of those types of PHEVs were rush jobs intended to jump through Euro or CA loopholes. However a system like Honda uses for their Hybrids would not have any additional losses in EV mode than a traditional EV since it doesn’t spin anything additional in EV mode. If you use the Ford/Toyota power split design there are some additional losses in the planetary gear set and planetaries aren’t the most efficient. The bonus is that with the addition of a sprag, like Toyota has done with some of their PHEVs you can have a drive system that can use both the starter generator and the traction motor to drive the vehicle in pure EV mode, so both can be smaller than those needed in an EREV. That leads to cost savings.
If we consider a RWD application a traditional drive shaft, operating at traditional angles has very low frictional losses. The axles in a traditional axle essentially have zero loss since the bearings that support it are already there as the wheel bearing and differential bearing. Meanwhile in the most common EV drive set up you have two half shafts that each have two points of friction in the CV joints vs two in a single piece drive shaft. An E-axle as is supposed to be used in the Scout will have the lowest frictional losses from the differential to wheel.
Yes as far as final drives go a hypoid drive is not as efficient as a spur gear, but that EV still has friction in the final drive reduction. That means a hypoid drive is an incremental increase in drag, not an entirely additional drag vs the final reduction in the traditional EV transaxle.
On the philosophical side I’d argue that if an EREV is capable of doing 90% of the miles it is simply the wrong tool for the job. In that case a pure EV with the same or slightly longer EV only range would be a better choice and to just suck it up and do the public charging once or twice a year.
The efficiency of material use is another factor in why a PHEV is a better option. To go from 40-50 mi range to something like the ~150 mi numbers I’ve heard for the comming EREVs you’l need 3x larger battery. So you could have 3 vehicles doing 50-60% or more of their miles on EV mode and that would result in less C02 ouput than one vehicle doing 90% EV and two vehicles doing 100 % ICE.
The other factor is what I call throwing good money after bad. For something like the Scout where and I’m assuming the Ram that was originally conceivied as an EV the range extender is the easy way to fix the EV demand problem and amortize some of the costs over a larger number of vehicles. However from the get go the EV required a lot of new design, development and tooling to produce that still isn’t shared with a high volume application in most cases. Meanwhile doing a PHEV allows you to use many items shared with both ICE and Hybrid vehicles.
Only time will tell but I expect that the Ramcharger will be less efficient at pure EV operation than the Lighting and less efficient at Hybrid operation than the F-150 Hybrid. Heck it may even struggle to beat the Penastar powered ICE version in hwy hybrid operation. The other thing is that I believe if the goal is to reduce CO2 emissions loosing some EV efficiency is a worth tradeoff for increasing hybrid efficiency. Heck on the best PHEVs they improve on the MPG of the Hybrid only version.
The other negatives of EREVs vs PHEVs are: That for the majority of most peoples daily trips you are still dragging around a lot more battery than is needed for the driving of the day. If the range extender is that lightly used it is likely that the system will be programed to run the engine just to use up the fuel to prevent it from going stale. It will also likely tell you that you’ll need an oil change at least once a year even though it only powered the vehicle for a thousand miles or two, so there is more waste than a PHEV that fires up and uses its engine more frequently.
Here is a good comparo between Hybrid, PHEV and EV where the Hybrid was designed from the start to be used in both standard Hybrid and PHEV applications. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=47220&id=46325&id=46517
For the Escape we know the total drag should be identical since the only change to the outside is a charge port door which shouldn’t affect aero. The other drag should be identical since all the spinny bits are shared other than the addition of an electric transmission fluid pump on the PHEV. Compared to the Mach E any differences in drag are unknown, but if anything I would suspect that aero of the Mach E to be better. So hard to pin down exactly the source(s) of the difference and their relative effects. The Escape definitely has some extra drag in the transaxle due to always spinning the planetary gear set and starter/generator any time the vehicle is in motion. The Mach E in standard range RWD version does carry an extra ~450 lbs comparing base models.
I don’t see us ever saying it’s a negative. We’re pro-Volt.
Nah, I didn’t mean that you guys specifically said it was a negative. Just your comment in the article “no true series hybrids” sparked memories of the BiG CoNtoVerSy back in the day of politicians screeching about the Volt just being a hybrid.
I do remember that felt like some kind of scandal expose. “THE VOLT ACTUALLY DOES POWER THE WHEELS!”
I think GM maybe should have been more upfront about that to begin with; was a bit of a marketing blunder.
But practically, I, too, see it as a good thing. The Volt’s downside, IMO, is its small battery and its less than optimal packaging.
Yeah, they pretty explicitly marketed it as “an EREV” which for all practical purposes, it really is, but still. People were unhappy about the bailouts around the time, so they were looking for something to complain about. I don’t really see the battery size as a negative, it really does cover a huge proportion of the US’s commute distance, and can be charged at home from a 110V outlet overnight. Packaging? I can buy that. The middle seat on my 2nd gen is hilariously useless. I don’t think even a kid could fit there. Doesn’t really matter up front, due to the t-shape of the cells, sort of feels like a transmission tunnel.
Just let me buy a BYD Shark, and RAM can delay to their heart’s content.
As someone with a deposit down on both this and the Scout and a former software testing engineer, I applaud longer QE times.
Plus, I can be less upside down on my current truck when I go to trade it in. That is terrible, I know, but I would hate to trade in on something with 50% more horsepower and torque, but have it spend 50% of its time in the shop.
Probably the biggest single problem with the BMW i3 — apart from the complete inability to babyproof the interior, obviously — is that the generator has to be able to keep up with the load.
For RAM, I agree this is crucial well beyond just Stellantis’s short-term success. If they can ensure the generator can handle 1:1 recharge while towing the max payload up a 6% grade at 60mph, then the mission is accomplished (at least for performance).
The other piece is seeing if they can make it at least as reliable as a normal Stellantis car, which might be tough.
No, you wouldn’t need 1:1 (as it completely defeats the purpose for a EREV)
Even if you consider the ASME torture test you still, eventually, need to come down the hill and will have regeneration braking (and much lower load).
You want enough capacity to give you the added range of a secondary power source.
This is akin to grid-storage for solar. You don’t need enough solar to handle peak load, you need enough solar to stretch your power out until the sun shines again or you can plug in to another source. Sizing for peak load, when you’ve a battery to stretch your gains, is entirely wasteful.
Makes sense, I can see where overbuilding it to that level isn’t going to really help. Maybe a real-world example like I-70 west of Denver under “normal conditions”
Just anything to avoid the i3’s dreaded “stuck on the side of the road because I gave it too much throttle” situation.
The main problem with the i3 was that California/BMW blocked people from turning the range extender on until it had low battery, not that the engine was dangerously small.
Spend $50 and 15 minutes of time to enable REx control (the way the i3 was designed to work in other markets), and you can do almost anything with the i3.
Charge up the battery, turn on the range extender, drive ~200 miles, recharge and refuel, repeat… and never any risk of insufficient power.
Don’t drive with a low battery. Turn on the engine early while you have tons of battery buffer. It’s not hard. And now you can actually have an optimized PHEV with two smaller drivetrains working together instead of two full, normal-sized drivetrains to protect idiots from themselves (See: Ram with a normal-sized Pentastar AND a battery almost as big as an F-150 Lightning).
Why in the hell did BMW do that with the i3? I can select gas power whenever I want with my Volt. And it’s a California emissions car. Also, if you have to plan around the battery like you described, it sort of sounds like they put too small of an engine in the car…
BMW did it because California created a counterproductive category called BEVx that gives you even more ZEV credits if your electric range exceeds your gas range, and you can’t turn the Range Extender on until the battery is almost dead.
So, BMW gave it a tiny gas tank (~2 gallons) and wouldn’t let you turn on “Hold Mode” or “Mountain Mode” manually. It would just turn on automatically at ~6% battery in the US market. In Europe, the REx could be manually turned on at 75% or less battery capacity.
The biggest problem was lack of control over the range extender, then gas tank size (IMO), and then engine power, which isn’t very helpful unless you fix the first two problems.
But with an OBD dongle and an app like Bimmercode, one could permanently enable the Euro controls in the menu which allow control of the REx, solving that problem easily (and in a factory-intended way). You could also unlock the SOFTWARE lock to the gas tank, increasing the size from 1.9 gal to 2.4 gal. Nothing to be done about power, but it really wasn’t a big deal with a little planning and understanding that it’s 34hp, so it’s not a standalone drivetrain.
That is extremely silly, but it’s California, so I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m not against planning either, for instance, in my Volt I like to plan around my EV range running out, so I can ensure the engine gets fully up to temp with the remainder of my drive. The flexibility of choosing what I want when I want it is pretty nice. I suppose the i3 just doesn’t really meet my needs, I bought a Volt specifically because 90% of my driving can easily be done on EV alone, but I live in an extremely rural area, and need to do 200-300 mile drives fairly regularly.
Yeah, the Volt is certainly more flexible and *almost* impossible to screw up with because its engine has so much more power.
The i3 made sense for some use cases, though, like people who wanted substantially more electric range daily (so they weren’t using gas every day), or people who really wanted to maximize electric usage vs gas, as it has more electric range and it can DCFC at 50kW vs Volts charging at 3 to 6kW.
Volt is a great option for lots of people.
I think RAM will “hide” a bunch of reserve capacity of the battery so that they can use it to protect people from themselves when they try to do something stupid, like show up at the bottom of a mountain pass with low battery.
It’s basically unavoidable that some idiot will do that and think they can drive 70mph up the mountain towing a 10k lb travel trailer shaped like a brick.
So, how does RAM avoid a viral story that they will get blamed for instead of the idiot owner? Huge reserve battery capacity (there’s like 60kWh usable and 92kWh total), plus allow the ~150hp Pentastar run in “you’re an idiot” mode at like 250hp if necessary.
The end result, though, is that they end up with a normal engine that comes in a RAM 1500 (Pentastar) and a battery almost as big as a standard range F-150 Lightning.
So, yeah, they almost defeat the purpose of an EREV to have almost two complete, normal-sized drivetrains instead of two smaller ones that work together as somewhat-better-than-normal drivetrain.
It’s exorbitant overkill except for the most extreme use cases because some idiot will do something OBVIOUSLY stupid and ruin it’s reputation (and the reputation of PHEV trucks in general) otherwise.
It sounds like Scout is going with a “tow” mode that will bias toward running the engine to maintain as high a battery charge as possible.
But even Jay Leno in his drive of the scout was like, “I like that I can just run it on gas if I want.” Which… Maybe, but you’ll have a bad time if you never charge it.
A lot of that depends on how the system is programmed. If it works like the i3 REX where the engine won’t fire up until the SOC is very low, then you won’t be able to get away with a smaller engine. However if there is a range extended mode that holds the battery at a higher SOC then yeah a smaller generator can give acceptable extended performance.
The only reason BMW did that was because they were able to qualify as a BEVx in California by having less gas range than electric range AND not allowing the REx to turn on until low SOC. I don’t think that will even be an option for the Scout (gas range will presumably be much greater than the electric range of the EREV version), so I’m sure they will be able to turn on the range extender early.
Yes but Chrysler will be Chrysler and they may not pick the correct minimum SOC for a range extension while towing at the max rated weight.
1:1 isn’t the move, having the genset kick in with sufficient battery left is the move.
Or, heaven forbid, you do what you’d do in an ICE truck with a climbing engine temp. Exert some goddamn restraint in your right foot for a few minutes to lighten the load.
Restraint doesn’t exist.
“Tha’ thang got’a HEMI?”
The only way to get “1:1” recharge at max output is to have a gas engine that offers as much power as the electric motors can output. In this case, there’s no way the pentastar they’ve mentioned will do that. But it’s also not supposed to.
The best case for erev towing is to have a fully charged battery, then run the gas engine the whole time you’re towing. That way, under heavy load you’re at least putting some range back in and your ev range is extended. Then when you’re on a flatter section where the vehicle load is lower than the gas output you can actually start charging. On average this might allow you to roll up to a gas station with relatively high charge left and keep going just by adding gas.
If you drain the battery *then* kick on the generator while towing at max, you’re screwed. You’re going to be limited to Max output of the engine minus generation losses, and you’ll basically have to limp it.
The biggest issue isn’t if ram can launch this right -it’s if they can teach drivers how to use it. If you want max output you *have to charge the battery*. The engine as generator will not be enough to propel this in any challenging conditions.
A simple answer might be to reduce the towing rating, but that would no doubt come out as a negative bullet point on reviews. Still, I bet if you really do some research you’d find that the vast majority of people rarely come close to towing at the limits of a modern 1/2 ton truck. Those that do are really better served by a big ICE or diesel engine.
Exactly. Realistically, I never tow over 7k lbs. I’d just like a 1/2 ton for the interior space it affords, as my wife and daughter are all legs and the seats go allll the way back. Makes a midsize a tight fit for long drives. If I could spend 90% of my time on electrons, I’d be ecstatic.
Based on the Jeep 4XE and Pacifica PHEV, they better take their time to have a successful launch.
Pricing wise it will be more expensive than a regular BEV, battery prices are coming down (before tariffs) and having a mix of ICE and BEV components, adds up very fast. 3 coolant lines (Engine + Battery + Electronics), gas tank, exhaust system, engine, whatever software is needed, etc.
On the editors note regarding pricing: call me old fashioned, but I really like things that are priced somewhat in relation to how much they actually cost to produce, rather than how much a room full of MBAs think they can extract from a customer based upon perceived value.
This is a complex, expensive product, not an airline seat.
Totally agree. Bring on the $22k Wranglers!! 🙂
/full disclosure: I have an MBA
I think this is probably complicated by the fact that EV pricing isn’t really related to cost in the same way that traditional vehicles are.
If EVs had to be sold profitably, they would cost even more than they do now.
So to steelman Chrysler’s argument, pricing of the EREV vs the EV does depend in some sense how they want to position them relative to each other in the market as much as the actual cost to produce, at least at first.
Every domestic brand would have gone out of business long ago if they couldn’t herd up and milk full-size truck buyers by dangling expensive option packages in front of them. But if it weren’t for the wealthy gullible people spending way too much to have “Platinum” stamped in big letters on their tailgates, entry-level trucks would cost significantly more to make up the difference.
I consider making massive profits on high-priced, low-value “luxury” models to be an actual positive since it generally strips money away from people who have too much of it in proportion to their intelligence.
If only those stripped funds were then distributed more equally to the workers who produced the product. Alas, instead the executive all give themselves big pay packages for excellent profit margin while harping on about how expensive labor is and how they need to bring it down.
True, but subsidising the price of the entry-level models is something anyone can take advantage of.
Maybe, but how many times have we heard the small, cheap car is dead because the profit margins aren’t good?
And they basically are. Without the $100k F150s the $45k F150s would be $55k. Companies are much more willing to manage profit margin variations within a model than across models since they share production lines, vendors, and development costs.
The low-priced cars like the Focus or Cruz died because they had no high-priced packages to subsidize them.
Ah, “the Volt isn’t a real EREV / series hybrid / etc” once more. We meet again, old friend.
As more eloquent autopians have mentioned before me, the ability to directly couple the engine to the drive wheels does not invalidate the car’s engineering focus as an extended range electric vehicle. Disabling this ability would add nothing of benefit to the car except perhaps freeing it from this old canard. (And not the wind buffeting canards GM added to the wing mirrors!)
I jumped straight to the comments to complain (again) about that, but I see I was beaten to the punch. 🙂
When one of us EREV pedants falls in battle, another marches forward to take their place. We’re like the Persian immortals but much more lame. 😉
Hahahahahahhaha.
Preach! The Volt was definitely an “EREV”, although it basically created the PHEV segment, other car makes muddied the waters with weak sauce plug-ins that were just regular hybrids with a bigger battery.
But the Volt was the OG EREV, predating the i3 which had a weak sauce range extender, the range extender in the Volt could power the car uphill both ways in the snow all by itself. /oldmanrant
All the Honda hybrids qualify as erevs under this definition, though. I would even say the light Toyota hybrids do, too. And I’m talking the small battery, non phev versions.
I’m not saying the focus wasn’t still on the “ev” half of phev, but the volt is still a parallel hybrid even if it runs in series hybrid most of the time.
I don’t agree, for two reasons:
A serial hybrid like the iMMD will be attempting to generate the power needed for the moment at the time it is needed, avoiding the loss of energy in storing and retrieving power from the battery. (I think diesel locomotives work this way as well?)
It seems to me than an EREV will end up having pretty poor fuel economy once the range extender fires up. Just too much power loss in conversion from engine power to electricity to battery to electricity to motor power.
Yes, I meant all current Honda hybrids. My point is that any hybrid that can operate in parallel operation should then still be classified as a hybrid, since you have the ability to provide motive power either by electric motor or by gas engine. There’s just a wide range of forms that can take, from small battery + larger engine like the Honda hybrids to big battery + small engine like the volt.
The i3, ramcharger, scouts, etc all have varying engine and battery sizes, too, but the point is they are *always* propelled by electric power, never the engine. It’s just a difference of whether the electricity comes from an outlet or is being actively generated by the engine generator.
Not that such a distinction makes the volt worse than the erev offerings, but the fact it can be propelled by either electric motor or gas engine moves it out of the erev category and into the hybrid category.
And to be fair, I’m pretty certain that the “flow of electricity” works the same for all of these options. There’s an inverter with three connections: battery, traction motor, and generator. If the generator power is needed immediately it doesn’t “flow through” the battery- it just goes straight from generator to traction motor without additional losses.
Yes, but it doesn’t eliminate the losses from turning mechanical energy into electrical energy, running it through the inverter and converting it back to mechanical energy.
It is rare for the problem to be minor and fixable in a product this complex if it is delaying a launch. The efforts to coordinate a delay are massive and can have a big impact on hundreds of contracts. Whatever the issue is, it must represent something significant.
PHEVs and EREVs are currently our best options for reducing emissions, so doing this well is important. But I also wouldn’t overstate it. Ideally, it would be a company other than Stellantis providing the first high-volume model. They have yet to launch a truly new model that has had even mild success outside of the basic Wrangler.
“Just put heavier weight oil in it.”
-GM to Stellantis, probably
I wonder how many TSBs were signed off with just adding heavier weight transmission oil by GM.
Yeah, I don’t think there is a domestic brand I would trust with much of anything.
The new funniest part of the whole L87 situation is that the owners that have put the thicker (more viscous? Idk this is where you start to lose me with the specifics and terminology) oil in them are now part of a class action lawsuit against GM for….wait for it….worse fuel economy.
That’s right. The people that willingly bought body on frame vehicles with all wheel drive and 6.2 liter small block V8s are furious that they’re not efficient enough. My brothers in Christ…the courts are not going to back you up on this.
You willingly signed up for low teens fuel economy. You can’t tell me that gas mileage was in the top 500 priorities of anyone who bought a truck with the L87. It’s bought almost entirely by people who want the biggest, baddest engine option.
This may be true, but the fuel economy tests of the L87 that I’ve seen show it
iswas significantly more efficient than the top tier engines from other manufacturers, which helped offset the requirement to run premium fuel in it.It’s a giant mess and as a new-ish owner of an L84 truck I’m sincerely hoping it doesn’t turn out to affect the 5.3 too. :-/
The L87’s actually get pretty good mileage. Better than the Ford 3.5L in real world use. I kick myself from time to time for not getting the 6.2L in my Silverado because the only downside is cost compared to the 5.3L.
Don’t worry kids. This is very important to Stellantis. They know their customers expect high quality. Much like was seen in 1970s Fiats.
Considering all the problems with the Jeep 4XE’s, and that I often felt like I was beta testing the thing for them, they should take as long as they need to get this right.
I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about the 4Xe products, which is a bummer because they’re a unique offering
The Wrangler always felt like cocaine — seemed like a great idea, but I had to stay away.
Then the 4xe epidemic took over. I’m pretty sure the CIA was behind it, they’re trying to financially and systematically ruin upper-middle class suburban white men.
lol that’s definitely it-the CIA and Big Estrogen were trying to emasculate suburban tacticool white dudes-as if ELECTRIFYING a Jeep wasn’t bad enough in the first place. Thank god Trump and RFK are here to restore our T levels with HEMIS!
I personally like the idea of an off roader/lifestyle vehicle that’s a little less environmentally destructive but that 4Xe powertrain was DOA. The range is blah and it’s not really any more efficient when operating as a hybrid…which is quite an uh, accomplishment from an engineering perspective.
If Toyota’s Prime vehicles get gas mileage that’s virtually the same as their traditional hybrids when operating as such it’s definitely doable. Hell my dad’s X5 50e averages nearly 40 MPG when everything is factored in.
Depending on the year, when operating in hybrid mode, the Escape PHEV is rated for 1 mpg more, combined, than the FWD Hybrid version. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=47220&id=46325
Meanwhile I don’t expect that the Ramcharger will do much if any better than the gas only Pentastar in hwy mpg, considering the conversion losses of a series hybrid and additional weight from having two, separate, full size power sources.
Agree all around that this has to be sorted out before it goes to market. Like, really well sorted.
This is the powertrain of the now for most people who don’t want to have a car that is limited to specific use, and of the intermediate future, and maybe the long term future for trucks.
No one really cares if its delayed some more. I don’t think there are millions of people putting off their truck purchase for this to come out. This is much more in the category of, “its also available with the EREV powertrain,” and if those models build grassroots cred (and really effective powertrain setups do tend to build cred among truck buyers!) then this becomes the new “must have” powertrain for a segment of one of the biggest segments for Stellantis.
But if it ends up having serious issues it’ll torch both RAM goodwill and EREV goodwill and make the whole thing a flop for, potentially, a long time.
Good call on delaying the BEV pickup – its the rare truck buyer who doesn’t want at least the future capability for hooking on a trailer and pulling it across the state when you find that once in a lifetime deal / you need to move / your friend needs a big favor, etc. etc.
As long as US environmental rules remain in the trash can, the Ram EREV will be delayed until we have to care about emissions rules again. Can we interest you in a Hemi instead?
We’ve got special financing too! Through the magic of our truck financing department this $77,000 RAM can be yours for only $999 a month! WOW!
“Welcome to our new F-You Freedom Purchase Plan: 96month lease, 5000 annual mileage, mandatory buyback, no warranty, and no support for transmission and/or head gasket issues. Please note that some added conditions apply that won’t be communicated”
Given Stellantis’ track record with electrified products they can take as much damn time as they need as far as I’m concerned