2025 Ram REV

[DrivingDan]

2025 Ram REV Just a Regular 1500 Truck With Electric Underpants

So the pre-production model is revealed. The rollout of this is really odd - first was an outlandish concept car that to my eye didn’t even look like a good concept (it looked like a mish mash of design ideas). Then a more typical looking which was going to be the production, then an actual pre-production announcement of a truck that is basically a reskinned RAM ICE. The specs are hard to swallow

• 500 mile max range
• 229 kWh battery
• 350 VDC DCFC
• Etc

Compare this to the Silverado EV with a 212 kWh battery and claimed 400 mile max range. So an extra 25 kWh gets you an extra 100 miles? Sorry ain’t gonna happen. Especially since GM has spent way more time and engineering on the Silverado then Stellantis on theirs, which appears to be a ‘oh crap we need an EV’ kind of moment. GM has stated they believe the Silverado has ‘best in class aero’. So what’s up?

Historically GM under promises and over delivers on range. The Bolt gets way more range than the sticker, as the TFL guys found recently when the Bolt beat out the Tesla in range on their test. My take is GM is understating and RAM is overstating their respective ranges. The Silverado will probably be more like 440-460 miles, and at best RAM will equal that. They just needed to say it will be 500 to be relevant.

And they still don’t have an architecture …

[radar]

I watched the video on YouTube. You made some interesting points re aerodynamics. Neither looks really aeroish but that can be deceiving. Should be interesting to see which one goes into production first.

Version 2 of the Ford Lightning is coming as well and it’s expected to have a 400 mile plus option. The next few years are going to see a whole new kind of truck battle.

[DrivingDan]

Originally Posted by radar

Neither looks really aeroish but that can be deceiving. Should be interesting to see which one goes into production first.

Yeah it has to be a truck and look like a truck, and has to have a massive frunk so you’re going to lose a lot of aero. But GM said “best in class” so is comparing to like trucks. Not enough shots to clearly see the telltails on the RAM yet, but I’ll note while the Silverado has front vents for front wheel air curtains the RAM does not, the RAM has that bed to body distruption hangover which will lose efficiency, and it lacks the ‘wings’ (for lack of a better term) on the front bed to body of the Silverado. People always compare to the Avalanche yet nobody seems to have clued into the fact that what they’re doing is creating tapered wings to help the laminar flow over the bed. Cars normally create a drag inducing suckout behind so tapering helps you reattach the air curtains back together.

One similarity is that the RAM front looks a lot like the Silverado to my eye, they appear to have a similar bull nose, where as the Lightning went for a regular F150 squarish front. I make no secret that I think GM’s got the winning architecture and forumla for the best EV’s, their engineering is top drawer and I’m really hoping they can start delivering batteries in volume soon.

Version 2 of the Ford Lightning is coming as well and it’s expected to have a 400 mile plus option. The next few years are going to see a whole new kind of truck battle.

Yeah not surprising, with todays chemistries I expect they’ll all max out around 200kWh/400 miles. GM’s last roadmap is for a 550-600 mile battery with the next generation chemistry they’ve got, in 2025, but I expect that’ll be pushed to ‘26 or something given the difficulty they’re having booting this all up.

[radar]

They are keeping the battery architecture kinda quiet but the trend seems to be 800 volt ish architecture in order to take advantage of the various charge companies 350 kw charge rates. Apparently the cyber truck has gone this route as well which apparently matches up with the new V4 350 kw superchargers. I think that will be the mainstream going forward, or at least for EV trucks.

Lots of gadgety stuff on the Ram. I’m sure it will be trim level dependant. From what I gather it will continue to be called a half ton although it’s definitely knocking on 3/4 ton territory with those numbers. It will be a heavy beast.

[DrivingDan]

Originally Posted by radar

They are keeping the battery architecture kinda quiet but the trend seems to be 800 volt ish architecture in order to take advantage of the various charge companies 350 kw charge rates.

Yah that’s the new hotness, done via two packs stacked with a transfer switch for parallel (drive) or series (charge) connection, each pack at 400VDC

Lots of gadgety stuff on the Ram. I’m sure it will be trim level dependant. From what I gather it will continue to be called a half ton although it’s definitely knocking on 3/4 ton territory with those numbers. It will be a heavy beast.

Yeah more specs I have a hard time believing, 2700 lbs hauling? The Silverado is a monster at 9k lbs with 1.3k hauling. The biggest frunk of them all? I mean it’s like they took every spec and pushed them to 11. I’ll love seeing around 3k hauling with an 500 mile EV, but the battery weight will have to come down, it seems to me.

Well 2025 they’ll be the last out of the gate and maybe they’re hoping things will have advanced by then to support all this, but the problem with that is that to go into production then they’d need to have this tech now. We’ll see, I’ve heard an advantage of RAM is they’ve been doing better interiors, but seems like the others have caught up. The GM refresh on their ICE trucks recently is a big jump and looks good.

[radar]

Originally Posted by DrivingDan

Yah that’s the new hotness, done via two packs stacked with a transfer switch for parallel (drive) or series (charge) connection, each pack at 400VDC



Yeah more specs I have a hard time believing, 2700 lbs hauling? The Silverado is a monster at 9k lbs with 1.3k hauling. The biggest frunk of them all? I mean it’s like they took every spec and pushed them to 11. I’ll love seeing around 3k hauling with an 500 mile EV, but the battery weight will have to come down, it seems to me.

Well 2025 they’ll be the last out of the gate and maybe they’re hoping things will have advanced by then to support all this, but the problem with that is that to go into production then they’d need to have this tech now. We’ll see, I’ve heard an advantage of RAM is they’ve been doing better interiors, but seems like the others have caught up. The GM refresh on their ICE trucks recently is a big jump and looks good.

The other thing that will (hopefully) improve between now and then (2025) is the charging infrastructure with 350 kw stations. They really are still kinda rare. We can’t use them on our car but with only an 83 kWh battery 250 kw is fine. But a 200 kWh battery on a 50 or 100 or even 150 kw station will take awhile and really most of the non tesla stations are one of those three numbers. Charge companies need to start concentrating on stations with higher charge rates or these big battery beasts will be charging for awhile. Infrastructure takes time.

Tesla says they will open up 10 percent of their stations to other brands by end 2024, but most of them are 250 kw units except for the new V4 350 kw stations. And I doubt they’ll open up their busiest stations for obvious reasons.

Lots of speculation on my part. Who knows how it will play out.

Cheers.