Is the new Ramcharger the perfect pickup truck to tow a travel trailer? That’s a question I hope to have some answers to and I took a look into this new offering from Stellantis, which was Chrysler, Daimler-Chrysler and who knows what other brands along the way. But first, what is the new Ram Ramcharger? 

Check out the live video we did with Mike Sokol

But here’s something else. Unlike any internal combustion engine, an electric motor can provide all of its torque from start. Piston engines take some time to get to their peak torque numbers and that torque range is only good within a certain engine speed. These electric drive motors are good for all that torque all the time. Period. 

That’s one of the reasons that, when you see a diesel locomotive, the actual motivation comes from electric motors that drive the wheels. That big diesel engine is just there as a large generator. 

And that’s kind of how this new Ramcharger works. It’s like a take home version of a railroad locomotive. With a nice interior. 

Essentially all that Pentastar V6 does is charge up the battery which then powers those two electric motors. The gasoline V6 isn’t actually connected to the electric motors mechanically. It’s a generator. A pretty substantial one as generators go. 

It’s a generator

What you have here is a generator that’s probably larger than any portable generator you’ve considered hauling around. That means that you get all the benefits of having a large electric generator on board to power stuff. 

Of course one of the things you can charge up is the truck’s battery so that you go places. 

But you can also do other things with all that generator capability. For example you can tap into the power outlets that are in the bed of the truck and get up to 7.2Kw of power. That’s enough to potentially power your house.

That’s enough to help out a poor friend who has completely exhausted the battery on their Ford Lightning truck. You could sit there and recharge that other truck’s battery. And you might sneak in a snide comment or two while doing so. 

As a tow vehicle

But what really intrigues me about this is that you have a fairly large battery pack and also a large electric generator and some serious towing/hauling capability so this might be the perfect vehicle for towing many travel trailers. 

If you’re boondocking you have a huge battery reserve and even a giant generator to power your trailer. This could easily run even two RV air conditioners and just about anything else you might need even in 50 amp RV. 

The nice thing is that, even if you camp where there are timed generator bans such as overnight, you can still use this as it’s nothing more than a large battery. That would be no different than having the mother of all RV lithium systems aboard. 

But if you have one of these you could probably get away with a very inexpensive battery system aboard your travel trailer because you’re towing with a giant generator. 

Since we tend to camp where Mother Nature shows her stuff you might also appreciate the fact that a modern passenger vehicle engine, like the Pentastar engine, has modern vehicle emissions systems. Even when running with a strong load this engine is going to produce fewer emissions than even your small portable generator, which has no emissions systems. 

Obviously I haven’t seen this truck in person yet but I would imagine that the Pentastar engine, even in a generator mode, is probably also much quieter than your portable pull-start generator. Oh, and you’re already maintaining the vehicle engine so you don’t have to worry about maintaining a separate portable generator. Win. 

Check out our RV towing resource center here.

Pulling your trailer there

Stellantis claims that this truck can haul 2,625 pounds of cargo and is able to tow 14,000 pounds. That’s pretty close to the specifications on my own Ram 2500 truck and I don’t doubt that it’s real. 

I would suspect that the combination of everything you’ve already had in a pickup truck along with this much battery is going to result in a relatively heavy vehicle. I wouldn’t be surprised if this weighs as much, or even more than, a current 3/4 ton Ram pickup. 

One of the advantages of a 3/4 ton truck is that it’s just a beefier machine and better able to control a trailer. While Stellantis is claiming this to be a 1500-series truck it’s really more in the league of the 2500 in many ways. 

Built like a truck

This truck is to be built on a new STLA frame which is a body-on-frame design much like what we’ve come to expect from domestic full-sized pickups. The frame is uniquely shaped to accommodate the battery pack so it gets wider in the center, kind of like I do. 

But something that’s surprising is that this features a four wheel fully independent suspension. This isn’t unusual for any passenger car and even many SUVs feature fully independent suspension but, thus far, no real pickup truck does. 

And those of you with Honda Ridgelines who want to say yours is a real pickup truck, it’s not. 

Another thing this truck incorporates is an air suspension system. This isn’t a really new feature for Ram trucks as you can get one now. I don’t know how similar the present-day suspension is to the one that will be here, but let’s project a bit. 

The present suspension offers five ride heights ranging from a setting that provides very good ground clearance to a setting that lowers the truck to make it easier to get into and out of. This system also automatically detects whether you’re towing and sets the suspension to what is referred to as normal ride height. 

It can also adjust the suspension at highway speeds to provide slightly better aerodynamics which is a nice feature. Another thing this truck can do to improve efficiency is to shut off the front drive motor. This reduces demand on the highway where it just takes less power to move any vehicle along. 

But here’s something that may be possible. You can get a truck with comparable towing and cargo carrying capacity now like my own Ram 2500. But it’s going to ride like a truck. I betcha that this suspension will uniquely combine a comfortable ride with the capability that we already looked at and that, too, will be game changing. 

Honestly I love driving my present Ram 2500 around just for the truck-ness of it. But it is not a comfortable ride so, even though it’s my daily driver, it’s also very much a truck. I suspect that this new Ramcharger is going to be both capable and comfortable. 

How it’s different than the Ford F150 with Pro Power Onboard

You might say that this truck is comparable to the Ford F150 with Pro Power Onboard and, yes, it does offer somewhat similar features. 

Like that truck this one has a very capable way of tapping into the tremendous power reserves on board through outlets in the truck bed. 

But this truck has a 92 kWh battery on board compared to the Ford’s 1.5 kWh battery. According to Stellantis’ estimates you can shuttle around in this truck on just electric power for about 135 miles. 

Further, the Ford uses a very complicated system to mate the on-board gasoline engine and driveline through a ten-speed automatic transmission which also incorporates an electric drive motor. The Ramcharger solution is just copy what a locomotive does. Electric drive motors and a big generator on board. Easy. 

Another huge advantage to the engine not being tied to the driveline is that Ram can operate the engine specifically to maximize fuel efficiency, or maximize power delivery. They can program it so that, in start-up mode, it minimizes emissions. And, from a mechanical standpoint, it’s just simpler this way. 

Unlike the traditional way of utilizing an engine where you have to accommodate the engine’s strengths and weaknesses across its operating speed, the way it’s done here you can maximize performance or emissions based on demand of the vehicle and driving situation. This solution completely eliminates the inherent weaknesses in engine performance inherent in any internal combustion engine. 

Again, there’s a reason railroad locomotives have been operating this way since the 1930s. 

How would you drive this?

So here’s a use case and this is my own life. I have put over 12,000 miles on my travel trailer thus far in 2023 and I’m not done yet. If I had one of these trucks, I would just tow the trailer around like I normally do. 

But when I’m not towing I now have a fully electric vehicle to drive around the city with. When I’m not towing I rarely drive anywhere even close to 135 miles so now I have an EV. One with a cushy air suspension and a pickup bed if I go to the hardware store. 

In essence I have a vehicle that perfectly satisfies two very different use case scenarios in one package. 

Further, should the power go out in my house, I have a big generator that can easily run the whole darned house, no questions asked. 

And all this is a very comfortable package that can zip from 0-60 in a claimed 4.4 seconds. So I guess I have a hot rod, too. Three vehicles in one. 

Ram has absolutely established benchmarks for its interior and this one was shown with a very large center screen in the instrument panel along with a second screen for the navigator. They also announced a new Tungsten interior trim which is has all the bells and whistles but there was also word that they would continue offering the Tradesman trim level which is the base model. 

Electric trucks aren’t ready for today. Yet. 

I think that a lot of people could absolutely benefit from an EV. Honestly few people drive more than the range of any modern EV and an EV makes so much sense from the standpoint of reliability and serviceability. 

Yeah, yeah, there have been EV fires but there have been engine fires in vehicles since there were vehicles. Of course engine fires aren’t quite as challenging but EV fires aren’t as frequent simply because of the controls in a modern EV. The batteries are temperature-controlled and very well designed despite what your goofy friend says. 

You naturally see EV fires on social media because people are afraid of new tech and, yes, there are some challenges. But we’ve become so accustomed to engine fires in traditional vehicles that it’s rare that someone bothers to even whip out their phone when it happens. 

While electric trucks like the Ford Lightning and the others out there might be good around town, as soon as you hang a travel trailer off the back of them they become mostly worthless. Electric trucks are no different than trucks with internal combustion engines in that they lose about half their range overcoming the abhorrent aerodynamics of the travel trailers we have today. 

To refuel a purely electric truck, you may have to disconnect the trailer, back into a charging station and sit there for an hour or more while it “refuels.” With a gasser or even a diesel truck you pull up to the pump with the trailer still back there and refuel. 

Get all the snacks you aren’t supposed to eat, hit the cringy bathrooms and you’re back on the road within 10-15 minutes. Bam. 

Of course the kids have to go to the bathroom seven minutes after you’ve gotten back on the highway, but no truck can solve that. 

With the Ramcharger you could literally use this truck without ever once going to an EV charging station or charging it at home. Ever. Of course that negates the fact that you can do all this. 

But this truck can accommodate your driving, and fueling circumstances however it works best for you. Want an EV around town that you charge overnight? Done. Wanna tow a travel trailer and just stop for gas? Done. Want a generator to power that trailer or even power your whole darned house? Done. 

Stellantis claims that this truck will go a combined 690 miles on the 92 kWh battery along with what the 3.6 liter Pentastar engine sucks out of the 27 gallon gasoline tank. Even if this truck only goes half of that towing a trailer that’s longer than I usually drive in a day when towing so I can optimize my driving so I can find gas stations that suit me along the way, whether that means I’m price shopping or just looking for easy in and out with the trailer dangling off the back of the truck. 

I want one

Of course all of this is still somewhat speculative and is based only on what Stellantis has shared in various press releases and other information. However I also suspect that much of this is pretty close to accurate. 

So if you’re like me, and you want one of these things, you can reserve a place in line for $100 at RamRev.com Do know, however, you’ll be behind me in line because this truck absolutely perfectly suits the way I travel in every way. And, yeah, I’ve already plunked down my $100. 

One last thing

If the name Ramcharger sounds familiar, it was what then Dodge called their competitor to the Ford Bronco of the era. Ramchargers were built for US customers from 1974-1993 and for customers in Mexico until 2001.