Ram dropped a ton of details and a longer spec sheet on its new Ramcharger truck Monday.
Two years ago, all eyes and headlines were laser-focused on Ram’s new all-electric ‘REV’ truck — a direct competitor to the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra EV. Fast forward a bit, and that’s no longer the case. Instead, the public’s focus (and Ram’s own, for that matter) has shifted to the Ramcharger, as the automaker moved its launch up by several months and shunted the fully electric REV back into 2026. Now that we’re expecting this gasoline range-extended EV first, Ram took the opportunity to divulge a few more details on what’s coming down the pike before the Ramcharger’s full launch in the second half of this year.
Right off the bat, too, there’s one thing you need to know. As folks throughout the industry are pointing out after today’s technical presentation: The Ram 1500 Ramcharger is an absolute unit of a pickup truck. While its 647-horsepower output and 4.5 second 0-60 times are impressive figures, the mixed powertrains balloon the Ramcharger’s curb weight out to an equally impressive 7,507 pounds.
When you dive into the details a bit, it’s pretty straightforward to see why. The 2026 Ramcharger comprises three main powertrain elements. There are still electric drive units at play here, of course: the pair of AC permanent magnet motors combine to put out 647 horsepower and 610 lb-ft of torque: 335 hp up front and 332 hp in the back. Since there are two electric motors, the Ramcharger runs as a full-time four-wheel drive truck most of the time, though putting it in electric-only mode decouples the front axle to make it a bit more efficient. The rear axle, for its part, has an open differential, though you can spec it with an e-locker as an option.
Between the frame rails (more on that in a moment), Ram has a 91.8-kWh (69.7-kWh usable) lithium ion battery pack with a nickel cobalt manganese (NMC) cathode — that alone weighs 1,216 pounds. Finally, there’s the engine…or generator, to be more technically accurate here. The 3.6-liter Pentastar V6, the good old FCA corporate workhorse, makes another appearance here. While it puts out 271 horsepower and 226 lb-ft of torque, at no point does the engine drive the wheels: It just provides up to 202 kilowatts of recharging power to the battery pack, and on the subject of weight, is fed by a 27-gallon fuel tank.
Ram calls this the ‘Goldilocks truck’ that covers most peoples’ needs
So, the 2026 Ramcharger is going to be a big, heavy truck — that was never in any doubt — but the idea is for this setup to accommodate a far wider variety of use cases, from the daily commute to hauling and towing duty to long road trips.
On electric power alone, Ram estimates you’ll manage about 145 miles of range. Once the battery is adequately depleted, the gas engine will kick in to offer up to 545 miles of additional driving, for a total cruising range of 690 miles. As you might have caught while going through the battery figures, the Ramcharger’s pack is set up so you don’t fully deplete the battery, with that 69.7-kWh being the limit of full electric power you’ll get before the engine comes in to provide electricity. There’s a wide buffer for hybrid operation (about 17%), so the truck can still offer up more than 600 horsepower and not lose towing capability, even when the battery charge is low. Then, once the engine does need to step in, it pumps out enough juice to keep pack from depleting further.
On a side note, Ram’s engineers mentioned the thought experiment of, “wait, can I just use the engine to charge back up to 100%?”. While the truck will have three driving modes including normal hybrid operation, full EV mode and “E-Save” to maintain a certain charge level, the Ramcharger isn’t set up to use the gas engine to completely recharge the battery. You could, in theory, just run the gas generator and refuel at gas stations while never plugging it in, though that does admittedly defeat the purpose of buying this over just buying the gas Ram 1500 in the first place.
Speaking of charging, Ram says the included Level 2 charger will replenish the battery in about 8 hours at 11 kW. It’s also capable of DC fast-charging at up to a maximum rate of 350 kW, though it will still take about 45 minutes to get from 20% to 80%. Update 2/25/25: To clarify, the Ramcharger has a 400-volt battery architecture and is capable of DC fast-charging at up to 180 kW. So, on a 350 kW-capable charger, it would replenish the pack from 20% to 80% in an average of 45 minutes.
Second update 2/25/25: The 2026 Ramcharger will launch with a CCS port, rather than a NACS port as is coming into play for most 2026 model year vehicles. Most charging networks will support both standards moving forward (and Tesla’s own Supercharger network as a “Magic Dock” capable of adapting its NACS cable to a CCS charging port), but that’s something to keep in mind if you’re leaning toward using the Ramcharger more as an EV than on its gas generator capabilities.
That’s where the Pentastar really comes in handy. Because EV charging rates fall off dramatically when the battery is near-empty or close to full, you can DC charge in that stage where you’ll get peak rates, then use the generator to make up the difference. When it comes time to fully charge, you can replenish the battery on a Level 2 AC home charger or “destination charger”, like you might find at a hotel.
What about this truck’s actual capability?
Fundamentally, the 2026 Ramcharger shares a lot of its structural layout with the gas-powered trucks. You still get the same cab and 5-foot-7 bed configuration, as well as a similar interior. This truck sits on Stellantis’ STLA Frame platform underneath, which kicks the distance frame rails out by 8 inches between the front and rear wheels, so the middle section can accommodate the battery pack and the fuel tank (and better protect both from side impacts, too).
Speaking of packaging, the 2026 Ramcharger has an independent five-link rear suspension setup, unlike the solid axle setup on gas-powered Ram 1500 trucks. I’m curious how a fully-independent setup, also similar to the full-size Jeep Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer SUVs will impact off-roading capability, but we’ll have to wait a few months to get a better grasp on that subject when we have one to test in Colorado.
As far as out-and-out capability is concerned, Ram claims a towing capacity of up to 14,000 pounds and a targeted payload rating of 2,625 pounds. To make that possible, Ram engineered this truck with 8-lug hubs, and even claimed that this truck is built to tow a max-loaded trailer up the grade at Davis Dam in Arizona — a 3,000-foot elevation change over 11 miles — with a depleted battery and the gas generator providing all the power you need along the way. And yes, if you just thought it, that is absolutely a claim we’re itching to put to the test.
What about unladen fuel economy? If you run your battery down to “dead” (at least as far as the truck’s concerned), running the remaining 545 miles in generator mode pins the Ramcharger’s mileage at just over 20 mpg. Driving conditions will change that, naturally, but that’s…not as good as the Ford F-150 PowerBoost’s 23 mpg combined. With all the added weight making it a plug-in hybrid, at least in lay terms, that’s one compromise the Ramcharger makes to be a “best-of-all-worlds” sort of electric truck. Since the engine also strictly feeds into the battery pack rather than working with the electric motors to drive the wheels, like the F-150 PowerBoost and Toyota Tundra do, there’s another hit to fuel mileage.
How much will the Ramcharger cost?
With effectively two powertrains and two energy sources, you can make an educated guess that the Ramcharger won’t be cheap. At this point, we (unfortunately) still don’t know. It broadly depends on the trim walk and available options, but the idea is that this truck will split the difference between the gas models and the now-delayed Ram 1500 REV.
That said, Ram needs to price this truck competitively to convince electric skeptics it’s at least worth some consideration. The consensus up to this point is that the Ramcharger would land between $60,000 on the low end, all the way up to $100,000 for the fanciest Tungsten trim. Considering that starting price is sort of in the same ballpark as the Ram 1500 RHO — so you could argue some price parity with a gas truck — that’s probably still not far off the mark.
Hopefully we’ll have those final pieces of the puzzle in the next couple months, as Ram wraps up development and readies the new Ramcharger for judgment. I’d say “sale”, but it’s likely this will be a sort of referendum on the company’s long-term electrification strategy, so what happens here could further impact the REV’s launch, and potentially Ram’s future as a whole. This truck is a huge deal, and we’ll soon know if it was worth all the hype.
