RAM News

Ram’s global CEO, Tim Kuniski, is so excited about the brand’s upcoming range-extender pick-up it is rushing to release it ahead of its fully-electric sibling.After it was announced in 2023, the Ramcharger 1500 will launch in the US in the second half of the year, with order books poised to open before the middle of 2025.The launch of the battery electric version will be pushed back to 2026 – the Ramcharger’s initial launch date.“I think this is really going to be a secret weapon in the industry,” an enthusiastic Kuniskis said, according to Motor1.“It's why we wanted to share it with you as soon as possible. It's not a PowerPoint slide. This thing is real, and it's coming fast."The Ramcharger 1500 uses a Pentastar 3.6-litre V6 petrol engine generator to charge its 91.8kWh battery pack that in turn powers two electric motors that are solely for propulsion.In addition to a 102-litre petrol tank, the brand claims it will deliver a staggering 1100km of driving range once all battery and fuel capacity is exhausted.Power and torque are quoted at 482kW/827Nm, and despite it nearly weighing an almighty 3500kg, Ram claims it will still sprint from 0-60m/ph (0-98km/h) in just 4.5 seconds.To accommodate the much larger powertrain, Ram said it has widened its STLA Frame undercarriage by eight inches compared to a regular 1500.Three drive modes will be available: Electric+, E-Save and Eco. Electric+ will only use petrol power once the battery is fully depleted, which takes about 226km. Once that happens, the petrol engine will kick in to power the generator that powers the front and rear axle electric motors.The petrol motor generator can add some power to the battery if it dips below 50 per cent charge but cannot fully charge it.In E-Save mode, the engine will turn on and maintain the battery at its current state of charge while driving. It is designed for when electric-only operation is required later, such as entering an urban zero-emissions zone.Eco, meanwhile, takes the most energy conservative approach by reducing available horsepower and dialling down the amount of power spent on air conditioning.At no point will the petrol engine power the wheels – it only powers a built-in generator that powers the wheels. If at any point, however, you require the full range of power and torque, the engine and its petrol generator will be active.Pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, although Ram said it is aiming for parity with the new petrol 1500 in the US, which will be powered by the new V6 Hurricane engine.The new petrol 1500 hasn’t launched in Australia yet, so it is difficult to make an accurate estimation on pricing, although the previous V8 Hemi 1500 started at around the $120,000 mark.Ateco, Ram’s Australian distributor, has previously said it is exploring the Ramcharger for Australia. CarsGuide has contacted it for a further update. An update to the story will follow with a response.

Think buying the biggest, baddest ute or SUV will keep you safe in a crash? Think again.New research from the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which performs a similar role to the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) in Australia, shows a bigger car does not necessarily translate to it being the safest.The research was conducted in the US, which is a country that knows a thing or two about super-sized vehicles. The IIHS examined crashes involving two vehicles that involved either SUVs or pick-up trucks over a roughly 10 year period to examine fatality rates. The vehicles also had to be between one and four years old at the time of the accident to present a proper like-for-like crash comparison.It found if your car was lighter than the fleet average there was an increased risk of a fatal accident, but no matter how much heavier than the average your vehicle was than the average it posed very little benefit, according to the data.The average weight for a  vehicle in the US is about 2270kg, which is about the same as thef the average dual-cab ute such as the Toyota HiLux or Ford Ranger.The research found the heavier vehicle the more danger it posed to others in a crash. For every roughly 225kg above the fleet average the rate of fatalities dropped by only one per million registered vehicles, while increasing the fatality rate of the other vehicle by seven.“For American drivers, the conventional wisdom is that if bigger is safer, even bigger must be safer still,” IIHS President David Harkey said. “These results show that isn’t true today. Not for people in other cars. And — this is important — not for the occupants of the large vehicles themselves.”Australian vehicles are on average smaller than those in America, but that is changing as a new wave of super-sized vehicles are gaining traction Down Under.Aussies now have the choice of four different US-style pick-up trucks: the Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150 and Toyota Tundra.The GMC Yukon, which is bigger than any SUV currently on sale, arrives later this year.Each generation of vehicle generally grows in every direction, slowly bringing up the fleet average.The head of ANCAP Carla Hoorweg told CarsGuide last year it had concerns about the proliferation of giant utes on our roads.“We’ve definitely got concerns. There are a lot of community concerns we are fielding,” said Hoorweg.“We’re looking at vehicles that are being designed for the US market, they’re not necessarily going to have a focus on pedestrian protection or vulnerable road user protection, that’s not a focus in those regulations. So we know there’s going to be a gap there.”“We are considering what our options are around physical testing, so there’s potential for pedestrian impact testing,” she said.This test involves firing adult and child head forms and leg forms at the bonnet, windscreen, front bumper of a vehicle to determine how well it can physically protect pedestrians from serious head, pelvis and leg injury.ANCAP’s new focus comes as its US equivalent, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), plans to crackdown on large pick-ups, SUVs and vans after pedestrian fatalities rose by 57 per cent between 2013 and 2022.

Claims of battery breakthroughs have lately been reserved for Chinese electric car brands, but this time the news has come from automotive mega-group Stellantis.

Ram is gearing up for a new model in one of the world’s largest vehicle segments.

Australia’s new car market rose very slightly in volume in 2024 compared to 2023 - but it wasn’t good news across the board.

There’s nothing like the floor of a motor show for catching senior automotive executives with their guard down.

RAM’s 2500 and 3500 Heavy Duty full-sized pick up trucks have been given an update, bringing more safety features, better in-car tech and an overhauled powerplant that now produces almost 1500Nm.

Christmas is a fading memory, the New Year’s hangovers have cleared and we’re still getting used to writing ‘2025’ so you know what that means?Hot takes time.Yes, it’s January and with a whole year of new cars ahead of us, I’m going to try and predict the future. But while these might meet the clickbait definition of a ‘hot take’ these aren’t just random thoughts, but rather these are five scenarios that I believe could play out in 2025 based on previous trends and the other available evidence.To be fair, I’m basing this at least in part to Toyota Australia boss Sean Hanley’s own prediction that he believes the RAV4 can leapfrog the Ford Ranger into first place. I agree with him that the Ranger will need to work hard to stay at the top of the charts, with its gap to the RAV4 less than 4000 sales in 2024.The Ranger will be entering its fourth year on sale, which means it no longer feels ‘new’ but is also too early for a mid-life upgrade, so it will need to rely on new additions like the Super Duty and plug-in hybrid to keep its interest high.The latter is really the key for Ford, with the Ranger PHEV having to face a direct rival in the form of the BYD Shark 6 - which wasn’t on the horizon when Ford announced its plug-in back in 2023.Meanwhile, the RAV4 remains beloved by SUV buyers, despite its many rivals, and Toyota is (reportedly) carrying over a healthy order bank that should maintain its steady sales pace.Whatever happens, it should be a close finish in the sales race.It’s safe to say Kia has copped some flak for the styling of its Tasman ute, which has raised concerns over its sales potential. But, personally, I think it will be a success story for Kia even if it doesn’t achieve the headline-grabbing sales figures the brand is hoping for.Kia’s goal to sell more than 20,000 Tasmans per year is an ambitious target, even if the styling had been universally praised, given the strength of the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux. But the truth is looks are subjective and the Tasman’s ultimate sales potential will come down to pricing and specifications. If Kia can give ute buyers a good value proposition, then undoubtedly many will jump aboard, regardless of what anyone says about the styling.Fleet operators who don’t care about subjective elements like style will likely be wooed by the expected five-star ANCAP rating and Kia’s reputation for reliability.Bottom line, even if Kia sells half of its expected numbers, adding 10,000 Tasmans to Kia’s tally is all incremental growth for a brand that has never previously offered a ute - and that will make it a big success.One of the key takeaways from the 2024 sales was the huge growth of hybrids (HEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) compared to the stalled sales of electric vehicles (EVs). Sales of pure electric models were only up 4.7 per cent after growing more than 160 per cent in 2023.That’s an enormous change of fortunes for EVs, which have always largely been underpinned by Tesla, which had a down year in 2024. Whether Tesla can rebound is one major question, with its sales down by more than 16,000 sales, but other brands will need to start selling more of their EVs if the market is to accelerate its growth again.It appears as though the market for EVs has largely been catered to, with a huge variety of makes and models across the spectrum of size and price, so there’s no longer any major barriers for EVs apart from consumer demand.Australians seem unconvinced by EVs in the broad sense, preferring dual-cab utes and mid-size SUVs with hybrid engines, and it seems unlikely to change in the short-term so I wouldn’t be betting on a big turnaround for electric sales in 2025.NVES, or the New Vehicle Efficiency Standards, grabbed plenty of headlines in 2024 as the car industry pushed back on long-overdue emissions regulations like kids not wanting to eat their vegetables. But despite the kicking and screaming from certain members of industry, NVES officially began on January 1 and the world hasn’t stopped turning.Inevitably there will be change thanks to NVES, with car brands needing to introduce more fuel-efficient vehicles or face financial penalties, however the government has effectively given the industry three years to sort itself out. Any brand above the limit in 2025 has until the end of 2027 to generate (or buy from a rival brand) ‘credits’ to offset their less-efficient models.In other words, expect ‘situation normal’ in 2025 with all the usual models you find in dealerships, albeit with a ramp up of more hybrids and PHEVs like we’ve begun to see in the last 18 months.Normally you’d expect the arrival of two big name models, which nearly double the options for buyers, to result in a sales boom for a particular market. And yet, despite the introduction of the Ford F-150 and Toyota Tundra, sales of ‘$100k plus utes’ (otherwise known as the US-style pick-ups) were up just a marginal 2.4 per cent in 2024.The segment still sold more than 10,000 units in 2024, which is an impressive number when you consider these are expensive and niche vehicles, but the arrival of the Ford and Toyota should have been a boost. They certainly helped offset the sales decline of the Ram 1500, which dropped as the current V8-powered model entered run-out, but it speaks to the limitations of the market.With the arrival of the new six-cylinder Ram 1500 to go along with the F-150 and Tundra, it’s hard to see the total volume of $100k plus utes getting much higher than 10,000 per year.

It seems the worm has turned on electric pick-up trucks.

The final Ram 1500 pick-up powered by a Hemi V8 rolled down the production line In Melbourne last Friday, ahead of the switchover to the new six-cylinder engine, Ram Trucks Australia has announced.The last of the 'Hemi' V8s found its way into a Ram 1500 limited with Granite Crystal paint, the 28,495th RAM pick-up to be remanufactured in Australia.The departure of that iconic V8 engine will be a sad goodbye for many fans of the Ram and Mopar brands in the United States, the 1500 has already made the switchover to the new 'Hurricane' six-cylinder powerplant due to emission regulations.This means the vehicles that arrive for remanufacturing from now on will have them, too. “All good things must come to an end and it’s time for us to farewell the iconic Hemi V8,” said Ram Trucks Australia General Manager Jeff Barber.“Australians love their utes and they love their V8s and the Ram 1500 delivered the best of both worlds.“Our customers – many of whom have come from traditional utes and four-wheel-drives – tell us they appreciate the extra space, the extra comfort, and the stronger towing performance, and clearly that’s why these vehicles are so popular.”The 5.7-litre petrol V8 Hemi makes 291kW and 556Nm, while the incoming 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline six makes 309kW and 470Nm.The good news is that there is stock remaining of V8 Hemi-powered Rami 1500s.“We have been overwhelmed by the response to the HEMI V8 runout, and we understand some buyers who want one of the last V8s may miss out,” said Mr Barber.“However, we hope to have enough stock to fulfil most orders.“We will have a very worthy successor next year powered by a new-generation turbocharged six-cylinder petrol engine, but we will have more to say about that closer to local showroom arrivals.”Ram Trucks Australia has been remanufacturing US pick-up trucks since 2018. In the case of the Ram 1500 once the production facility in Clayton Victoria takes delivery of a vehicle it’s converted from left to right-hand drive — using 400 locally made parts — in a process which takes 200 workers 14 hours to complete a single vehicle. The Ram 1500 has been a big success story for the brand in Australia with 2962 year-to-date sales. Whether the introduction of the six cylinder affects the appeal and popularity of the pick up remains to be seen. The Hemi isn't the first V8 to go, with key rivals including the Ford F-150 and Toyota Tundra both launching in Australia with turbo 'sixes. It leaves the Chevrolet Silverado as the only remaining big ute to pack a V8.