Ram Trucks didn’t reveal any new vehicles at this year’s Detroit auto show, but the enthusiasm that brand CEO Mike Koval Jr. offered in an interview might make you think otherwise.
Over the next six to eight months, the brand will be on a “precipice of something extraordinary,” Koval predicted during last week’s show.
It was a bold statement at a time when so much truck news is focused on electric pickups, like the Ford F-150 Lightning, and Ram isn’t scheduled to deliver one until 2024.
But that pickup is on its way, with a Ram Revolution Concept truck planned to be shown the night before the LA Auto Show in November, according to Koval. The production version of the full-size Ram electric pickup, which doesn’t yet have a name, is to be unveiled next year.
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Koval assured that the Stellantis brand would “push past” what the competitors, which would include Ford and Chevrolet, have announced and what customers expect in an electric truck’s “core attributes.” Those attributes, hauling and towing, for instance, are key for pickup customers, and Koval said the electric Ram would deliver.
“More and more truck intenders are open-minded to the idea of electrification in their pickups, but they’re not willing to sacrifice our most core attributes that make a truck a truck, like towing, like hauling, and in the future, range and charge time. In other words, ‘trucks still need to do truck things’ is the message that we’re receiving” through feedback to date,” Koval said.
Some customers, Koval acknowledged, are still nervous about electric vehicle range. He said the baseline expectation for range from a charge appears to be about 300-350 miles.
“If you’re towing a 10,000-pound trailer behind your vehicle across the state or across the country, it’s nerve-racking, for sure. We hear you, and we believe we will push past what others have announced with our fuller portfolio of electrified solutions from 2024,” said Koval, who was named to his current post leading the Ram brand for Stellantis in January 2021, although he has been with the brand for years prior to the merger that brought Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot together that month.
He called this a “transformative period in the history of the brand.”
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It’s not just electric pickups that Koval is talking about either.
Ram, which is also gearing up for its first EV launch next year with the Ram ProMaster battery electric vehicle and has “big” heavy duty truck news planned for the coming State Fair of Texas, might finally be ready to deliver a midsize pickup. It’s a popular segment effectively created by the Dodge Dakota for the 1987 model year, but which the company later abandoned. That truck eventually became the Ram Dakota but ended its run for the 2011 model year. Toyota, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and more recently Ford have all benefited from Ram’s absence in the segment.
Koval said he’s “toying” with the idea of bringing a concept midsize truck to Ram’s dealer show — the first one since 2015 — planned for March in Las Vegas. Getting that feedback is key, he said.
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The midsize truck market offers the biggest white space opportunity for the brand, Koval said, acknowledging that the Dakota name has a lot of heritage but that it’s too early to say what that concept vehicle might be called.
Regarding smaller pickups, Koval noted that he was in South America in March, and he saw some small compact pickups that look “really, really good” and could fit well in the U.S. market. He didn’t elaborate, but Ram does offer a couple of smaller pickups for the Latin American market.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence. Become a subscriber.