- The Ram Ramcharger has a 91.8 kWh battery, but only 69.7 kWh are usable.
- Ram says this is to provide a consistent driving experience between EV driving and when the truck uses its gas engine.
- The truck also has a heavy-duty frame and 8-lug wheel hubs to haul more weight compared to its ICE cousin.
I know I’ve railed against too-big batteries in trucks in the past, and that includes the all-electric version of this very vehicle. However, when Stellantis previewed the 2026 Ram Ramcharger’s technical details to the media this week, its 91.8 kWh battery felt a little small compared to full EV trucks. Stranger still, Stellantis says that only 69.7 of those kWh are usable, meaning a whopping 22.1 kWh is just in the battery, unable to be used. I had to find out why.
Turns out, it’s for towing. In fact, it appears that the whole Ramcharger has a little bit more done under the skin than its ICE sibling to make it a better hauler than other EV competitors. Its battery is just one part of the pie.
If you’ve driven a first-generation Chevrolet Volt, or a BMW i3 REX, or live in China and have access to the umpteen EREVs in that market, then you’re probably familiar with some of the quirks of an EREV. See, I’ve owned a 2015 Chevrolet Volt and loved it, but occasionally under heavy acceleration when the car was completely out of electric driving range, the car felt straight-up overburdened. It was a little more than, say, me complaining about the driving manners of a slow hybrid car. Rather, I was dealing with the effects of a small engine trying to essentially do two things at once.
I’ll explain: Extended-range EVs effectively use a traditional ICE engine to augment the abilities of its electric drivetrain. A gas engine is included that only recharges the battery but does not drive the wheels. This allows the car to drive much, much further on a smaller battery.
True, it’s likely more complex than either a regular ICE car or an EV, but in the case of my Volt, I could go 300+ miles from its 17.1 kWh battery (10.9 kWh usable)—about 40 miles from a battery, while the rest came from its 1.4-liter naturally aspirated engine. Similarly, the Ramcharger’s 92 kWh (69.7 kWh usable) battery, when depleted, will be kept within specification for normal driving by its 3.6-liter Pentastar engine powering a 150 kW generator. This is commonly referred to as “charge-sustaining” mode.
However, when the battery is tapped out, the car is effectively limited to however fast the car’s ICE engine can sustain the battery’s rate of draw. So, in the Volt’s case, its roughly 74-horsepower engine had to do the work of moving the car forward by keeping its battery topped up. For a short burst of acceleration, this is fine; there’s a bit of battery buffer outside the usable capacity to keep the driving experience uniform.
Yet, occasionally under long bursts, that envelope won’t be enough. The car will be limited to however fast the engine can generate electricity, which translates to slow acceleration. Just ask any older Volt owner about the “Propulsion Power Reduced” message and the addition of “mountain mode”, or watch any video of a Chinese EREV when it is out of battery power. Acceleration times can balloon.
Stellantis confirmed that its plan is to head this off by not using all of its battery power, saving a bigger reserve for when it’s really needed.
“What we found is, is that when you get below 10% battery state-of-charge, the power really drops off on what you can deliver,” said Stellantis Lead Engineer for the STLA Frame platform, Joe Tolkacz. “Even if you run the generator at full power, you’re somewhat limited on what you can pull out of the battery. We found that the customer wanted consistent operation throughout the range. So we purposely backstopped the charge-sustaining threshold to be higher, to stay out of that lower power region.”
We’ll still have to test this in person when the Ramcharger officially drops, but Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis was adamant that the truck will be a compromise-less solution for towing. Remember, it doesn’t actually take all that much horsepower to keep a vehicle moving, so in theory, the nearly 23 kWh of buffer in that pack should be enough to sustain the times when the truck needs all 647 horsepower and 610 ft/lbs of torque, even when towing.
Kuniskis really harped on the Goldilocks aspect of the truck. The Ramcharger’s battery and the brand’s focus on an EREV is a direct response to the political and economic state of the United States right now.
“I think more people would be more willing to do a BEV if it was cheaper. We thought that a few years ago that battery pricing would be transitory,” Kuniskis said, referring to the idea that eventually Stellantis’s battery costs would get to around $50 per kWh and in turn bring EV costs down. (At the end of 2024, they were around $115 per kWh.) Stellantis officials declined to share the exact price of its own battery costs, but Kuniskis did say that the Ram’s battery size is partially to keep costs down and keep the truck accessible.
On paper, the Ramcharger seems to have a leg-up towing compared to Rivian, Chevrolet or Ford. We’ll have to see just how well it performs in real life when it comes to roads later this year.
