An Owner and Expert in Ram Trucks Who Is Himself Also an EV Owner Explains Why Ram's Canceling Its Battery-Electric Pickup Truck Program is a Smart Move

Battery electric vehicle (BEV) pickup trucks have proven to be an abject failure in the U.S. market. Q1 EV truck deliveries were a disaster. Rivian’s R1T deliveries dropped in Q2 by 47% and Rivian is now planning to close its factory for about a month. The Tesla Cybertruck fiasco has reportedly left Tesla sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of BEV truck inventory nobody will touch with a ten-foot pole. GM’s EV trucks are among the company’s slowest-selling vehicles.  Reading the writing on the wall is not that hard. Truck owners don't want BEV pickups.

Ram said the following in an announcement today:

As demand for full-size battery electric trucks slows in North America, Stellantis is reassessing its product strategy and will discontinue development of a full-size BEV pickup. Ram is improving market competitiveness and growth while maintaining pricing power through products, services and electrified offerings. Ram currently offers a wide range of products globally, from the Ram 700 compact pickup to the Ram 5500 Chassis Cab and a range of ProMaster vans. 

Ram hasn’t quit on electrification. It still plans to make some hybrids and plug-in hybrids. It’s just killing off the battery-only truck before it launches itself straight off a cliff. We suspect that Tesla and GM wish they had slow-rolled their trucks, but that ship has sailed. Ford, on the other hand, seems genuinely committed to solving the EV truck puzzle, and we wish them the very best with that expanding program. If anyone can succeed with EV trucks, we think Ford has the best chance.

To get some insights on why Ram thinks it is wise not to sell a battery-electric pickup, we reached out to former Torque News alum, Patrick Rall. Among our longest-running contributors, Patrick is THE expert in America on Stellantis products. Patrick’s personal fleet of Stellantis vehicles includes multiple racecars, an SRT Challenger with over 700 hp, which he uses as his weekend daily driver, and a Ram pickup. It may surprise you to learn that Patrick also owns a battery-electric vehicle. His Fiat 500e electric vehicle has earned a spot next to his SRT Challenger, and it has become both a daily runabout vehicle and a fun car for Patrick.

Here is a Q&A with our friend Patrick that we think can help shed some light on why a Stellantis/Ram fan through and through who owns an EV thinks this move will be the right one for Ram.

TN - Patrick, was this the right move for Ram?
PR - I do think that it is a good decision to cancel the all-electric Ram right now. With the battery-electric trucks from GM, Ford, and Tesla all selling relatively poorly, coupled with skepticism even from pro-EV truck owners like myself, this isn't the right time for Ram to jump into that segment.

TN - Can you please expand on what you mean by pro-EV truck owners like yourself?
PR - I run a horse farm, and it's not unusual for me to suddenly have to pull a trailer a couple of hundred miles with my Hurricane-powered Ram pickup... after a long day of work. My truck has to be ready to tow hundreds of miles at any time, and the current EV trucks aren't capable of that on their best day. Many truck owners I know who actually use their trucks for work won't consider an EV truck for the same reason. That's likely a major cause of the slow EV truck sales right now.

TN - Can you tell us a bit about your electric vehicle, the Fiat 500e, and how it fits into your family fleet?
PR - I still love my Fiat 500e after a year of ownership because it's just so easy for a daily driver. It's an excellent vehicle for going into the city, where parking is tight, as opposed to my full-sized Ram. I plug the 500e in at night with the level 2 charger that came with the car, and it's always at 100% in the morning.

TN - As an EV fan and owner, it seems like you would have been the exact person to whom an EV pickup would have been marketed.
PR - In theory, I'd be a great customer for an EV truck, but I'm not. I know that larger battery vehicles like the full-sized trucks will take much longer to charge, and more importantly, their range is pretty bad when towing.

We’d like to thank Patrick Rall for going on the record and helping to explain why even EV owners and Ram truck fans who buy nothing but Stellantis products are not really interested in a full-sized EV truck. Perhaps if other brands had spoken to more people like Patrick before committing billions in resources to EV pickups, the fiasco they are now faced with might have been avoided. 

Do you think EV trucks have any future in America? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below. 
 

John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.