The best electric vehicle? Ram1500 ramcharger?

[Szwampdonkey]

Electricity is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE. Sticking with gas now that Trump has scrapped all the incoming mandates. Yall be crying when gas is $1.00/gallon again and electric remains sky high!

 

[z987k]

There are plenty of truck buyers who don't utilize a large bed. Suburbanites who haul campers and toy haulers, people in wintery climates who like the traction, 4 wheel drive, and ground clearance, southerners who drive trucks because. . . they're southerners, and others who just plain like 'em.

My truck is a tool to do work, so I'm not the target market for this either, but my guess is that people who get paid to do market research and crunch numbers have concluded that those are the buyers who are most likely to be early adopters of the hybrid technology. People like you and me may not be drooling over this thing, but we need the early adopters to prove the concept is commercially viable, to bring down the cost of the tech, and fund the development that ultimately allows the tech to spread into the rest of the market. . . meaning you and I have to let other people buy these trucks so that we can have access to well designed hybrid work trucks in the future.

They make SUV's for a reason.

 

[z987k]

Thanks, but I really dont understand if or how thats relevant to my question. If its great technology, Im all for it. My question is if and how and to what degree it is limiting given my specific use and location. Electric-only isnt viable for my use. Id like to understand what the implications are for me and my use during a trip where the electric portion of the vehicles function isnt there. Whats my new range towing over a mountain range, is the tank big enough to handle that, etc. i dont know if it simply becomes a gas vehicle at that point, or if there are limitations by virtue of the electric component.

When the battery is depleted, it'd be strictly a gas vehicle with a diminished power output because that 3.6L engine doesn't put out what the electric motors can. It would only be capable of putting what the gas motor and generator can put out together. But that should never matter.
The idea is you charge it at home at night and have an at least somewhat full battery in the morning. You go to pull the 10klb trailer up a hill, you put in the route to the navigation software so the truck knows it's towing and up a big hill, so even though the battery is 90% charged, the engine kicks on to keep it there on the flat on the way to the hill to keep it at 90%. It keeps running the gas motor to keep the batteries as high as it can up that hill. They'll still deplete to some extent, but you have the full power. Then you regen on downhill while that motor keeps running to get you back up. It'll periodically kick on the rest of the trip as it calculates areas that it'll need the gas motor to keep the energy needed for the high power demands along the trip.
You would never need to plug this truck into a public charger if you don't want to. The gas generator would just run more, and it'd cost more to drive then if you did top it off with a plug in.
However the electric function is always there. The gas motor has no ability to drive your wheels like a traditional hybrid. It only charges the battery. It's a mobile on demand level 3 charger more or less.
Where you'd run into problems is not letting it know there's going to be a massive power requirement up ahead and it's letting it run on pure battery for a bit because it doesn't know you need more in an hour.

 

[Macintosh]

When the battery is depleted, it'd be strictly a gas vehicle with a diminished power output because that 3.6L engine doesn't put out what the electric motors can. It would only be capable of putting what the gas motor and generator can put out together. But that should never matter.
The idea is you charge it at home at night and have an at least somewhat full battery in the morning. You go to pull the 10klb trailer up a hill, you put in the route to the navigation software so the truck knows it's towing and up a big hill, so even though the battery is 90% charged, the engine kicks on to keep it there on the flat on the way to the hill to keep it at 90%. It keeps running the gas motor to keep the batteries as high as it can up that hill. They'll still deplete to some extent, but you have the full power. Then you regen on downhill while that motor keeps running to get you back up. It'll periodically kick on the rest of the trip as it calculates areas that it'll need the gas motor to keep the energy needed for the high power demands along the trip.
You would never need to plug this truck into a public charger if you don't want to. The gas generator would just run more, and it'd cost more to drive then if you did top it off with a plug in.
However the electric function is always there. The gas motor has no ability to drive your wheels like a traditional hybrid. It only charges the battery. It's a mobile on demand level 3 charger more or less.
Where you'd run into problems is not letting it know there's going to be a massive power requirement up ahead and it's letting it run on pure battery for a bit because it doesn't know you need more in an hour.

That's really interesting. Is that gps integration already in use, or is that theory? I guess that's a somewhat new thing for standard vehicle navigation? I guess that means it needs account for the return leg as well, and plug in driving directions even if it's a well-known (to me) route? Or can you just idle the gas engine all night to charge in place if you need to?
Those seem like relatively surmountable issues, more just sort of learning to live with it, and dealing with some growing pains as people start to use them. I'm not necessarily crazy about having to deal with something like that if I have to tell it where I'm going every step of the way, but it at least seems a lot more doable than the electric-only stuff I'm more familiar with.

 

[z987k]

That's really interesting. Is that gps integration already in use, or is that theory? I guess that's a somewhat new thing for standard vehicle navigation? I guess that means it needs account for the return leg as well, and plug in driving directions even if it's a well-known (to me) route? Or can you just idle the gas engine all night to charge in place if you need to?
Those seem like relatively surmountable issues, more just sort of learning to live with it, and dealing with some growing pains as people start to use them. I'm not necessarily crazy about having to deal with something like that if I have to tell it where I'm going every step of the way, but it at least seems a lot more doable than the electric-only stuff I'm more familiar with.

That's what was explained on one of the videos I was watching of it. Now how their implementation of it goes.....we'll see.
You should be able to idle for an hour and have a full battery.