If at first you don’t succeed…

[bborzell]

When Ford opened preorders for its electric F150, I jumped in and put down a deposit. I was ready to add an electric truck to our VW ID.4 EV. which has been a pure delight to own.

Then came the first report of a Lightening tow test where a 2,000 lb small trailer brought the Ford to its knees after less than 100 miles of towing. Soon, it became established that towing pretty much any travel trailer with any electric truck was pretty much guaranteed to cut whatever unladen range figures it boasted in half.

At best, trucks that later on announced projected ranges of 500 miles were still limited to tow trips of 250 miles. Maybe OK for some who plan on traveling through states with a reasonably robust EV charging network, but we like to get away from urban settings when we camp and rural and remote do not yet translate to electrified.

So, when the RAM Ramcharger 1500 truck was announced with twin electric motors, a Pentastar V6 engine that does nothing other than drive a rather large capacity generator that charges the truck’s batteries which power the electric motors to the tune of massive tow power and payload along with a battery only range of 145 miles and a total range of 690 miles, I placed a preorder for one. Color yet to be determined.

Oh, and it has a 145 Kwh fast charge plug in capacity.