Hey everyone! I just joined because I'm really interested in the Ramcharger, caught Tim's excellent interview, and thought it'd be worth capturing the answers that Joe Tolkacz provided. I'm going from memory, though, so please correct me if I get something wrong!
Will this be adapted to the 2500/3500 platform as well?
Joe couldn't comment on future product plans, but he did leave the door open to Stellantis considering offering this type of powertrain in other vehicles.
Will there be special LRR tires or will we be able to use standard truck tires?
I'm guessing all electric accessories like power steering, cabin heater and A/C system? Might the Pentastar be beltless then?
Like almost all new vehicles, Ram worked with a variety of tire manufacturers to develop tires that met the desired noise, comfort, traction, and rolling resistance metrics. They were having difficulty meeting those metrics with one manufacturer, but another manufacturer approached them and hit it out of the park, exceeding all their metrics while generating less rolling resistance than they thought possible. So, yes, the OEM tires likely have much better rolling resistance characteristics than other tires suitable for this application.
I immediately come up with questions I don't think an engineer will answer. (At least not yet)
- Price range
- True expectation of payload
- Curb weight (curious about tires etc.)
- RPM of the pentastar for hwy cruising, towing, basically just basic info about how hard the engine will be working and charge cycle info. In theory, could you run out of battery even with the pentastar or is it capable of charging the batteries in extreme conditions. (Towing heavy over a long pass) Also, what does that do to the battery? There seems to be some concerns about the heat in the battery. Most EV's are driven and then parked and charged and they can struggle with heat. What will it be like when it's working hard and being charged?
- Maintenance periods for the Pentastar
- Why not a diesel for the generator instead of gas? Was that a discussion point at any time?
Rough answers to 1-3 have been released by Ram, but final figures aren't available yet.
4: RPM will vary and it will be correlated with throttle position, but Joe also made a point that it's extremely difficult to tell when the engine is running and there's no tach on the dash. Ram specifically wanted to avoid the typical hybrid experience where the engine RPMs jump all over the place without a corresponding change in throttle position. The generator can directly energize the electric motors—electricity does not have to go through the batteries before reaching the motors. Thus concerns about battery stress under high load scenarios are misplaced.
It seems that Ram believes that with 35% SOC in the battery (which is the lowest SOC the vehicle will allow the battery to get to when in tow/haul mode) the Ramcharger can maintain at least 45 MPH while towing 14K from the bottom to the top of Davis Dam grade. It does this in tow/haul mode by having the generator and the battery supply power simultaneously to the motors, preventing you from completely depleting the battery and being reliant on just what power the generator can supply.
5: Determined dynamically by the onboard oil life monitor.
6: The extra weight and cost of a diesel were not advantageous, especially when paired with the expensive and complicated after-treat systems that are required of modern diesels. Also, Ram believes that diesels aren't very efficient when run at heavy loads when compared with gasoline engines, and they've designed the Ramcharger to only run the engine at higher loads.
This might be a dumb question.. .but with this setup (no starter, generator used to start the engine) what is the procedure to start the vehicle if the battery is dead for some reason? Unless I missed it there is no standard battery. I realize the system is designed to prevent this from happening but emergency situations happen sometimes.
There is a standard 12V battery, so it appears that jump-starting the vehicle in the traditional manner would work.
One side benefit I see....passing emissions testing should be easy. I would imagine playing with the accelerator cannot change the ICE rpms.
No, the ICE will vary RPMs in loose correlation with the throttle.
I just watched truck Kings video and either I missed it in yours Tim or he had caught a bit more info.
The curb weight is approximately 7,507 lb and when towing, tow-mode won't allow the battery to drop below 35% because they don't want you towing less than that. They estimate total range when towing to be 260 mi. I'm really curious what this thing would do towing for me. I'm 200 miles away from our summer cabin but that's over one of our mountain passes in western WA heading to Eastern WA. The base of that pass is about 80 miles away. Towing my 7,000 lb trailer with a decent payload I wonder what I would be at, battery pct wise, approaching the base of that pass. The math involved in using the pentaster as a generator only charging the batteries is really interesting to me. If I hit the bottom of that pass around 40% and then spend the next hour climbing can it keep up? I'm guessing it probably could but I worry about the heat...and life cycle.
Also it has front disconnecting hubs that disconnect automatically on the highway, when it senses it doesn't need all wheel drive. (That seems like built-in reliability issue that I would be concerned about)
Correction: Tow/haul mode won't let the battery drop below 35% SOC unless more power is requested of the system than what the generator can provide, in which case power will be sent to the motors from both the generator and the battery.
I would like to see a regular gas Ram with the 3.6 pentastar go up the Davis dam hill too, I don't see how a 3.6 pentastar hooked to a generator with a dead battery will do better than just a traditional engine and transmission.
If I am reading the Ram website right the generator only puts out 130 kilowatts that's about 174 mechanical horsepower equivalent, that thing is going to be dog a** slow.
In Ram's expected/predicted scenarios, if you're in tow/haul mode you'll start at the bottom of Davis Dam grade with at least 35% SOC. That, combined with some assistance from the generator, is enough to get you to the top of Davis Dam while maintaining a speed of at least 45 MPH when towing 14K.
