RAMCharger has been announced. The Hybrid Ford should be building.....

[Samson16]

It is never my intent to be rude, either in person or behind some anonymous keyboard. If I came off that way to you please accept my apologies.

Thanks for that. I'm not shy about stating what I think to be true while learning from people like you, so my injury was a bit tongue-in-cheek. It can be challenging, at least for me, to put correct labels on these vehicles. I was trying to point out that the RamCharger is quite different from the Powerboost in design. I find the technology interesting.

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[dafish]

You got a free, installed solar system with batteries to charge when needed? That's not common.

No, I already reached ROI. I heat and cool on electric, which means I've both a large system and a large electric demand. I also optimized my tax credits, bought a Tesla, and learned my home resale value jumped substantially. Nor do I need batteries. I'm in a 1:1 netmetering area and product more power than I require.

At this moment I have roughly 3MW of excess power per annum I can use, for free, to power another EV/PHEV. That won't make a year of typical use, but I'm retired and use my VMax whenever possible, then the Tesla. I'll likely meet all but my towing and long distance needs from my "bank". Meanwhile the home power available does me no good when traveling, so...

 

[dafish]

The TLFT podcast had a conference call with some RAM engineers. On that call the engineer stated the batteries are Li-ion. So not LFP, but at least not NiMh.

Nothing else I found noteworthy came up.

Bah, I just remembered something else: Fuel and oil age/water contamination, and etc have monitoring sensors integrated and the truck will alert you to run on gas or automatically run on gas for you.

Sorry, it wasn't clear to me which, just that they'd considered and addressed the concern of aging fuel and etc brought up earlier in the thread.

 

[9663mu]

Finally a true competitor to the 2021 F150 powerboost's with hands free driving and all. This truck is going to cost $90K Im betting

A current loaded limited Ram is around 85k I think. So 90k+ is very feasible. Crazy how fast we climbed through the 70k range for super loaded trucks just a few years back

 

[dafish]

That may not be totally fair.

I'm pissed at Ford about how they've handled their troubled customers, and frustrated they squandered their advantage, but conceptually PB was a solid direction. And lots of folks love theirs. Ford just F'd up.

Worse, it can't be migrated (IMO) to a PHEV, so it's a dead-end. Which is not to say it didn't have value if it had been executed better, or that it can't be improved to present an even better return as a hybrid. But a PHEV? Nope.

Honestly, I'd buy a well debugged '21 if it didn't have the max tow. And may as an interim machine. However, for me, a PHEV half-ton is what best meets my needs.

 

[dafish]

So I created a post on how Ford might respond. It stayed on topic for about 10 seconds and has mostly wondered off course. A few good posts, but also some brand hate, some nonsense, and lots of defense of PB. Little intelligent discourse on how Ford might respond which was my intent. Guess we can hope, and to be fair there were some insightful discussion.

However, amongst the noise there were a few good nuggets, some quality questions, and a link to a Sandy Monroe commentary. Now Sandy blew one thing badly; he failed to consider those of us who use trucks as actual trucks! We tow, we load them, we travel in them. The empty range is meaningless. It's a number we don't care about, and it's exactly why a Lightning has little value to a truck guy. Sandy did deliver a useful nugget though! His data shows the all-up weight added of the 3.6L generator and support peripherals should be 550lbs.

Perfect! It can be off a little, but now we know something important.

I've seen and use as a general number (each MFG will be different) li-Ion battery pack weights tend to be around ~270 watts per KG. That means:

The REV standard battery pack size at 168KW is ~ 1,370lbs
The Ramcharge pack weight at 92KW is ~750 lbs
The difference is 620 lbs.

I now have two theories on why RAM used the 92KW pack size in the Ramcharger:

1. Stellantis can use the REV base chassis components and tuning on the Ramcharger, for they're almost identical!
2. As I've mentioned before, the current demand likely requires that kind of pack size to support the drain of both motors without battery harm.
   1. At 488KW of motor capacity that's already a 5.3C (pack capacity/discharge rate)!
      1. For reference a Tesla Model S Plaid, at ~ 760KW, is ~100KW pack or 7.6C.
         1. Those batteries get hot quick!!!
      2. A generally used baseline for discharge is only 1C.
      3. If we got a 60KW battery it would push discharge rate to 8.13C (not reasonable) and save 260 lbs.

Bottom Line:
If we're to see a smaller battery in the RC they'd have to recalibrate the suspension and reduce the power output of the motors. I don't expect that.

Cost:
I've seen a lot of BS about pack cost. MFG battery cost per KW is ~ $150 per KW and falling (I've seen industry projections suggesting half that by 2030, and another predicting 2025 costs of $100/KW. We're talking a potential cost saving (32KW reduction) of $3k-5K (before MFG markup I suppose).

Would Stellantis do that to reduce $4k of costs/unit? $5K-6K MSRP?

Some quick links for those that wonder:
Battery market forecast to 2030: Pricing, capacity, and supply and demand (esource.com)
Trends in batteries – Global EV Outlook 2023 – Analysis - IEA
Battery price per kwh 2023 | Statista

Your thoughts?

 

[Samson16]

His data shows the all-up weight added of the 3.6L generator and support peripherals should be 550lbs.

3.6L Pentastar dressed is 332lb. 27 gallons of fuel is 162lb. That’s 494lb. Right off the bat. Now we need frame supports to mount the engine, an exhaust system, radiator and coolant(goodbye aero), fuel tank with pump, and of course the AC generator winding itself with accompanying converter/regulator modules and cabling.

 

[dafish]

3.6L Pentastar dressed is 332lb. 27 gallons of fuel is 162lb. That’s 494lb. Right off the bat. Now we need frame supports to mount the engine, an exhaust system, radiator and coolant(goodbye aero), fuel tank with pump, and of course the AC generator winding itself with accompanying converter/regulator modules and cabling.

My bet is Sandy didn't include fuel. A solid concern, but as you add as much range as you want I'm not sure I consider that part of the weight penalty. You may prefer otherwise!

 

[Samson16]

My bet is Sandy didn't include fuel. A solid concern, but as you add as much range as you want I'm not sure I consider that part of the weight penalty. You may prefer otherwise!

Oh I want the RamC to be a success! It’s just fun working it out

 

[dafish]

Oh I want the RamC to be a success! It’s just fun working it out

Indeed, and you've raised good questions. Am I to assume you'd prefer a larger engine in a Ford response? Would you go smaller and turbo? Or?

 

[Samson16]

I’m concerned that it will go the way of the Volt and end up not being good for either daily driving needs or long distance trips. The tipping point is when I decide to buy a Model 3 as a nice daily. The RC needs to remain nimble enough I don’t do that. The PB serves as both for me and at 60k was a fantastic bargain imo.

 

[dafish]

I’m concerned that it will go the way of the Volt and end up not being good for either daily driving needs or long distance trips. The tipping point is when I decide to buy a Model 3 as a nice daily. The RC needs to remain nimble enough I don’t do that. The PB serves as both for me and at 60k was a fantastic bargain imo.

My thought is the RC won't be for you. Nothing wrong with that of course. RC will not, can not, even get close to Model 3 in any metric. This is a HD half-ton built for those that would otherwise be using a heavy truck but want the advantages of EV. I don't think that's a narrow marketplace, but this forum has made me question the average American. Nothing new sadly, but at least there are a few folks entering into intelligent conversation.

I own a Model Y-LR, and while it's our primary vehicle it's incapable of towing in any meaningful measure. The 3 is basically the same thing but smaller.

I suppose I'm puzzled how you correlated the 3 to the PB similar to, but if it meets your needs cool, Glad it works for you!

I don't expect anything of the "other" thread, and save for a post I'm about to add I suspect this one too has run it's course. Best of luck to you!

-d

 

[dafish]

A few closing, at least for me, observations on RC:

Cost: I've looked a bit more at it and it's reasonably clear RC will come to market at or below REV cost.

Engine choice: I think Stellantis chose wisely. I think it was Samson in the other thread who asked about altitude, and that's a darn good question. It does bring the question of turbo-normalization up, but I'm just not certain the cost, heat, or packaging demands would ever align with the need.

If anything I'd have expected a larger bore NA V-6, for the cost and weight penalty's would remain the same. I remain surprised thet went EV drive on all 4 wheels instead of direct driving one of the axles via planetary. I suspect that was an engineering resource decision.

I'm sure we'll learn more in the months to come, but for now I feel like we've mined out the information at hand.

Props to all,

-d

 

[HammaMan]

Was just checking battery health on some 300k mile teslas, the only replied so far has 92% of battery health remaining at 280k miles. Only maintenance done was changing motor's gear oil (coolant doesn't happen until 5 years). This is conventional lithium chemistry, NOT LFP chemistry which has 2-3x the life span. One guy has 380k miles on his, still waiting on batt health report.

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