S3, E48 - Have You Heard? Truck News!

Have you heard? It's Truck News!

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Have you heard?

I mean, no.

Well, we got a whole lot of truck news for you this week, so let's get going.

In news that surprised probably nobody, Ram has officially killed its electric truck.

What's wrong with you?

Well, it turns out that Ram is going to focus all of its effort on the Ram Ram charger, which is the extended range version of the pickup truck.

So before we get any further, let me walk you through the confusing name change.

So Ram had two electric trucks.

One was a battery electric vehicle and one was a range extender.

The Ram Rev Ram EV is now dead and the Ram Ram charger is now the Ram Rev, not the Ram charger.

So it goes from Ram EV to Rev range extended vehicle.

Make sense?

Clear as mud?

So now the Ram Rev is actually the Ram Ram charger because the Ram Rev Bev is dead.

Hope that made sense.

A statement from Stellantis says, quote unquote, as demand for full size battery electric truck slows in North America,

Stellantis is reassessing its product strategy and will discontinue development of a full size BEV pickup.

As part of this, Ram is renaming its RE EV, range extended EV, powered pickup truck to Ram 1500 Rev, formerly Ram charger.

This vehicle will set a new benchmark in the half ton segment offering exceptional range, towing capability and payload performance.

If you think about it, Ram was already late to the electric pickup truck market.

It seems like the half tons are super soft in terms of sales right now.

The EV tax credits going away and those trucks are very expensive because of how big the batteries have to be.

As I've said on the show, I think a range extended pickup truck makes a lot more sense than a pure battery electric,

especially when you get to that half ton size or bigger.

Seems like EV in a small truck, midsize is kind of about where you want to be.

The other issue is when you look at the market, there's a ton of competition that's out there right now.

And so in the electric marketplace, let's walk through it.

You've got the Chevrolet Silverado EV, the Ford F-150 Lighting, you got the GMC Hummer EV, the GMC Sierra EV, the Rivian R1-T and the Tesla Cybertruck.

If you go into the gas market, you basically just have the regular 1500, Ford F-150, Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, Toyota Tundra.

And if you look at that market, let's take Ford for example, they sold 700,000 plus F-series trucks and only 33,510 lightings.

So with less competition, they sold 20 times the trucks.

So I think Ram's looking at that going, you know what, let's not fight in that really crowded space.

Let's do something that stands out and makes a splash for us.

Hence the Ram Charger, now Rev, coming to the market.

And if you remember back in, I think May, they basically said, hey, we're putting a pause on the development of the electric truck because we've decided to bring the range extender to market sooner.

And I think this is just that whole process playing out.

So you'll find out more about the Ram, Rev, range extended EV pickup truck coming up.

And just to remind you, the range extended version uses a Pentastar basically as a generator under the hood.

And by all the things that I've heard is a really technologically advanced and really, really good truck with a lot of thought and how the generator works and interacts with the battery.

And the beauty is the generator is completely divorced from the drivetrain.

So it's not a hybrid. It's still a true electric vehicle.

It just has an onboard generator.

But the fact that you can just pull up to a gas station and you don't plug it in, I think that's going to be game changing in that pickup truck space.

So more to come on that and I can't wait to hear more.

In other Ram news, you guys will probably be happy to hear that there's more information on the so-called upcoming Ram Dakota.

And thanks to Stellantis CEO Antonia Filosa, who recently during a fireside chat at the Kepler Chevrolet Autumn Conference confirmed that that truck is coming officially in 2027.

He also discussed going to the design center in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

He said he saw the truck itself, not only the sketches, but the clay model and he says it's absolutely beautiful.

And this body on frame midsize is coming to party with the likes of Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado, the Ford Ranger, Nissan Frontier.

So I'm excited to see this one.

I think the midsize truck market is hot where what 10, 15 years ago was basically dead.

And that's one of the hottest segments right now.

And if Ram can come in and take the magic from the 1500 and put it into a half ton, I think they're going to have something really successful on their hands.

So can't wait to find out more on that.

And it doesn't sound like we'll be waiting very long.

Rumors on the internet says that Toyota will be making RAV4s and Land Cruiser EVs at the Kentucky plant that currently makes the Lexus ES.

Seems like kind of a weird place for Toyota to be, especially with where truck and SUV full electric vehicles are going versus hybrids.

And Toyota being the king of really hybrids and having some really great powertrains.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

A spokesman from Toyota told Motor1 quote unquote,

To improve manufacturing efficiencies and better serve customers based on market demand, Toyota is strategically transitioning production across our plants in Kentucky and Indiana.

As previously announced, Toyota plans to produce two all new three row battery electric SUVs in the US.

Toyota will now assemble both vehicles at Toyota Kentucky.

So is that something you guys are interested in?

Kind of curious.

If you were able to get an electric Land Cruiser and it was as capable as the gas vehicle.

Let me know.

Truck Show podcast at gmail.com.

So we recently talked about how the Dodge Durango Hellcat and 392 are coming back and will be part of the 2026 Durango lineup, which is all V8 starting with the 5.7 liter Hemi making 360 horse.

But the caveat is it sounds like if you are in states that follow California's Air Resources Board Emissions Regulations, you are out of luck.

And that's because they're not going to be emissions legal in California plus those 16 states.

A spokesperson said quote unquote, the Dodge Durango GT with the 5.7 liter Hemi will be available in all states.

The Dodge Durango RT 392 and Durango SRT Hellcat are available in non carb states as we prepare to begin production of the Durango SRT Hellcat jailbreak later in Q4 and open for orders of the Durango RT 392.

We continue to work with carb on opportunities to sell these two powertrains in all states alongside the 5.7 liter Durango GT.

So that's kind of interesting mostly because the 392 is obviously available in other products like the Jeep Wrangler 392.

And this list including Washington DC is California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

Any Hyundai fans out there? If you are, it's kind of interesting because CEO Jose Munoz confirmed that Hyundai is working on a brand new mid sized pickup truck for America.

And not only will it arrive by 2030, but his body on frame pickup truck is also likely to spawn a body on frame SUV on the same platform.

So that could mean that you may have a forerunner fighter coming from Hyundai.

And it'll be interesting to see how much off road capability they bake in considering they've been moving more toward off road with their XRT trim.

If you think of the strides that Hyundai has made over the years to get to where they are today, a body on frame platform pickup truck SUV are kind of the last things that it doesn't really have.

So it would make sense that to be a full fledged automaker to duke it out in every segment here in the US, that's where they're deficient.

And it looks like they don't want to be left behind.

So it'll be interesting to see what Hyundai does in that segment.

Here's a couple of electric truck news pieces.

So let's start with Tesla.

So Tesla with a Cybertruck price for the base model is now up $10,000.

And it's not because they made it more expensive, but it's because they dropped the cheapest trim, which was priced at $69,999.

And now it has been dropped.

So the next version is the dual motor all wheel drive model, which its base price is $79,999.

So to get into a Cybertruck, $80,000 to get in.

And of course, they've got the Cybertruck trimotor above that.

But that's a lot of cheddar for a Cybertruck.

So what I think is interesting about this is not only did Tesla kill their base model and basically move the price up $10,000, but Ford just came in and Ford said, hey, we're going to have a more budget friendly F-150 Lightning.

And they've introduced the STX for 2026.

So it's different with the STX is you get STX graphics with blue accents.

You get a new grill that has a blue accent line running through the middle of it.

You also get blue accents on the cloth seats on the interior.

And there'll be some additional colors and things like that.

This truck, when you compare it to a gas F-150 is 136 horsepower and 365 pound feet of more torque over the 400 horsepower 410 pound foot Coyote 5 liter engine.

And the base price for the STX is going to come in at $65,540, despite having some additional content to it.

And you can compare that to the ICE STX FX4, which has an MSRP of $58,890.

So kind of lets you know where that sits in line up for definitely going the opposite direction of Tesla and trying to get more volume where Tesla is trying to get more profit, it sounds like.

So in case you haven't had enough of me talking about the Ford F-150 Lightning and Cybertruck in the same story, I'm just going to give you one more here.

And that's that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just ran crash tests on both the Cybertruck and the Ford F-150 Lightning and the results are kind of mixed.

This test was the overlap test where it's 40% overlap as if somebody, think of it as a two lane road and somebody crossed over the double yellow and wasn't a full head on but was offset.

That's what this test evaluates.

And the F-150 Lightning didn't do very well.

While the front passengers seemed to do okay, there were injuries to the rear seat dummy that included moderate risk of injuries to the head, neck, chest, and abdomen.

And that's what earned the F-150 Lightning a poor rating.

In the F-150 Lightning measurements taken from the rear dummy showed a high risk of not only chest injuries but also injuries to the head or neck.

In addition, the rear dummy's lap belt moved from the ideal position on the pelvis onto the abdomen which increases the risk of internal injuries.

They haven't rated the front or side impact crashes but the gas version did awesome when they tested it back in 2021.

And when it came to headlights, the F-150 Lightning only got an acceptable rating because they did not exceed the IIHS's glare limits.

So basically said visibility was an issue for both the low and high beams.

And moving over to the Cybertruck, in the same moderate overlap test, the Cybertruck did much better than the Lightning.

The front passengers did well scoring a good rating across the board but so did the rear passengers although the IIHS noted that there was a risk of chest injury and rated that portion of the test acceptable.

As far as the headlights go on the Cybertruck, it was given a poor rating and that wasn't because of the headlight performance per se but it was excessive glare that the low beams created for other motorists.

And one last thing, there is a caveat to the good rating with the Cybertruck.

It only applies to Cybertruck's built after April 2025 and that's because Tesla made a change to improve the crash worthiness so that's important to know as well.

So right now it looks like the Rivian R1T is the only EV pickup truck that has gotten a top safety pick rating for 2025.

And out of the current pickup trucks that have been crashed so far for 2025, it's the Toyota Tundra that has the top rating getting a top safety pick plus for 2025.

And if you're curious what the 10 longest lasting trucks that you can buy are, ICcars.com recently did a study and the study took odometer ratings from 402 million vehicles every year since 2013 and then used the data to figure out how likely a model would hit 250,000 miles.

So then they took the study and broke it down further to focus just on pickup trucks and found out that pickups in general last longer than the average car.

One interesting piece of data to glean from all this is that heavy duty trucks went out big in this type of study.

So let's go through and see which rigs made it into the top 10 starting with number 10.

That would be the GMC Sierra 3500 HD.

It's percentage likely to reach 250,000 miles, 26%.

That's 1.3 times more likely than the average.

9.

Coming at number 9 unsurprisingly is the Toyota Tacoma.

Unless you thought it might be higher than that, the percentage likely to reach 250,000 miles, 26.7%.

And compared to average, it's 1.4 times more likely than the average vehicle to hit 250,000 miles.

8.

And coming in at number 8 is the Ram 2500.

It is 27.2% likely to reach 250,000 miles, which puts us at 1.4 times the average.

7.

Ford F-250 Super Duty comes in 2 tenths of a percentage higher than the Ram and it's 27.4% likely to reach 250,000 miles and it's 1.4 times the average.

6.

Ford F-350 Super Duty, 28.3% likely to reach 250,000 miles and that's 1.5 times the average.

5.

Coming in at number 5, Chevrolet Silverado 3500 HD, 28.7% likely to reach 250,000 miles and that's 1.5 times the average.

Full.

The GMC Sierra 2500 HD, 29.1% likely to reach 250,000 miles and that's also 1.5 times the average.

3.

Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD, 29.6% likely to reach 250,000 miles and that's also 1.5 times the average.

2.

Surprise, surprise, this one's not an HD pickup truck and it is the only half ton to make it on the list and that is the Toyota Tundra, probably no surprise to a lot of people.

It is 36.6% likely to reach 250,000 miles and that's 1.9 times the average.

And our final first place winner on the list, number 1, that goes to the Ram 3500.

I'm thinking probably no doubt to the Cummins drivetrain on that one but check this out.

Number 3, which was the Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD was at 29.6% so it didn't quite reach that 30% threshold.

Number 2 was the Toyota Tundra which leapfrogged all the way to 36.6%.

Ram 3500% likely to reach 250,000 miles, 42.6% which makes it 2.2 times more likely than the average which is pretty darn impressive.

I got a winner!

Alright and our last story of this week, well guess what, got another recall.

Alright, you may be thinking, I know which brand this is, but you might be wrong.

No, it's not Ford this week, thankfully Ford got a reprieve.

Nope, this one has to do with Stellantis and it covers 2018 Ram 1500 DS, 2500 DJs and 3500 D2 trucks.

And those show vehicles that were built between May 21st, 2018 and June 26th, 2018 might be using airbag inflators that could have been compromised during manufacturing.

Fortunately it only affects 1800 trucks, on the Ram 1500 it's 666 units, on the Ram 2500 it's 870 units, on the Ram 3500 it's about 225 units.

So the issue according to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration and Stellantis is that the inflators which come from Joyce and Safety Systems out of Auburn Hill, Michigan may have been exposed to moisture during production.

And if there's any internal corrosion that increases stress corrosion cracking inside the inflator housing, which means that it could rupture when the airbag deploys, in the worst case scenario, sending sharp metal fragments into the cabin.

So that could be, instead of a lifesaver, that could be a lifetaker and Stellantis wants you to get your truck in and make sure that gets fixed.

Dealers will inspect the vehicle and replace the current airbags as necessary, of course under warranty.

Owner notifications will be mailed out next month and you can contact FCA at 1-800-853-1403 if you think your truck might be affected.

The recall numbers are 83C, 91C and 92C.

So if you've got one of those trucks make sure you get it in and get those taken care of.

And that's going to wrap it up for this episode of the Truck Show Podcast. Have you heard?

Don't forget to follow us on social at truckshowpodcast at Sean P. Holman or send us an email at truckshowpodcastatgmail.com or leave a message on the 5-star hotline 657-205-6105.

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