Ram Has A Solution For EV Range Anxiety

Don’t worry, it’s pretty stupid.

After face-planting with a Super Bowl commercial that’s about as cynical as they come, Ram has let everyone know it’s new all-electric truck will include a “Range Electric Paradigm Breaker” model. That name just rolls right off the tongue like the lesson in slick modern marketing it is.

Find out why electric cars are prone to rusting here.

Anyway, this “paradigm breaker” is supposed to cure people of electric vehicle range anxiety. After all, there aren’t vehicle chargers all over the place, not like how gas stations have had literally decades to populate everywhere humans frequent, so some people are a little nervous about driving something with a plug.

To cure that, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares revealed this “paradigm breaker” model will come with a gas engine to recharge the battery. Here’s the thing: this has been done many times before. Most famously, the Chevy Volt, not the modern Bolt, had a gasoline engine which worked as a generator to recharge the battery. So have many other electric cars, including the BMW i3.

In other words, this is hardly a “paradigm breaker” but instead is just retreading an old idea. Welcome to automotive marketing where a worn-out concept is given a “sexy” new name so the naïve get excited about it.

In the past, EV apologists were split on these range-extending setups. After all, they’re burning gas and gas is evil since it emits carbon, just like they do as they yammer on and on, never mind how the electricity is generated to recharge other EVs. Some have argued it’s a great way to help people get used to driving EVs. Think of this setup as a gateway drug into full EV dependence.

Will the Ram customer base go for this? Probably not in huge numbers. While it does help solve the problem of what to do when you’re nowhere near a charger, likely the range with a full tank of gas won’t be anywhere near what you can get in a regular ICE truck, whether a Ram or a competitor. However, this is just another step forward in the quest to force everyone into EVs and that’s the truly concerning detail.

Source: The Detroit News

Images via Stellantis