The new Dodge, sorry the new Ram 1500 PHEV is not a PHEV in the traditional way, yes it is an EV with a gas engine but the gas engine only runs the generator to charge the EV battery… Wait WHAT???
Us gas heads have been making that joke for years now… You know, strap a gas generator on top of your EV push mower… I mean, what’s next, strap a Big diesel generator in the bed and get 2000 miles of towing??
Unlike the majority of plug-in hybrids, the Ramcharger’s gasoline engine is only used to make electricity rather than directly power the wheels too. The Pentastar 3.6-liter V-6 under the hood powers a generator that can be used to power the truck or recharge the 70.8-kWh battery, which is huge compared with typical PHEV batteries.
Ram estimates a full charge will provide 145 miles of pure electric driving range, 690 est total range…
This is how diesel electric locomotives have been built since they were first developed… except for the batteries.
This is also how the 1900 Lohner-Porsche Mixte (yes, THAT Porsche!) was built. It eliminated the transmission and drive axles by using an ICE to run a generator. It used 4 big wheel-motors to drive an AWD, ICE-Hybrid auto.
I think the point has been missed here…
The point is, it is being sold as a long range EV, not a hybrid nor a plug in hybrid… Yes I know how hybrid systems work (basically), I was hybrid certified years ago… The whole point of an EV is NO fuel required… lol
Just call it what it is, a plug in hybrid… Yes I know it also says PHEV, but that is still not an EV…
The Chevy Volt was called an EV… it wasn’t. It had an engine integrated with a transmission and electric motor. It would not run on the ICE only because they did not want to violate a Toyota patent (that Toyota got sued for…) and so GM could call it an EV.
The Ram is a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle so PHEV, not an EV.
Toyota was sued for using Alex Severinsky’s high voltage hybrid design, and he won. Toyota had to pay royalties for thir Prius cars to him. Is that the patent you mean?
Here’s what Ram call it: “Built with both a range-defying battery plus generator, the All-New 2025 Ramcharger is a Range-Extended Electric Truck that was built to break all the rules.”
So they don’t call it an EV or a PHEV, exactly. It has about the biggest PHEV battery I’ve seen, 90 KW-Hr, and longest battery-only range, about 200 miles. But it’s still a PHEV. That 3.6 L V6 is a substantial generator.
I still think if you add a gas powered generator to charge the battery in a , lets say, a Tesla Model3, that it can not longer be called an EV, now it is a Hybrid or a I guess more accurately a PHEV … Maybe it is just my twisted mind…
See, this is why I try to stay out of most High Voltage battery stuff…
As much as I love the benefits of the rotary… and I wrote a research paper on it in 8th or 9th grade, I lost that love after completing engineering school. It is a essentially a 2 cycle engine with poor efficiency and a LOT of combustion sealing area. Plays heck with NO2 emissions and extra HC from the oil burning. Hard to make compression (for greater efficiency) with it, too.
I think Mazda’s whipping a dead horse. 4 stroke ICEs are seeing 40% efficiency while F1 race engines have reached 50%. I can’t see a rotary getting there.
I think that there are supposed to be some improvements to rotary engines’ limitations when they run at a constant speed most of the time. I’m pretty sure I read that theory a few years ago.
