A Closer Look At the Dodge Ram Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Electrovaya today announced that Chrysler's Ram truck plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, packing Electrovaya's 12-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, is being showcased in public for the first time at the Washington D.C. Auto Show that started today.

You'll recall that with the help of a $48-million grant from the Energy Department early last year, Chrysler announced plans to build and test a fleet of 140 half-ton Ram pickups with plug-in hybrid drive systems sometime this year.

Chrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said at the time that the commercial market lends itself to hybrid truck applications more than anything else. A half-ton pickup is much better at carrying a battery pack than a car and trucks really work much better as hybrid vehicle platforms, he said.

Since then, Chrysler has developed a Ram PHEV featuring the automaker's 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 mated to a two-mode hybrid transmission and the Electrovaya battery pack. The vehicle is said to be capable of up to 20 miles of zero-emissions, pure-electric range and offer an overall fuel economy improvement of more than 65% for average drive cycles.

Delivery of the Ram PHEVs to fleet operators "is expected to begin this summer," Electrovaya said, without elaborating. We hope so, and more importantly we hope Chrysler will be able to eventually commercialize the Ram hybrid.

But given Chrysler's recent track record with bringing hybrids and electric vehicles to market, we're not betting the farm on it.

As Edmunds Sr. Editor Bill Visnic noted in a chat with us earlier today, to date individual truck buyers have demonstrated scant interest in hybrids, "and I think for reasonable points: pickup duty cycles don't align well with hybrid attributes."

But, he said, if there's more pressure on businesses to run more fuel-efficient fleets, the commercial side of the pickup business could drive an increasing "need" for hybridized pickups - whether or not they make sense based on how "work" pickups are used.

There's also the chance that Chrysler is showing off the Ram PHEV as a response to General Motors' announcement that it was withdrawing an application for $14.4 billion in direct loans from the Energy Department to develop advanced-technology vehicles.

GM's move could be seen at Chrysler as boosting its own chances for more DOE dollars, which it needs much more than General Motors.

Source: Green Car Advisor