At CES in Las Vegas, the Ram Truck brand of Stellantis in Auburn Hills introduced the Ram 1500 Revolution battery-electric-vehicle (BEV) concept, providing a glimpse into the company’s future. The concept also showcases new features that will be part of the brand’s move toward electrification.
“The Ram 1500 Revolution BEV concept is our clearest signal yet that we’re on the precipice of something extraordinary at Ram and points directly to where we’re going on our electrified journey,” says Mike Koval Jr., Ram brand CEO. “At Ram, we’ve redefined what pickup trucks can be, and we will do so again by pushing past what competitors are offering by delivering the best electric pickups on the market.”
The Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept is part of Ram’s contribution to Stellantis’ Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan to “lead the way the world moves” by delivering innovative, clean, safe, and affordable mobility solutions.
“The Ram Revolution represents several important things to the Ram brand,” says Koval. “Of course, it’s our new Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept that serves as a roadmap to our electrified future. Yet Ram Revolution is also our philosophy as we redefine the pickup segment, with a steady drumbeat of announcements and initiatives as we embark on our electrified journey.”
The concept features an animated and modernized “R-A-M” badge adorns the all-new face of Ram, which features a fully animated LED “tuning fork” design. The doors have been reimagined in a grand saloon-style opening that showcases a cavernous occupant space without a B-pillar.
LED lights have been integrated into the front bumper flares and advancements in lighting are highlighted by fully animated LED taillamps and badging. It also has an integrated fascia design with a skid plate and new pivoting tow hooks that can sit flush.
Other features are thoughtfully integrated throughout and include a new powered frunk with one-touch open-and-close functionality that adds capability and storage. Also included are a powered charge-port door situated on the driver’s side front quarter panel, a powered tailgate, flush-mounted door handles, powered side steps, and a powered rear step with active diffuser.
The concept features side-view mirrors that are smaller, more lightweight, and use 3-D printed materials for optimal aerodynamics and reduced drag. The side-view mirrors use a digital camera to capture the truck’s surroundings, allowing for a smaller physical size.
The charge port illuminates and blinks while charging. An audible sound will signal it is plugged in, and charging has begun. The charge port features Level 1 and Level 2 AC charging on the top half and DC fast charging on the bottom half of the charger.
A more spacious interior and greater cabin length are the result of a new architecture while the battery’s size allows for more cargo volume. Ram Track, Ram’s rail attachment and floor track system, provides cabin flexibility for the seats and console, as well as usable tie-downs or other storage potential. Ram Track is also incorporated in the frunk, as well as the bed, allowing for flexibility from front to back.
A flat-top and -bottom collapsible steering wheel offers enhanced hand grips with capacitive controls, digital screens, and a lit RAM badge. Tactile swiping technology enables occupants to configure the sun visors or the entire electro-chromatic roof with the ability to adjust the opaqueness. The full glass roof with electro-chromatic panels and integrated roof rails features ambient lightning that is operated through the overhead console.
Some unique technology features on the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept include:
- Vehicle Personal Assistant: Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered virtual assistant that enhances in-vehicle and exterior interaction with users. A 3-D Ram avatar acts as the vehicle’s face, responding to various voice commands from users. Additionally, voice control enables the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept to follow commands from the owner while they’re outside the vehicle, such as close the windows, play music, take a picture, and “follow me” with Shadow Mode.
- Shadow Mode – Allows the vehicle to automatically follow driver walking ahead of the vehicle. This voice-activated feature can be useful in situations where the driver needs to move a short distance and doesn’t want to get back in the truck, such as when picking up tools or equipment from a job site. The truck will follow the driver at a safe distance, using sensors and camera technology to navigate around obstacles.
- My Day – Intelligent trip planning based on users’ schedules and preferences to provide suggestions at right time and right location.
- Cabin Mode – Cabin Modes are “one button” settings that adjust multiple aspects of the cabin experience at once, based on the use case. They include options such as Productivity Mode, Social Mode, Party Mode, Relax Mode, and user-created modes. Adjustments include interior lighting, seat position and orientation, window and skylight opacity, vehicle suspension, sound zones, and display content.
- Advanced Augmented Reality (AR) Heads-up Display (HUD) – This feature combines AR HUD and advanced camera and sensor technology to provide enhanced driving assistance. See-through vision uses camera and sensor technology to create an experience that allows the driver to see objects outside of their normal view on the AR HUD.
- Intelligent storage app – Mobile application that helps users measure objects to determine if they can be transported with their vehicle. To obtain an object’s dimensions, users can scan the product’s barcode or use a built-in AR camera measuring tool. The mobile app will show users how the object can best be positioned in their vehicle, and internal and external cabin projectors assist by displaying guides on the target storage location
- Adjustable and removable lower display – Used as a tablet, passenger display, truck bed workstation, vehicle control, or video game controller, the two 14.2-inch displays can be combined to provide a larger viewing area.
- Smart Home Control – User can control their smart home from the infotainment screen, adjusting devices such as lights, cameras, thermostats, and sound systems.
- Advanced camera and sensor system – Multiple cameras and sensors works together to enhance the driving experience and provide additional functions, such as 3-D capture, biometric identity recognition, and 360 photo and video capture.
- Exterior projector – Multiple built-in projectors provide an efficient way to visually communicate information to the user. The projectors also double as a mobile movie theater, allowing the owner to have movie night anytime, anywhere.
- Autonomous capabilities – In Level 3+ autonomous mode, the vehicle retracts the steering wheel to provide additional space for the driver. Interior lights, the AR HUD, smarts seats, and the steering wheel work together to provide situational awareness to the driver.
The Ram 1500 Revolution BEV concept features all-wheel-drive capability and is powered by two electric drive module (EDMs), which are positioned toward the front and rear of the vehicle, maximizing interior space, and enabling the cavernous frunk. Designed to accommodate larger capacity EDMs, the Ram 1500 BEV Concept offers the potential for future high-performance applications.
The vehicle can add up to 100 miles of range in approximately 10 minutes with 800-volt DC fast charging at up to 350 kW.
As part of the Ram brand’s focus on providing consumers a growing and vast array of leading-edge advanced technology, Ram is showcasing a new inductive robot charger — or Ram Charger — at CES 2023, that will make home charging as easy as possible.
It detects the vehicle’s presence and its charging needs, and automatically moves into position and aligns itself under the vehicle. Smart-charge capability will allow charging during off-peak time, providing more convenience and peace-of-mind for our customers.
The Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept features four-wheel steering with up to 15 degrees of articulation and is designed to offer greater vehicle maneuverability while parking at low speed, on tight off-road trails, and increases the vehicle’s steering response at high speeds.
In related news, Stellantis announced the establishment of Mobilisights, an independent business unit fully dedicated to growing the company’s data as a service (DaaS) business and to developing and licensing innovative business-to-business (B2B) products, applications, and services.
Mobilisights products will be available to a diverse set of entities, including private enterprises, public-sector utilities, and education and research institutions, fostering data-driven decision making and enabling a wide-ranging portfolio of applications and services.
As one of the seven accretive business units announced in the Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan, Mobilisights represents a step in Stellantis’ efforts to grow and accelerate its software and data business.
“The vision for Mobilisights is to contribute to a smarter world, leveraging the insights that vehicle data provide to inspire innovative applications and services that can transform and dramatically improve the day-to-day lives of users and businesses,” says Sanjiv Ghate, CEO of Mobilisights.
“Harnessed effectively, sensor and other data available from connected vehicles can enable a wide range of services and applications with compelling benefits, ranging from personalized usage-based insurance to road hazard detection and traffic management. With its 14 iconic brands and millions of connected vehicles, Stellantis has unmatched global data scale capable of powering this business forward.”
Fully leveraging the data from 34 million connected vehicles that the company plans to reach by the end of the decade, Mobilisights has exclusive access and rights to license vehicle and related data from all Stellantis brands to external customers. Such data density will give Mobilisights a greater level of autonomy when it comes to its reliance on other data suppliers to power applications.
Mobilisights and its partners will operate within a very strict data governance and privacy policy. This includes using anonymized and aggregated data, and only sharing personal data of customers with their consent and only for the specific services of their choosing. Customers also can opt out of information being collected, used, or shared, even after they have given their consent.
“The foundation of this whole business is trust,” says Ghate. “Trust in our custodianship of data and trust that we are here to create a better world.”
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