A pickup truck idles at a test track outside Detroit with its hood cracked open, revealing a small gasoline engine wedged beside a battery pack.
No exhaust note follows, just a faint electric hum.
The dash shows a range number most drivers have never seen on a truck before.
A charging cable hangs loose nearby, barely needed for the drive home.
That combination is not a concept sketch anymore.
It is a production plan with a number attached, and the first H2 explains how it works with a hidden onboard generator.
How one truck runs on electricity and gasoline without ever plugging in
The trick is a small gas engine that never touches the wheels. It features a 92-kWh battery and a 3.6-liter V6 that acts exclusively as an onboard charger. Instead, it spins a dedicated onboard generator that keeps feeding electricity to the battery, so electric motors alone move the truck at all times, no matter how the generator behaves.
That separation is what engineers call a range extender, and it is why the truck can drive like a pure EV while never needing a public charger. The 2026 Ram 1500 REV features a 92 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery pack, paired with an on-board 130 kW generator, sending power to 250-kilowatt (kW) front and 248 kW rear electric drive modules, and is paired with a 3.6-liter V-6 engine acting purely as backup.
The company now sells this truck as the Ram 1500 REV, after folding its original Ramcharger name into that nameplate once Ram’s separate, fully electric pickup project was shelved.
On a fully charged battery, the 1500 Rev has a range of 145 miles. Once the V6 generator kicks in, however, total range balloons to 690 miles. Once it does, the automaker says the combined range climbs to up to 690 miles combined from its 27 gallon fuel tank, more than double what most fully electric pickups currently promise on a single charge.
A truck built to tow heavy without losing that electric range
Picture a work site where a crew needs to haul a loaded trailer two hundred miles without hunting for a charger. That is the scenario engineers designed around, and the spec sheet reflects it in blunt numbers.
The truck is rated to tow up to 14,000 pounds and carry a payload of 2,625 pounds, figures that match or beat many gas powered half ton trucks. Because the motors deliver instant torque output, it still moves with real urgency despite the extra hardware stacked under the floor.
It goes from 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds.
It also runs a home backup power mode, letting owners power household loads during an outage. Even the charging story stayed flexible, with standard Level 1 and Level 2 home charging alongside DC fast-charging at up to 145 kW, adding up to 50 miles of range in just 10 minutes when connected to a charger with that electrical rate.
Where this milestone claim actually comes from
None of these figures are secondhand estimates. They come directly from the automaker’s own product materials, including Stellantis’s own release, which states the all-new 2026 Ram 1500 REV debuts with a class-shattering targeted range of up to 690 miles.
That timing matters. The automaker originally planned a separate, fully electric version of this truck, but by the end of 2024, Stellantis delayed plans to develop the broad-shouldered pickup loaded with tech, saying it would push its launch into 2026. The fully electric project was later canceled altogether, and Ram said it would still plan to launch an extended-range electric truck, equipped with an electric generator and a gas engine, renamed from “Ramcharger” to the “Ram 1500 REV.”
So the vehicle making headlines today is mechanically the same range extended design long tied to its earlier Ramcharger name. Ram’s own marketing material describes it as the World’s First-Ever Range-Extended Full-Size Electric Pickup Truck , a framing that has stuck in every public briefing since.
Why this bridge technology still has real limits
Even a 690 mile truck is not free of tradeoffs. The underlying battery is far smaller than what a long range pure EV pickup carries, which means the truck still burns gasoline once that initial electric stretch runs out.
Fuel economy in generator mode will trail a dedicated hybrid, even if it beats a traditional V8 truck. Then there is timing, since the nameplate has already shifted once and the launch window has moved multiple times since the concept first appeared.
Buyers comparing it against a full size electric pickup’s range should note range extended trucks get judged differently, since part of their total distance depends on carried fuel, not battery capacity alone.
Towing eats into the electric only stretch fast. According to the truck’s chief engineer, with a full charge and a full tank of fuel, the Ramcharger will tow a 14,000-lb trailer 39 miles on electricity alone and 229 miles on the range extender , a sharply smaller number than the advertised total once a heavy trailer is attached.
What this milestone means for the next wave of trucks
Even with those caveats, the approach answers a real complaint from truck buyers who want electric driving without planning every trip around a charging map. That is a different value proposition than the one chasing pure range records.
It may appeal to buyers who default to gas trucks out of habit rather than preference. Because the segment is still so new, this truck’s reception will set a benchmark other automakers watch closely, much like the shift seen in a rival’s new battery platform.
No rival has reached driveways in this body style yet.
So the test now shifts from spec sheets to driveways. If owners confirm anything close to the advertised range while towing and hauling, the range extended pickup could become a serious third option alongside gas and pure electric trucks.
