Ram has finally done it!
They have an EV on offer that is affordable and practical – and it came out just in time for Christmas! It is the 2026 Ram REV Hallmark Keepsake. It has class-leading range – as far as you can push it – which is farther than any other EV can be pushed because it does not weigh 6,000 pounds and its wheels turn when you push it. It will never catch fire and it can be yours for $29.95.
This one might actually sell!
Unlike the full-size RAM REV, which was cancelled before it went on sale because Stellantis – Ram’s parent – already had one EV debacle on its hands and decided to cut bait in order to avoid another. Dodge – another Stellantis brand – has had about as much luck selling EV Chargers as Ford did, back in the late ’50s, selling Edsels. And Edsels actually did sell. Just not nearly as well as Ford had hoped they would. The Edsel came out in the fall of 1957 – Ford called its launch “E Day” – as a new 1959 model and also a new line of car, or so Ford hoped. It was not a bad car in the mechanical or general build quality sense, relative to other American cars of the time.
It was just ugly.
Ford tried to make it different by giving it a different-looking front end, the centerpiece of which was a kind of rounded rectangle grille that suggested a urinal. The car itself drove ok. The problem – for Ford – was very few people wanted to be seen driving it. The Edsel was cancelled after just two years.
The problem Stellantis has is different – and worse.
The battery-powered Charger that came out nearly three years ago is not ugly. It is just useless – and overpriced. Dodge – Stellantis – had hoped its power and performance capabilities would overcome the by-now-well-known EV issues of having to plan one’s life around charging sessions and prompt people to pay nearly $20,000 more (to start) than what Dodge had been charging for the last 2023 Charger with an engine. There was also the compounding problem that uniquely afflicted Dodge trying to sell its buyers on EVs, that being Dodge buyers are generally not interested in EVs -0 no matter how quickly they accelerate. 
As everyone knows by now, the decision to turn the Charger into a battery-powered device – no matter how good looking and no matter how quickly it accelerates – has been an even worse debacle for Dodge (and so, Stellantis) than Ford’s Edsel flop.
The Edsel, after all was a Ford – and the R&D costs that went into it could be at least partially recovered by the sale of other Fords that used common mechanical and other such parts – but not the ugly parts. For example, the Edsel’s FE V8 engine was shared with Ford-badged models such as the Ranger (which was a car back in the Edsel era) so Ford didn’t lose everything it put into the Edsel. 
Dodge has lost almost everything – including its buyer base. The battery powered Charger’s good looks might salvage something once the battery-powered drivetrain has been exorcized – in favor of engines, which will hopefully mean a V8 engine (as as soon as possible, to defibrillate interest in Dodge before the flatline becomes irrecoverable). But the battery-powered drivetrain is probably a total loss as there is nothing else to put that into. All the money spent designing the good-looking Charger’s shell around it is probably a write-off and Dodge (unlike Ford back in the late 1960s) may not be strong enough to survive such a loss. 
Ram – the brand – is in a much better position because Ram trucks were selling well and were a major profit source for Stellantis in North America. Emphasis on past tense, at least partially. Ram (Stellantis) did not make the mistake of converting the Ram 1500 into a battery-powered pickup, at least not summarily and just like that – as Dodge did to the Charger.
Instead, it went half-way, for openers.
The Ram 1500 was shorn of the 5.7 liter Hemi V8 and in its place went the new “Hurricane” 3.0 liter turbocharged inline six. This was still at least a engine and so the prospective Ram 1500 buyer wasn’t faced with the prospect of the endless time-suck attending the weekly recharge sessions that come with the keys to an EV. But – much to the mortification of Ram’s dealers – fewer people were buying new Ram 1500s with the six because many just wanted a V8 (and they could still get one in a Ford F-150 or a Chevy Silverado 1500). 
Ram – Stellantis – saw the iceberg in time this time and let it be known the 5.7 Hemi V8 would be back and now it is. Maybe just in the nick of time.
It also cancelled the battery-powered Ram REV that it had planned to try selling this year (2026) because the realization had dawned it would not sell. There is little sense in building – at great expense – vehicles that most people aren’t interested in buying.
Ram has not, however, entirely shaken off EV Fever. While the battery-powered Ram REV is kaput, an “extended range” iteration of it isn’t. The “extended range” made possible by an engine the Ram 1500 EREV will carry around as a portable generator.
They’d have done better to hang this one on the tree, too.
. . .
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Went to the local auto show today, a ritual for me going back to when I was a boy, now with my son and grandson. It’s amazingly small compared to 30-40 years ago. After less than 3 hours, we had seen everything. In the old days, you could spend 6 hrs and wish you had more time to look at everything you missed. A person could be forgiven for concluding that the auto companies don’t have much that people want (or can afford) to buy.
No Lexus, no BMW, no Infiniti no Acura, no concept cars. Lots of overland trucks and tents, a little Batman and a Starsky & Hutch Torino. And what happened to the hot women manning the booth at auto shows? They weren’t here, that is for sure.
But there were faint signs of hope. No Tesla and not many full EV’s. Last year we saw exactly one NA V6, this year there were a handful, plus a Durango Hemi V8! Only manual last year was a Miata, this year there were a few. Toyota is making a Corolla hot hatch, a 3-cyl making 300 hp. But it felt cheaply made for 48k. Chevy had some V8’s in the larger models. I was impressed by the Nissan Frontier small pickup, nicely equipped for < 50k. The Mustang convertible also impressed, but it's spendy to get past the ecoboost.
If we could all afford 60-80k vehicles, the show would be a lot more popular.
A leftoid stenographer from NYC [is there any other kind?] takes a Porsche Taycan EeeVee to North Carolina:
‘I set out for a thousand-mile journey — minus the leaky gas pumps and fumes [Whut??]. Instead, I was making my first long trek in an EV, range anxiety and all.
‘There were no Porsche Network chargers in Bethesda, and the available ChargePoint chargers didn’t offer fast enough speeds, so I had to find another solution. I found an EVgo fast charger in a nearby parking structure, with the chargers in the lower level. The problem? My phone [muh phooooone] did not have connectivity, and I couldn’t access the EVgo app [sic] to activate charging. Credit card to the rescue.
‘Higher-than-expected temperatures were hurting the Taycan’s range estimate, and my increased AC use was draining more charge than the vehicle’s system expected. Luckily, I found an EA charger at a Walmart in Henderson, N.C. I turned off the AC, slipped into efficiency mode, slowed down, and limped (aka “hypermiled”) my way to the charger with around 10 miles of range to spare.
‘Phew. I charged up (which only took around 10 minutes to get around a half “tank” of charge) and made it to my destination in Chapel Hill.
‘The rest of the trip was not too eventful. In the area, Tesla Superchargers are plentiful. Though not plug-and-play, I just had to fire up the Tesla app [sic] and start my session. Easy enough, but it cost me $43.79 for nearly 80 kWh of charge, or $0.55/kWh. Not cheap, but quick.
‘All in all, would I do the EV road trip again? Yes. Not having to pull into a gas station is a surprisingly pleasant experience, and punching through the air with over 600 horsepower without exhaust or spewing toxins [sic] into the air makes it a guilt-free [sic] extended joy ride.’
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/porsche-shut-proprietary-ev-charging-175136754.html
This deluded green/leftist screed, from a frayed-collar pajeet stenographer lauding a $130,000 EeeVee that he can’t afford to buy, defines what ‘journalism’ has become: a hypnotic induction into self-flagellation for the dying-dinosaur white American middle class.
That was a great trip no doubt! /s
This guy reminds me of all those Tesla owners who forever boast how it’s ‘the best car they’ve ever owned!’
When confronted by facts, like ‘premium price for average (at best) quality, half the range & usability of ICE vehicle (at best), brutal depreciation, 5 (to 80% at best) to 20 times longer refueling times etc etc’, they ignore all of that and tell you how great it is they can ‘charge overnight at home’, how clean this is compared to ‘dirty gas stations’ (never mind the fire hazard), how quiet the car is (as long as you stay below 40 MPH), how reliable (LOL) and how very technically superior (ROFL).
It’s a cult and such faith cannot be easily shaken.
Unlike the EV trucks, the ornament will probably still work in 10 years.
IMO, the original american owned Chrysler was drug through the coals by multi-national companies (mostly EU).
When Chrysler became FCA around 2010 they still had American executives that knew what they were doing. One could argue that they made some pretty cool stuff for a long time that were also very affordable relative.
Enter Stellantis around 2020 and it all went to hell because of EU management. When a new big boy takes over it takes a couple years to ‘get rid of’ the brass you don’t like (Americans).
And we almost lost them were it not for some smart board members who saw the writing on the wall and got rid of the Stellantis CEO. The new guy immediately re-hired and hired Americans to run the American brands, and here we are.
Hopefully they can get back to their roots and build fun/cool stuff that we can afford.
You forgot the Daimler era.
Yes, sorry. But while it was also an EU company, they did some good things (w/American brass) like create the once great Charger/Challenger/300 in RWD! with old designs/parts, and with american v8 engines. Even FCA created the much better Ram in 2019 that finally competed well with the leaders GM/Ford.
I would rather have a Hess truck for Christmas.
Even a model EV is still to dangerous to hang on a Christmas tree. Real candles are OK from my perspective and look nice when burning. It’s just matter of finding the correct bases and the related candle size.
The Edsel grill was likened to a horse collar back in the day and while that didn’t help it sell the recession of 1958 certainly didn’t do it any favors either.
Officially, recessionary circumstances lasted from the middle of 1957 to April 1958; so just as the car was being introduced people had already decided not to spend. Poor quality control didn’t help either.
I suspect the next recession will kill off even more brands.
Coming in the midst of America’s postwar growth miracle, the recession of 1957-58 was a jarring reminder that trees don’t grow to the sky .. and that the insidious ravages of inflation were creeping back in. Silver coinage and silver certificates still circulated. But they would be gone just eight years later.
Friday, January 9 brings the next Employment Situation report from BLS. If the unemployment rate remains at 4.6% or rises, the Sahm rule will be triggered, indicating that the economy likely is in recession.
In early November 1957, the Sahm rule activated when the October 1957 unemployment rate rose to 4.5%, up from a 12-month low of 3.9%. The recession began in August 1957, according to the NBER. By April 1958 when it ended, the U-rate hit 7.4%.
Automakers will be crushed like bugs in the next recession. Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug. — Mary Chapin Carpenter
My recollection is the Edsel was said to have a vagina grill, but maybe we’re just not allowed to say that.
I’ve seen Edsels in real life. They’re not really all that ugly. But the 1959 model year was a turning point, especially for GM, where cars lost the streamliner look. Instead of a tall, round and narrow body with separate fenders look of the Buick Y Job, Harley Earl was pushing the hoods lower and flatter, pushing the wheels out for a wider stance and dropping the rockers down to the curb. Side by side, an Edsel looks like it belongs in the 1951 model year, right next to the Packards.
Yesterday I saw a Chevy Silverado EV on the highway. The monolithic front looks like a two story building in the rearview mirror. Makes absolutely no sense, considering there’s nothing in there. But no one wants to make an EV that takes advantage of the benefits of an EV, such as a low to non-existent hood line. Optimize for aerodynamic drag, not focus groups! Because no matter how many focus groups you run, truck buyers aren’t ever buying an EV.
In some dystopian novel I read, one of the few cars that survived an EMP strike was an Edsel.
Funny how Edsel was considered a giant fail, yet now they’re worth big bucks as collectibles, probably because there weren’t that many manufactured to begin with that survived to today.