The absence of an internal combustion engine has meant a healthy amount of innovation when it comes to electric vehicle packaging, and I’m not just talking about big, open frunks. The Hyundai Ioniq 5, for example, is full of nifty spatial abilities, what with its open, flat front-row floor and rear seats that can move forward and back. It looks like the newly unveiled electric Ram 1500 Revolution Concept wants to revolutionize (see what I did there?) the future of hauling long, skinny pieces of lumber. It’s able to carry objects up to 18 feet long—that is, pretty much the length of the entire truck—without a trailer or bed rack.
This is possible thanks to the cab being open at both the front and the rear. There’s a trap door that leads into the cab, under the center console, out the powered midgate, and clear to the end of the bed extender contraption. “We have a trapdoor on the firewall and the console is engineered with a hole through it, so you can put it through there,” Stellantis design boss Ralph Gilles told The Drive in an interview.
It’s a funky idea, for sure, but our resident Truck Editor Caleb Jacobs has doubts it’ll make it to the production electric Ram.
“I like to strike fear in my engineers,” Gilles joked. “The Ram REV is demonstrating a lot of ideas—we locked ourselves in a room and came up with many concepts. A lot of that came through conversations that showcase a lot of needs that our customers have discussed. [The truck] is a cauldron of concepts. I’m not going to pinpoint which ones will make it and which ones won’t, but all of them are being looked at, developed, and patented in a lot of cases.”
Judging from early images of the interior, it doesn’t look like the trap door would be very big, so the functionality would be limited to quite skinny items. Like very long pieces of wood. Or perhaps skis for giants.
Got a tip or question for the author about the electric Ram concept? You can reach him here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com