Ram 1500 Revolution EV pickup concept includes 3rd row

Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles has called the electric Ram 1500 Revolution concept unveiled this month a "totality of so many ideas."

One of those ideas, a third row with removable jump seats, would add a new wrinkle to the pickup segment if they make it into the production version of the Ram 1500 EV next year. The two extra seats in the rear of the extended cabin, which is four inches — 10 centimetres — longer than the current 1500, would be ideal for occasional use when giving friends a lift, Gilles said.

Another row of seating could alter expectations of what a pickup is capable of and push rivals to carve out more passenger space as well.

But some analysts said automakers have to be wary of making pickups much bigger than they already are.

"Ram introduced the Mega Cab a number of years ago where there was additional space beyond the two rows, and this just seems to be the next evolution in that cab growth," said Sam Fiorani, vice-president of global vehicle forecasting for U.S.-based AutoForecast Solutions. "With the popularity of three-row seating, it may inspire other manufacturers to find ways to get seats inside of these trucks, but the Ram Mega Cab did not inspire a larger cab. Possibly because these trucks have become way too large to start with."

The Revolution concept is housed on the STLA Frame platform for full-size, body-on-frame EVs that allowed designers to rethink the truck's proportions.

From the frame up, designers viewed the Revolution as a "clean sheet of paper," said Ryan Nagode, chief designer of Ram truck/commercial interior studios. The idea was to make the truck more useful and user-friendly than current pickups.

Compared with today's 1500, Nagode said the Revolution's interior packaging has been moved forward. Designers, he said, were able to "push and pull" elements and move things around. The seats and console can be repositioned via the Ram Track, a rail attachment system that provides greater cabin flexibility.

All of this is a recipe for a roomier interior with space for two more seats. Those in the back won't be sitting on hard plastic. Nagode said the upper portion is a synthetic "scuba" material with some softness to it. The middle portion is a mesh material that Nagode compared to an office chair and made mostly of recycled plastic bottles. The space can be used for storage if the seats aren't needed.

"We really wanted to make sure that cabin space was as optimized as it possibly could," Nagode told sibling publication Automotive News. "When you move some of that stuff forward, we knew we wanted to maintain a decent-size bed. Those inches that you were gaining were going right into the cabin, and the idea was just to flex this space." Will the competition follow suit with more seating after seeing what Ram is planning? Nagode isn't sure, but he knows the spirit of competition is in full effect in the pickup segment.

"I think we're all looking for ways to carve out these individual niches," Nagode said. "I expect continual back and forth happening." Matt Degen, a senior editor of Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader, said the extra passenger space likely would be viewed similarly to smaller SUVs' third rows. It may not be used all of the time, Degen said, but people enjoy having that capability just in case.

Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, sees the Revolution as further blurring the line between pickups and SUVs.

"Trucks and SUVs, I feel like, have been slowly moving closer together," Brauer said.

"The trucks have gotten more carlike and comfortable like an SUV, and the SUVs have gotten bigger, with better towing and all these capabilities that usually you associated with pretty hardcore trucks.

"So, certainly, you could start to have essentially a three-row truck that's feeling extremely SUV-like."

The brainstorming process for the Revolution was extensive, Gilles said. Engineers, designers and others came together for numerous sessions during which they filled two six-metre boards with ideas on sticky notes.

"The bonus third row is something they came up with for people that want an EV, but they want a truck — for those times they're picking up the friends, or people at the airport," he said.

"We jotted down all those ideas. Now the challenge was take all those ideas and wrap it and put it into one concept that didn't look like a festival of ideas," Gilles added. "It looked integrated and looked holistic. I think we pulled it off. The truck looks very holistic. It's gorgeous, has new proportions, but yet doesn't look weird. It has a really confident design aesthetic."