2025 Ram 1500

Can 3.0 liters – and six cylinders – take the place of 5.7 liters and eight cylinders? That’s the question asked by the just-updated 2025 Ram 1500 pick-up, which is no longer available with the 5.7 liter Hemi V8 – but is available with a new twin-turbocharged in-line six in two different configurations.

Is it the replacement for displacement?

And will the government inevitably do to it what has already been done to the Hemi V8?

What It Is

The Ram 1500 is a half-ton pick-up available in Quad or Crew cab bodystyles with more legroom in the back. Quad cabs come standard with a short (five feet, 7 inch) bed; Crew cabs come standard with a long (six feet, four inch) bed.

A regular cab (just two doors) Ram is no longer offered.

Prices start at $42,270 for the base Tradesman trim in Quad cab configuration with 2WD.

As before, the Quad cab Ram is also available in two other trims: HFE and Big Horn (which is sold as the Lone Star in Texas). These all come standard with the same 3.6 liter V6 (and “eTorque” mild-hybrid system) that was standard last year.

However, this year you can choose a new engine option – a 3.0 liter, twin-turbocharged in-line six that makes either 420 horsepower or 540 horsepower. This is the engine that Stellantis -parent company of Ram, Jeep and Dodge – will be using in various models that used to offer V8s.

The 420 hp version of the Straight Six Turbo (SST) is a $2,695 option for Rams that otherwise come standard with the carryover 3.6 liter V6; it’s standard in Laramie ($62,025) and Rebel ($66,190) trims – which are Crew cab only. The High Output (HO) 540 horsepower version of the new six is standard in Limited ($77,150) and Longhorn ($77,645) trims as well as the new top-of-the-line Tungsten ($89,150) trim, which is also limited to the Crew cab configuration and comes only with the short bed.

4WD is optional with the V6 and the 420 horsepower version of the new six; it is standard with the 540 horsepower version of the six. 

What’s New for 2025

The Ram loses the previously available Hemi V8 but gets a new inline six, as per above.

In addition, the ’25 Ram gets an updated version of the UConnect system found in other Stellantis models that includes a larger 14.5 inch primary touchscreen along with a secondary 10.25 inch touchscreen for the front seat passenger, available on-board power inverter, massaging seats, a 23 speaker Klipsch Reference audio system and dual wireless phone chargers (Tungsten trims) and available Level 2+ automated driving capability.

What’s Good

The new six makes more power than the previously available V8 – and doesn’t burn any more gas than the old V8.

Available two-piece (and three-way) tailgate greatly improves access to the bed.

This truck rides like a luxury sedan – even with a pallet of bricks in the bed.

What’s Not So Good

No more V8.

Limited cab configurations – just two – and one of them (Quad) limits your trim choices to just three.

An eight-foot bed isn’t available – which means this full-size truck has about the same length bed as a mid-sized truck with a six foot bed.

Under The Hood

Quad cab/base trim Rams still comes standard with the same 3.6 liter V6 that was standard last year. This engine is paired with a mild-hybrid system called eTorque that cycles the engine off during deceleration and coasting and when the truck isn’t moving, with a 48 volt electrical system to power accessories during these times and a belt-drive system to quickly re-start the engine when its power is needed.

The Ram’s previously optional 5.7 liter V8 has been retired – because it’s no longer “compliant” with the latest federal regulations. Or soon wouldn’t be, so it had to go. (This is also why the Challenger and Charger sedan were retired last year; without the V8 these cars were like a hamburger without the hamburger.)

The replacement for displacement is a new 3.0 liter Straight Six Turbo (SST) that’s about half the displacement – just 3.0 liters – but makes more power than the 5.7 Hemi: 420 horsepower vs. 395 before. It also makes substantially more torque: 469 ft.-lbs (at 3,500 RPM) vs. just 410 ft.-lbs. (at 3,950 RPM) for the departed Hemi V8.

There is also an optional High Output version of this engine that makes even more power: 540 horses and 521 ft.-lbs. of torque (also at 3,500 RPM). The new six has enough of both to allow you to pull just shy of 12,000 lbs. with this rig.

An eight speed automatic is standard, as before. The last two gears (7th and 8th) are overdrive gears (0.84 and 0.67 respectively) that reduce engine speed at highway speeds and thereby also decrease fuel consumption at highway speeds.

Speaking of which . . .

Gas mileage is about the same as it was before – 18 city, 25 highway for the ’25 with the 420 horse version of the new six vs. 18 city, 23 highway for last-year’s Ram with the Hemi (and the mild-hybrid system). So the new six isn’t here for gas mileage reasons. It’s here because the V8’s “emissions” of gasses – of carbon dioxide – were too much to keep it in production. The smaller six “emits” less CO2 when it is not being boosted (to make power) by the pair of turbos that effectively and temporarily increase its displacement while it’s under boost – by pushing more air into the smaller cylinders.

But when it’s off-boost (as when idling, for instance), it reverts to being about half the displacement of the Hemi and so “emits” less gas. Compliance achieved. For now.

You have your pick of three different rear axle ratios: 3.21, 3.55 or 3.92.

4WD-equipped models have a 2.64 4WD Low range. Three different 4WD systems are available: Part-Time, On-Demand and Full-Time. Part-Time and On-Demand allow 2WD (rear-drive) operation; Full-time is always on, automatically engaging 4WD high when rear-wheel-slippage is detected.

All have the same 2.64 4WD Low range gearing.

On The Road

The new inline six pulls harder than the old V8 – but it doesn’t sound like it. There’s a muted crescendo rather than the previous bellow. And when you push the button to start the engine,  you get the sound of less engine.

But the power is there – and you can feel it.

Lightly push down on the accelerator and you get immediate and forceful acceleration. The six feels twice its size and makes you forget its almost twice as small as the V8 you can no-longer-get.

It is also smooth – which is something you don’t feel.

More finely, you don’t feel the background rumble you used to feel when there was a V8 under the hood. The six doesn’t vibrate at all – which is objectively good even though there are truck people who just like the rumble (and vibration) of a V8, for the same basic reason that Harley people want to feel the vibrations (and hear the rumble) of a big V-twin that isn’t balanced – on purpose – to cancel them out.

It’s part of the experience.

On the other hand, the lack of rumble – and the vibration-free idle – endow the ’25 Ram with sophistication in accord with its pricing. This is, after all, a $50,000 truck on the low end (base Tradesman optioned with the 420 hp six and 4WD) and by the time you are kicking the tires of a Tungsten, you’re looking at not-far-from a $100,000 truck. People with that kind of money to spend expect the kind of quiet – and power – they’ll get in this truck.

But it’s not entirely quiet.

There is still the sound of that engine – more quiet but more sophisticated –  and that makes all the difference vs. a dead-silent electric truck, that has all the personality of a corpse. And that “corpse” would need a range extender – i.e., a gas powered generator mounted in the bed – to approach approximate the 650 miles of highway driving range the gas-engined Ram (with the 420 hp inline six) has on a full tank (26 gallons). Even in stop-and-go city driving, the gas-engined Ram can go nearly 500 miles on a full tank – and it only takes about five minutes to refill the tank.

It’s worth a mention here that the Ram’s designers are not embarrassed by the sounds made by the new six – as evidenced by the absence of sound augmentation, to try to make it sound like the V8 that you used-to-be-able to get. Toyota did that with the new Tundra – which has a system that makes it sound like it’s still got the 5.7 V8 it used to have rather than the twin-turbo V6 it has now. The italics to emphasize the fact that while there’s nothing wrong with a V6, this type of six doesn’t sound like an in-line six. And there’s an important difference in those sounds – especially for this kind of money. Note that Mercedes and BMW and Jaguar favor the inline six over the V6. There’s a reason why. Several, actually.

One of them you can hear. The other you can’t feel.

Like all of the other trucks in the half-ton class, the Ram rides like the big luxury cars of the past – just a lot higher off the ground.

And a lot wider through the hips.

It is so big – so thick – it can make the road you’re on seem narrow. To get some sense of this, the Ram is 81.2 inches wide – and it stands 77.5 inches tall. A mid-sized sedan like the current Honda Accord is 73.3 inches wide (or about a foot less thick) and so has six more inches to spare on either side of it as you drive it down the road. It’s more important than ever to pay attention to where you are in the road when you’re driving any new half-ton truck – because there’s less room for error on either side of these trucks.

That aside – and once you’ve climbed in – driving a truck like this is a luxurious experience, even though it is a truck. And that’s good-weird in the same way that finding out the girl you’re dating isn’t just good-looking; she’s also someone you like spending time with.

At The Curb

The fact that the Ram is no longer offered in regular cab/long (eight-foot) bed form reflects the fact that half-ton trucks are indeed the replacement for the two-ton luxury sedans you can’t get anymore.

Even the fullest-size of the new ones, models like the current Mercedes S-Class sedan – are smallish sedans in comparison with what full-size used to mean – in America – before the downsizing of Americans sedans (which happened because of pressure to comply with government-imposed “corporate” fuel economy standards that applied to passenger cars but not light trucks).

A ’25 Benz S-Class sedan is a mere 208.2 inches long – or some two feet shorter than a big American roller, such as an early ’70s Buick Electra 225 or Cadillac Sedan deVille. The Ram is 228.4 inches long and rides on a 140 inch wheelbase – vs. just 126 inches for the puny-seeming (in comparison) “full-size” Mercedes.

The Ram also seats six vs. five and has that bed in back as well as that hitch in back. Which makes it far more practical and useful than any big American sedan ever was.

But the take-home point is that the Ram and the others in the 1500 class have taken the place of the full-size sedans that Americans used to love to drive that were pushed off the market by the government. Ironically, that is exactly what pushed so many Americans into these big trucks – which use as much or more gas as the big sedans that were pushed off the road in the name of saving gas.

As mentioned, you can’t get a Ram with an eight foot bed, so you’ve got about the same length bed as you’d have if you bought a current mid-sized truck such as a Toyota Tacoma or Nissan Frontier. These trucks are about the same size – the same length – as the half-tons of the not-so-distant past. But they aren’t as wide as the half-tons and neither are their beds. You can’t lay a 4×8 sheet of plywood flat in their beds. You can lay it flat in the Ram’s bed. You will have to lay the tailgate down – but you can still stack those sheets.

And the Ram is available with a trick three-way, two-piece tailgate. It can be laid down in one piece or you can open either side to the side. Or both sides to the side. The advantage here is being able to leave a tonneau cover on and still get stuff into and out of the bed.

A side-saddle Ram Box storage compartment built into the bedwalls  is also available.

The Rest

This new six is not just a replacement for displacement; it is an impressive (and appealing) engine in its own right.

But will the same regulatory pressure that effectively forced the retirement of the Hemi V8 also force the retirement of its replacement?

Almost certainly, yes.

The logic is inexorable. If a V8 produces too much C02 then they will inevitably say a six does, too. So this brilliant six may and likely will be around for just a few years before it, too, is retired.

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a key element of the Stellantis Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan. Stellantis is committed to cut its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2030, all while achieving net carbon zero by 2038.”

And what will replace it? A turbocharged four?

Maybe.

But even that won’t be enough, eventually.

The Bottom Line

Beef is still what’s for dinner. But for how much longer is anyone’s guess.

. . .

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