Stellantis The claims of the RAM’s performance as an EV cannot be verified yet, but we will say that one of its supposed ‘industry first’ accomplishments might be suspect. The pioneering feature in question is right in the truck’s description: it purports to be a ‘three row’ pickup truck. We were wondering how Stellantis was able to make space where none appears to exist, and based on photos the answer seems to be that they just plain didn’t. We’ll reserve final judgement until we try it, but the ‘jump seats’ on the back wall of the cab seem to offer the kind of passenger space that one gets in the back of something like a Lotus Evora or a Maserati Merak. You will need to be lacking in any form of legs to be able to fit, even if you shove the other two rows closer to the windshield. These seats appear to make the joke third rows in something like an old BMW X5 look like the back seat of a Rolls Phantom. Stellantis Certainly the concept of a pickup that also can truly carry seven or eight people seems intriguing, yet to accomplish this feat in a truck that stands a prayer of being short enough to fit in a typical garage seems unlikely. However, my guess is that most buyers will rarely have to carry three rows of people AND a full bed of cargo simultaneously. I have access to no market research, but living in a major metropolitan area I find that many people would want the versatility to change their vehicle magically from a pickup truck to a big SUV to suit their needs at that particular moment. I think I can make that happen. One place to gain inspiration from is designs for station wagons or SUVs that could sort of convert to pickup trucks. This concept was last seen on the GMC Envoy XUV where the roof over the cargo area could electrically slide away to give you an unlimited ceiling in back. The design was actually copied by a car from fifty years before: the Studebaker Lark Wagonaire. Neither of these cars lived up to sales predictions, probably because they really didn’t offer a good compromise for truck and wagon. Flickr Creative Commons However, the sliding part is what I think is key to the solution. As a testbed for our idea, let’s start with a truck that features a unified body and bed design, the Rivian R1T. It’s a four door, two-row pickup truck with a normal (if small) sized bed. Rivian Our model, which will be called the R1L, looks just like the standard model except for a raised roof rack-looking box on the top and some rails on the sides of the pickup bed (note that the front part of the rails is actually filled in). Rivian Let’s say you want to carry a few extra kids to a soccer game or take a few extra coworkers to lunch- right now. Pop out your phone, go the Rivian app, and hit PASSENGER COMPARTMENT EXPAND.
If the bed is empty, the rear window and back wall of the cab start to electrically slide back, and an extension of the roof slides out of that raised roof box. Eventually this section stops moving around halfway back of the bed. The big, gaping holes on the sides of this extension are then filled as glass windows electrically raise out of the side of the bed to seal off the area. Rivian Let’s take another look at the steps: Rivian Inside, flip forward the rear seats (second row) and you’ll see that the front part of the bed is now inside that car and ready for your dirty junk to be placed into:
Or, you can lift open the floor of the bed to reveal a carpeted area, as well as side panels that flip out to cover the possibly filthy sides of your formerly outdoor bed:
The carpeting is on the back of seats that open up for your full sized third row. Note that those flip-out side panels feature little armrest ‘fins’ as well as switches for lowering the side glass on those filler windows; if you’ve ever ridden in a third row of a vehicle in Arizona you’ll appreciate the opportunity to roll down your goddamn windows back there.
The only real compromise now is that the bed of your truck is about half what it was before, however if you really DO need to carry a full bed of cargo with your seven passengers you could get a fold-up cage to turn the lowered tailgate into an extension of your bed space. Also, the Rivian’s famous ‘pass through’ hole is gone, but the space is still accessible by folding the rear seats forwards (this area becomes the footwell for the third row when deployed). Strange as this solution might seem, it could offer enough to fit the needs of the typical suburban buyer most of the time. I truly hope that the new RAM really does live up to its industry-first passenger count claim, but if it turns out to realistically be less than promised then maybe someone else can use an idea like the above make the true three row pickup a reality. all illustrations by The Bishop
The Ram 1500 Revolution Is A Three-Row EV Wondertruck For The Future – The Autopian
Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines The Perfect Little Escape Pod-Car For Your Big Truck – The Autopian
Does A Daydreaming Designer’s Semi Sleeper Concept from 1990 Make Sense? – The Autopian
This would sell really well, I assume, at least until people started reporting problems with deployment or leaks (not your fault as designer, just the likely use of the cheapest labor and materials, as well as misuse by consumers). One could also imagine a three row big ute that has this setup, but fixed, rather than slide-out. Also popular.
Leaks and such will always be an issue to deal with, but looking at the complexity of many retractable hardtop mechanisms I would think this could be a cakewalk by comparison.
And, yeah, this is definitely simpler than a lot of retractable hardtops, but I do suspect that the consumer tolerance for maintenance and leaks on this would be lower. EV buyers love to talk about how little maintenance there is, so I suspect they’d dislike it. That said, the market shifts and changes, so I could be wrong. In any case, it is a clever solution and would certainly be worthwhile for a lot of people.
If you think about the problem it makes a lot of sense, if you have 4-5 kids and you like RVing, for example, you need a pretty sizable trailer, which means a heavy trailer, which means you need something with a sizeable tow rating…which puts you at pickup trucks exclusively.
And honestly, bench seat trucks are getting more rare. With these new midgate trucks, If you could get away with it legally, it would be a huge benefit to offer a 3rd row option of some kind. This idea looks like it would eat into the usability of the truck most of the time, but something like a 1st gen 4Runner where you could get a cap and new midgate with some extra seats would be ideal.
In my blended family of six we sometimes use my truck which can seat six uncomfortably and sitll have room for stuff, but anything more than an hour or two is hard. Our last (relatively short) driving vacation we ended up just taking two vehicles as was the easiest/cheapest option.
I would buy the heck out of something like this as long as it wasn’t as ugly as the Envoy XUV.
No interaction with the Design department goes unpunished.
I once nearly rage-quit after being told to make a supercharger “look more functional”.
