Fixing Ram Brand Starts at the Top

DETROIT – After a year in which Stellantis saw steep sales declines, a big profit hit and the resignation of its CEO, Stellantis is trying to press the reset button. That starts with righting the Ram brand.

The biggest change, say executives running Stellantis’s brands, is that decision-making is being pushed down to the regions around the globe, whereas former CEO Carlos Tavares was running the company’s 14 brands centrally and forcing regions to accept global priorities, including product planning and launch strategy, rather than striving for regional profitability and managing portfolios at the local market level.

Suffering most under that set-up were the automaker’s top two money-making brands, Ram and Jeep. Ram is considered one of the most profitable brands for Stellantis, often cited as a key driver of profits in the North American market, with its pickup trucks being a major contributor to the company’s overall earnings.

The rollout of the new Ram, says Ram chief Tim Kuniskis, who returned to his post last month after six months of retirement, was bollixed. Stellantis produced an excess of premium-priced Ram trucks. For instance, the 2024 Ram 1500 was listed as high as $83,000, and the 2024 Ram 2500 Limited exceeded $106,000. This strategy led to unsold inventory as buyers sought more affordable options. The debacle strained relations with dealers. An unreasonable launch cadence also led to significant quality-control issues at the Sterling Heights, MI, assembly plant.

Kuniskis, a 32-year veteran of the automaker going back to before Daimler-Benz acquired Chrysler in 1998, is popular with dealers, who have bitterly complained to the automaker about the product launch. The returning Ram chief says he regrets his retirement, though he admits he was a bit burned out and needed an extended vacation. “I missed this business. This business gets into your blood. It’s like a drug,” says Kuniskis. “Luckily, there were some people running the company that let me come back, so I get a do-over.”

The Ram 1500 Tungsten (pictured, below) is a winner. It’s picked up a 2024 Wards 10 Best Interiors & UX trophy, as well as a Wards 10 Best Engines and Propulsion Systems award, and the whole Ram lineup won the 2025 MotorTrend Truck of the Year. “Awards are nice, but we have to dig below the awards and see what’s going on,” says Kuniskis.

Ram sales were off about 20% in 2024. The brand’s van business did well, notes Kuniskis, selling about 100,000 Ram cargo vans in the U.S. last year. Heavy-duty trucks did well in 2023 and 2024, he says. There is a big upgrade in the Ram 2500, which represents about 70% of the heavy-duty segment, a standard high-output engine with 430 hp and 1075 lb.-ft. (1,458 Nm) of torque and ZF 8-speed transmission. The customers for that truck, he says, are very happy. “What’s hurting us is single stand-alone, light-duty Ram. We screwed up the launch.”

Kuniskis says the company overtaxed the assembly plant by making too many changes all at once. “It wasn’t the plant’s fault; it was our fault. The Ram 1500 had a new exterior look, a new Level-2 (ADAS), a new electrical architecture, new connectors, new wiring, new modules, an all-new powertrain, and we did it all at the same time.” The Ram chief says all that could be done if the truck wasn’t replacing anything, “but we were doing a model changeover.”

“We thought we could do it all together, and we couldn’t. And we’ll never do it again,” Kuniskis says.

The plant “could never hit its ramp-up rate, could never hit its day rate, could not get the trim mix right. In fact, even now, we do not have the right vehicles in adequate supply,” he says. For example, Ram only has two weeks’ supply of the Tungsten trim and a 40-day supply of Rebel, which is not adequate for the hottest segment in the truck category. Those inventories are spread across 2,600 Ram dealers.

“We’re getting better every week, but it’s still a mess,” Kuniskis says.

The first decision Kuniskis made upon his return was to delay the fully electric Ram 1500 REV until 2026 and prioritize the Ramcharger range-extended electrified truck. While he was on retirement hiatus, the picture for electric vehicles, especially electrified pickups, changed. Today, Ford is heavily discounting the Ford F-150 Lightning to move inventory and is dialing back production. General Motors delayed the launch of its Chevrolet Silverado EV by a year.

“A couple of years ago, when we made the plans for the REV, the industry was talking about selling hundreds of thousands of electric pickup trucks. We made a decision to prioritize the fully electric truck. It was best for compliance and tax credits. We had deprioritized the Ramcharger. But that’s our ‘Goldilocks’ truck for people who aren’t ready to walk away from an ICE truck, and it has unlimited range, fully battery electric.”

Orders for the Ramcharger are being taken in the first quarter and deliveries will begin later this year.  The Ramcharger is a series hybrid system combining a 92-kWh battery pack with a 3.6L Pentastar V-6 acting as an onboard generator. The gasoline engine does not drive the wheels but generates electricity to extend range. It offers an all-electric range of approximately 145 miles (233 km); when combined with a full gas tank, it achieves a total range of up to 690 miles (1,111 km). Ramcharger also delivers 663 hp and 615 lb.-ft. (834 Nm) of torque and has a towing capacity of up to 14,000 lbs. (6,350 kg) plus a payload capacity of up to 2,625 lbs. (1,027 kg).

Kuniskis believes the Ramcharger is where the market is, and will be for the next four years, and thus has a competitive advantage over GM and Ford. “This is our stopgap to full electrification,” he says. “When we switched from horses to cars, at first the cars had horsehead hood ornaments to make people more comfortable with the transition. The Ramcharger will get people more comfortable with the transition to EVs.”

“Selfishly, we are the only ones that have it,” says Kuniskis. “Others will follow.”