The Ram 700 is built in the wrong place and it's on the wrong platform. I thought it would be too small for our market, but now I'm rethinking we need a more compact truck. First there is the collapse of the pickup truck market. I was about to write the historical pickup truck market, but there is little historical or traditional about our present day pickup trucks. They are too big and expensive. My personal opinion is that the current crop of domestic pickup trucks (including the Tundra) are a fad that is nearly over. There are those that still need a truck, but maybe not one of those expensive highway leviathans. There needs to be a course correction for full size trucks.
After the collapse of full size pickup sales, another thing which made me ponder the market for a Ram 700 is people are actually importing Kei trucks from Japan. The ones brought over are either 25 year old used ones to avoid federalizing or new build units modified to be classified as an ATV. If I lived in the Villages in Florida I would go for one. These Kei vehicles are way too small for most US roads, but find their place at retirement communities, dense urban areas, remote rural dirt roads, ranches and farms. The new Kei trucks sold classified as an ATV often find work on ranches and farms in addition to use as an ATV. No one buys a neighborhood electric vehicle for rural use, but such vehicles share the same paved urban environments with the recently imported Kei trucks. ATVs are purchased for rural use.
The compliance electric cars built during the previous decade to pacify CARB regulators are mainly compacts and subcompacts in size. The only one which stayed true to its original design and went into production is the Fiat 500e. That particular Fiat model is the next step up from a neighborhood electric vehicle. It is fully streetable and has enough power to handle American roadways. In the same way, a Ram 700 could be the next step up from a Kei truck, just not the Latin American version. We need one built in the right place and on the right platform. It also has to offer AWD for our market, in addition to some electrification options. The business case for such a vehicle would be a hard sell to the Stellantis heads, especially with their Penney pinching CMP platform obsession. The company is supposed to be moving on to the STLA small platform. The medium size Rampage built on the STLA large platform is on the way and management might think that will be enough, but I think Ram needs a smaller truck to compliment that as well.
