If you had to choose one pickup truck to benchmark against the Tesla Cybertruck, which would it be? Well, until recently, the Ford F-150, of course. However, now there's arguably only one correct answer: The ridiculous, climate-change accelerating Ram TRX.
The Tesla Cybertruck is poised to be the quickest pickup truck ever produced, with a top zero-to-60-mph time of fewer than 3 seconds. That was much quicker than any current or past pickup truck until fairly recently. Even the quickest pickup trucks don't eclipse the 5-second-mark for 0-60 times. However, Ram decided to go all out and put a potent, gas-guzzling V8 sports car engine into its popular pickup truck. It's loud, smelly, and capable of Dukes-of-Hazzard-style stunts.
The Ram TRX features the same supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8 engine that's used in the Dodge Challenger, Charger, and Durango Hellcat models. It cranks out 702 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. The EPA says it will cost you nearly $4,000 per year to fuel the TRX, which returns 12 mpg and requires premium gas. Ram says it can hit 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds, though independent tests are coming in well under 4 seconds.
It makes perfect sense that Tesla would benchmark the Cybertruck against the ludicrous TRX. As you can see from the video above, which is another Fremont factory flyover from Gabeincal, Tesla has a Ram TRX on hand at its testing facility. The tweet below also brings attention to the reported benchmarking.
As soon as we saw news of this, it got us thinking yet again. It's absolutely crazy the things automakers have had to do over the years to produce high-performance gas-powered machines. Huge, gas-guzzling engines, premium fuel, loud exhaust systems, superchargers, turbochargers, and more. Yes, thousands of mini ozone-depleting explosions and loads of cancer-causing emissions, just to have a vehicle that can go fast.
On the flip side, throw a simple electric powertrain into any car, and you get instant torque, eager acceleration, and cheap operating costs, without working to destroy the planet. Electric pickup trucks for the win!
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Sources: Teslarati, Gabeincal (YouTube) via Teslarati