It’s not every day you get time with a high-ranking automotive exec who is willing to share juicy market intelligence — not just about his own company but about his rivals, too.
In Detroit, where full-size pickup trucks are tantamount to trench warfare, it’s generally Ford and General Motors claiming segment dominance based on their reading of the data while Stellantis and its Ram division is constantly scrapping for every incremental gain in market share.
2027 Ram 1500 SRT TRX Interior And Exterior Picture Gallery
The 2027 Ram 1500 SRT TRX roars back with 777 hp from its supercharged HEMI V-8, reclaiming its throne as the world’s fastest gas pickup.
Big Mistake Cutting Hemi
A management shakeup at the top left Ram foundering in recent years, and it’s up to Tim Kuniskis, who came back to Ram as CEO just over a year ago after a very short retirement, to reclaim lost ground and further grow Ram sales, however possible.
In 2025, he was instrumental in bringing back the Hemi V8 to Ram pickups, saying it was a mistake to discontinue this iconic engine and leave the full-size pickup offerings with nothing but six-cylinder engines, regardless of their capability.
‘People Hate Not Having A Choice’
- Base Trim Engine
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3L Hurricane I6 Hybrid
- Base Trim Transmission
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8-speed automatic
- Base Trim Drivetrain
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Rear-Wheel Drive
- Base Trim Horsepower
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305 HP @6400 RPM
- Base Trim Torque
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269 lb.-ft. @ 4800 RPM
- Base Trim Fuel Economy (city/highway/combined)
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18/25/21 MPG
- Base Trim Battery Type
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Lead acid battery
- Make
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Ram
- Model
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1500
During this week’s Detroit auto show press days, Kuniskis told TopSpeed it was important for Ram 1500 pickups to have the V8 option, as is offered by the competition. It was in June that Ram announced the Hemi’s return, for the 2026 model year.
Ram truck buyers “were disappointed that we didn’t give them a choice. People hate not having a choice,” he says. “‘Let me make the choice. Do I want the turbo-six SO, do I want the turbo-six HO, or do I want the Hemi?'”
Hemi Slot Between 2 Hurricanes
Kuniskis is referring to the turbocharged Hurricane 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder engines offered in standard output (420 horsepower) and high output (540 horsepower). And slotting in between the two is the revived naturally aspirated 5.7-liter Hemi V8 with 395 horsepower and 410 pound-feet of torque. There’s also the base 305-horsepower 3.6-liter Pentastar V6.
Stacking Up To Ford, GM Engines
This powertrain lineup makes Kuniskis feel a bit better when he looks across town and sees the Ford F-150 offering one V8, the well-regarded 5.0-liter, as well as multiple turbocharged six-cylinder engines, including the 3.5-liter EcoBoost hybrid.
Meanwhile, General Motors has two V8s in its Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra, displacing 5.3 liters and 6.2 liters, as well as the 3.0-liter Duramax six-cylinder diesel with 490 pound-feet of torque and, yes, even a four-cylinder, the problematic 310-horsepower TurboMax 2.7-liter, whose displacement and cylinder count cannot be found on the Chevy truck build configurator.
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100K Ram Hemis This Year?
There were capacity constraints that allowed Ram to sell only about 10,000 pickups with the Hemi in 2025, but Kuniskis tells TopSpeed that number should climb to 100,000 units in 2026.
And at the end of the year, after shoppers have been able to drive Hemi and Hurricane pickups back to back and make their choice, Kuniskis says he expects 35 percent of customers to pick the Hemi. That take-rate should be about the same in 2027 and 2028, he says. “Some people say I’m way too high (with the estimate), and some people say I’m way too low,” he says.
Ford Has ‘Great Engine’
His numbers are informed by what he knows about his rivals. “The only competitor that I can make a close comparison to is Ford,” which he says sells about 25 percent of F-150 pickups with the 5.0-liter V8. “It’s a great engine,” Kuniskis says about Ford’s 5.0, but there’s no extra charge for it on the pricing sheet.
Ram, meanwhile, charges $1,200 for the Hemi but even more for the high-output Hurricane six-cylinder in certain trims. Still, Kuniskis stands by his 35-percent estimate for the Ram Hemi mix based on pent-up demand for the V8. “In addition to that, Hemi is kind of almost a sub-brand in and of itself. So I think it’ll be a little more” than Ford’s 5.0-liter V8 mix.
GM Pickups: 80% V8?
General Motors has a completely different powertrain approach with two V8s, each displacing 5.3 liters and 6.2 liters, and they account for at least 80 percent of the sales mix for Silverado and Sierra, based on Kuniskis’ estimates.
“They have a lot of trucks where, that’s all you get. It’s either a 5.3 or 6.2, but they’re both V8s,” he says, recalling a similar situation for Ram not long ago. “By the way, when we didn’t have a turbo-six and we only had the Hemi or the Pentastar, we were in the same boat” as GM with its truck powertrain offerings.
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Ram Sales Down 2% in 2025
Ram closed out a tumultuous 2025 selling 431,670 trucks, down 2 percent from 2024. Across the six Stellantis brands offered in the U.S., 2025 sales were down 3 percent to 1.3 million vehicles.
Here’s the breakout for the remaining five brands: Jeep, up 1 percent (to 593,401 vehicles), Chrysler, up 1 percent (to 126,373 units), Dodge, plummeting 28 percent (to 101,927), Fiat, down 14 percent (to 1,321), and Alfa Romeo, falling 36 percent (to 5,652).
Source: Stellantis