RAM 1500 EV and electric Toyota HiLux ute rival confirmed

Every one of Stellantis’ 14 brands will have a full-electric car by 2025 as the Paris-based auto-making giant announced it would spend €30 billion ($A47.8 billion) to catch up on EVs and software by 2025.

It will head into EV battle with up to 800km of range, 0-100km/h acceleration of as fast as 2.0 seconds and four full chassis architectures, including body-on-frame for heavy trucks in the US.

The latter will include a RAM 1500 EV, while a more car-oriented electric architecture will underpin an all-new dual-cab ute that's about the same size as the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger.

Stellantis will have solid-state batteries by 2026, too, and claims to be planning recharge rates of 32km a minute.

CEO Carlos Tavares says he expects 70 per cent of Stellantis’ European sales to be fully electric within nine years, though that number dips to 40-plus per cent in North America. As impressive as that sounds, it’s a far cry from the 90 per cent figure Renault touted in its own battery day last month.

The plan for Stellantis, whose most famous brands include Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Citroen, Jeep, Opel, Dodge, will see it end up with five battery plants, with more than 260gW of capacity, by 2030.

US truck-maker RAM will dive into the Tesla Cybertruck and Ford F-150 Lightning PR battle with an EV ute of its own by 2024.

While it will be led by the RAM 1500 EV in 2024, most RAM models will have an EV option by 2025, with every model option being covered by EVs in 2030.

Stellantis chief engineer Harald Wester insists the company’s four platforms will cover the spread from small, efficient city cars to premium cars to muscle cars and all the way up to ladder-framed heavy-duty trucks.

With each platform planned for up to two million sales a year, the STLA Small architecture should cope with up to 500km of range, the STLA Medium up to 700km and the STLA Large and the STLA Frame will boast up to 800km of range.

Stellantis will mix and match three electric drive modules (containing the e-motors, gearboxes and inverters in one casing) to create front-, rear- and all-wheel drive models.

All new EVs will accept over-the-air updates, while hardware upgrades are already planned to keep the platforms fresh “well into” the 2030s.

“Our electrification journey is quite possibly the most important brick to lay as we start to reveal the future of Stellantis just six months after its birth, and now the entire company is in full execution mode to exceed every customer’s expectations and accelerate our role in redefining the way the world moves,” Tavares told the group’s EV day today.

“We have the scale, the skills, the spirit and the sustainability to achieve double-digit adjusted operating income margins, lead the industry with benchmark efficiencies and deliver electrified vehicles that ignite passion.”

Tavares said Stellantis will build a new battery plant in Italy to accompany the ones it already has in France and Germany, with another two to be announced.

"We have agreed with the Italian government to establish a gigafactory (battery plant) in Termoli, in Italy," Tavares said.

Created in a merger of Groupe PSA and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in January, Stellantis controls the Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Lancia, Abarth, Fiat Professional and Fiat badges from Italy, Peugeot, Citroen and DS from France, Germany’s GM refugee Opel and, not least of all, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and RAM from the US.

A part of the boost in sales will come from added range, with Stellantis suggesting it will have between 500km and 800km of range available for its EVs, but the rest will come from ownership costs.

Stellantis’ head of sales, Thierry Koskas, told the EV day he expects the total cost of ownership of the group’s EVs will be on a par with combustion vehicles by 2026.

Meanwhile Opel, expunged from the GM fold in 2017, expects to be a fully electric brand by 2028, according to its CEO Michael Lohscheller.

The brand will also be introduced to China, with the charge led by a retro coupe based on the popular 1970s model, the Opel Manta.