The new 2025 Ram HD lineup features commercial-grade capabilities, according to Matt Huber, SVP of Ram brand product, and Dave Sowers, director of Ram Professional operations, at NTEA’s Work Truck Week 2025. These products were designed for that "5% customer," Huber told media at the event, which is partially why the company added a new powertrain.
"Of our heavy-duty pickup trucks we sell, 70% of them are the 2500 class," Huber explained. "And of those, 80% of people get diesel, and they've been asking for that 1,075 lb.-ft. option. ... So, this year, we not only gave them the option, but we made it standard."
Also back for 2025 across the whole lineup, including chassis cabs, is a column shifter.
“We got feedback from customers that they wanted a consistent shifter throughout the lineup so that when they buy fleets of trucks, they're all the same,” Huber said. “But then also, when you have someone doing a vocation like driving a snowplow truck, and they're driving it for up to 15 hours a day, they want a shifter that can have muscle memory so they can shift from Drive to Reverse back to Drive when they're going back and forth plowing snow.”
The trucks also feature technology and comfort updates that are carried over from the brand’s light-duty lineup.
Hauling up the Davis Dam grade
Choosing to host a towing event at the Davis Dam grade helped determine a benchmark for what to expect from the Ram HD. The 11-mile road grade determines “tow-vehicle gross combination weight rating and trailer weight rating” for passenger cars and pickup trucks up to 14,000 lb. GVWR, according to SAE.
And this road—Route 68 between Bullhead City, Nevada, and Golden Valley, Arizona—isn’t at all a testing ground. It’s part of a U.S. highway used by motorists and commercial drivers alike. It’s also located near the casinos of Laughlin, Nevada, and multiple recreational areas along the Colorado River.
For an SAE-validated test, temperatures at the bottom of the grade in Bullhead City must be 100 degrees F. The vehicle’s AC must also be on full blast. Then a truck coupled with a trailer must drive up more than 2,950 ft. over 11 miles while maintaining 40 mph until the peak of the grade at Union Pass, Ram Professional’s Sowers told me.
While the conditions of the event were a bit different than required for SAE testing standards—sunny and in the 60s—I tried to make up for it as best as I could by running the trucks a little harder than the test requires.
I drove three different trucks up the grade: two Ram 3500 Heavy Duty trucks, one Limited dually hauling a farm tractor (the heaviest load of the bunch at 19,000 lb.) and one Laramie dually hauling a fifth-wheel camper at 13,500 lb.; and one Ram 2500 HD Laramie hauling an excavator weighing 13,000 lb.
Confessions of a gal with little towing experience
No truck showed signs of struggle throughout any run up the 11-mile stretch. The noise of the engine revs was louder for those larger tows—especially the tractor—but to me, that was the most noticeable difference between each haul, aside from the lengths of the trailers.
It took me a few miles to get comfortable driving the large loads up the steep grades, and it was in these moments—especially for the first two trucks—that I took my time ascending the climb; however, I consistently drove the trucks above the testing requirements at a relatively consistent 55 mph.
The longer I was behind the wheel, the faster I pushed the truck. Soon my passenger and I were passing other vehicles and climbing the grades at the 65-mph speed limit.
The trucks performed well, and once you get the truck up to speed, you hardly remember you’re towing heavy equipment. And even getting up to speed is something the Ram HD made seem easy.
The new 8-speed TorqueFlite transmission is an upgrade from the lineup’s previous 6-speed transmission. The addition of the two gears “provides a more fuel-efficient gear ratio,” Fleet Maintenance affiliate FleetOwner reported in January from the truck’s media backgrounder, but I noticed it also provided a smooth shift when hauling thousands of pounds of equipment.
What amazed me the most about driving these trucks up to Union Pass wasn’t necessarily their capabilities. The coordinators of the event loaded the trucks up with about 60% of their max capacity, and I knew that no manufacturer would invite media out in test conditions where its trucks couldn’t perform. No, what impressed me the most was the shear ease of trailering.
With the Ram 3500, there were moments I forgot I was towing 19,000 lb. and 22,000 lb. behind me, and that’s saying a lot, coming from someone with little towing and trailering experience.
Sowers, who was my passenger with each drive, told me that Ram placed a lot of focus on visibility with the Ram HD’s technology, and I can personally attest to that. While I did rely on the trucks’ side mirrors, the rear-view mirror of the 3500 Laramie doubled as a split camera monitor, displaying two camera views of the side of the fifth-wheel camper it was hauling.
This took a minute to get used to, as I am accustomed to relying on my side mirrors. But once I realized it was easier to glance up at the rear-view mirror monitor instead of glancing between the side mirrors, I was hooked. I really missed having that option on my next run up the grade in a truck that didn't have that feature.
Overall, I’m not surprised at the truck’s capability. What is a surprise, however, was its ease of handling that haul. But with Ram, maybe that was the point.
For Ram, successfully scaling the Davis Dam grade to the SAE’s standards is only half the story, Doug Killian, Ram chief vehicle synthesis manager for the truck segment, said at the event. But building a truck that successfully scales the grade alone, “that’s not going to help us sell trucks or help make a guy who's running a fleet say, ‘Yeah, I'll take the Ram,’” he said.
Instead, the engineers sought to make a truck that could scale the grade while making it a comfortable drive.
“Can I have a conversation? Can I change the radio? How do I feel when I'm passing somebody on a downhill because maybe they’re white-knuckling?” Killian challenged. “It's about that subjective point."
When I ask myself those questions looking back on the trip, I can confidently say yes, I could have a conversation, and while I didn’t change the radio, I did fiddle with a few settings without a problem. Passing slower vehicles was a cinch, both uphill and downhill, and the interior of the truck kept me comfortable while doing so. And this is all coming from a woman with very little towing experience.
If I can be this confident while trailering up the Davis Dam grade, your fleet drivers will be, too.
