What's surprising is that other trucks don't have this feature, even trucks with power up / down tailgates. It appears RAM simply added a microswitch to the latch which tells the ECU "open or closed." The ECU, in turn, can switch on the cargo lights, activate the dashboard warning, and disable rear ParkSense. Once the ECU gets the "closed" signal, the lights go out, warning goes off, and ParkSense is restored. In reality, the electric release tailgates (like all RAM tailgates now) are likely even cheaper to build than a conventional handle-rod release mechanism, and allow for remote tailgate release as well as negating the need to build a lock into the tailgate. Removing the power lock actuator which previously resided in the tailgate covers the cost of the latch actuator.