My wife actually noticed the difference in shifts on our test drives of an e-Torque and the regular hemi. I was paying more attention to time it took to get up to speed. We went with an e-Torque due to its smoother ride. I sometimes have to pay attention to my starts, as its easy to scratch the tires with the extra torque if there is any debris / rock / gravel in the lane - its instantaneous in my perception when start stop is working. I have a friend that had Chevy's start stop, so I see why its reviled by a lot of people - Toyota does this better than anyone (on their hybrids), but Ram is pretty nice. YMMV but you asked, IMHO and .02.... lol.
I think I'm going to have to find a regular Hemi to test drive for comparison. How much smoother, or rather, is it $1400 smoother is the main question.
Interesting you mention the starting torque. I've come to the conclusion that as much as the marketing talks about the "1/2 tire rotation" startup torque capability of eTorque, it's completely unnecessary in a truck with a Hemi and 3.92 gears. I'm running a 2003 ford 5.4 motor with 3.73s and I've never a once said to myself, "Boy, I really wish I could get moving faster," even while towing my 6000lb camper. It's on the highway where I'm always complaining!
So if we sum up eTorque:
1. Provides minuscule real world gas savings that most likely will never result in a positive ROI. This also comes at the expense of start-stop behavior, which is but a gas mileage band-aid and not the way anybody would ever want their truck to actually function.
2. Provides a bunch of start moving torque where it's not really needed and can actually be a traction liability.
3. Smoothes out shifts
4. Smoothes MDS transitions?
5. Adds tons of complexity and failure points to the truck
6. You pay $1400 for the privilege of helping Ram claim better CAFE numbers.
7. eTorque adds 75 lbs? of additional dead weight to the truck
So I'm looking at 3 and 4 as the only real positives. 5 is a major negative, as we are getting reports of bad eTorque batteries already here on the Forum.
If the Hemi by itself shifts smooth enough for me, I think I know what I'm buying.