I highly doubt it.
The math is actually pretty simple. Even using combined MPG ratings you're not getting but a 10% MPG boost, and remember that was under ideal EPA testing conditions. If you do more highway miles than city miles, your payback is longer. Some simple math and you're looking at a 10 YEAR+ payback for the cost of the eTorque.
Plus, keep in mind that the battery will probably not last 10 years. I can only guess what they are going to want for an OEM replacement. My guess is going to be around $1,000.
Then, what about the longevity of the actual eTorque motor? Motors wear out, and again, I can only imagine what they are going to want for a new one. Keep in mind battery packs are not covered by any extended warranty, even the lifetime. I don't believe anybody has confirmed if the eTorque motor is or not. Both are warranted for 8 years / 80,000 miles, but after that good luck.
So add it all up, and you're paying $1,500 more for your new truck to have a ton more added complexity and parts that are untested failure points, and you're probably NEVER going to even hit break-even on your investment even if it doesn't break down along the way. Oh, and now your truck is going to shut itself off at stop signs as well, which no matter how smooth of a restart is still not as good as just having a running engine ready for your foot to press the accelerator at all times.
Don't get me wrong, as a tech-head I think the idea of eTorque is really cool. I've driven an eTorque truck 3 times now and I think it's a really nice system. However, it makes ZERO economic sense.
You're probably right, for most folks the $1450 option price for eTorque on the 5.7 L Hemi likely won't pay itself back, of if it does, just barely. But you are also assuming absolute worst-case in all of your estimates above, and that's a little bit too far toward the negative side.
For example, just say an owner doesn't tow or haul much and decides to use their eTorque as it was intended, i.e. leaving stop/start enabled, leaving "eco mode" enabled, and letting eTorque slow down the vehicle to the greatest extent possible when coming to stops by regenerating the most electricity possible. That style of driving
will save fuel (compared to roaring up to stops and relying on heavy friction braking), and using eTorque to the greatest extent reasonable for slowing the truck significantly before applying the friction brakes, may well allow the original brakes to go to 100,000+ miles rather than, say, 70,000 miles. If the owner trades the truck before its first brake job is required, that alone will save the original owner at least half the cost of the eTorque system, maybe closer to all of it. I'm not saying that's likely for most owners, but it is entirely possible, if one makes a conscious choice to let eTorque do its thing without thwarting it. As a real-world point of comparison, our family's old Prius has over 160,000 miles on the original brake pads, and the dealer's service techs indicate that a significant portion of the original friction material remains.
Another small benefit of eTorque, according to a Ram product specialist, is that when the truck is slowing and needs to downshift, they rev the engine speed to the point of ideal shift synchronization by feeding power from the hybrid battery through the eTorque motor/generator, back to the crankshaft to speed up the engine to the point of downshift synchronization, whereas in the past they had to add fuel to speed up the engine. During upshifts, again eTorque is called upon to smooth the shift and absorb the rotary inertia of the engine to slow it down to the point of ideal shift synchronization, so with eTorque that extra bit of rotary inertia is absorbed by eTorque, rather than dump those brief pulses of torque into the transmission clutches. So although it is a small effect, over many miles of operation, the eTorque is taking a little bit of added transmission clutch wear out of the picture. Here is the link to that thread here on 5genrams (the explanation of "eTorque modes 4 & 5" begins right at 4:19 into the video, although it is only an 11-minute video, well worth watching all of it):
https://5thgenrams.com/community/threads/etorque-6-things-you-probably-didnt-know.3126/ (the video is embedded in the very first post on page 1 of that thread, as posted by "Craftman" Oct 23, 2018)
Only a small percentage of owners of Ram trucks will prioritize saving fuel over working their trucks, or even just enjoying the feel of the 5.7 L Hemi, but if a given owner mostly uses their 5.7 L eTorque as a daily driver, and chooses to give the eTorque system a reasonable chance to do its thing, the added $1,450 is entirely possible to recoup within a reasonable number of years. And because eTorque is part of the exhaust-emissions control system, it carries a fairly long federally-required and/or state-required full warranty (for example, in California, the hybrid system in a Prius, including the $3,000 hybrid battery, is warranted fully for ten years or 150,000 miles).
