Two trucks with macho names face off in three off-road challenges to prove which is the more capable rig.
The Venn diagram of buyers interested in a windswept electric pickup and a lifted heavy-duty gas-guzzling truck is two distinct circles separated by the distance between Earth and Neptune. But if you look at the attributes of the 2026 Chevrolet Silverado EV Trail Boss and the 2025 Ram 2500 Power Wagon, rather than the buyers, the Venn diagram is pretty much a solar eclipse thirty seconds before you get to take off your cardboard glasses and stare directly at the sun.
Both of these hulking beasts measure nearly 20 feet long and weigh between 3.5 and 4.5 tons. They’ll each tow 10,000 pounds as a show of strength and, when unloaded, struggle to cover 400 miles on the highway despite the Ram’s 31-gallon gas tank and the Chevy’s double-decker 205-kWh battery pack. Prices for both start in the mid-$70s and grew to more than $90,000 for the examples we tested.As similar as the key specs are, though, we were ultimately inspired to pit these two against each other based on their names. The Power Wagon is an off-roading legend that earned its reputation on World War II battlefields, and it’s still very much an analog machine with two live axles and two locking differentials. Chevy’s Trail Boss badge can claim no such heritage, as it first appeared 10 years ago on a midsize Colorado, but there’s no shortage of bravado in that name. The antithesis of Power Wagon, the Silverado EV takes a modern approach to off-roading with immense and infinitely controllable electric torque and four-wheel steering. If a truck this big and heavy is going to be called Trail Boss, we want to see it boss around the Power Wagon in the dirt. This comparison isn’t about picking the best truck for most buyers. We’ve already established that these two exist for entirely different types of people. Instead, we set out with a narrower question: Which truck packs more off-road capability? In this battle of old-school grit versus modern technology, we found our answer by staging three battles at Michigan’s Holly Oaks ORV Park. We start our competition with what should be an easy, low-stakes test: a hill climb. Our chosen trail isn’t all that steep—maybe 20 degrees at its peak—but it’s covered in a layer of deep, loose sand. In any rig, getting to the top requires powering through the soft stuff with a bit of momentum and a heavy right foot. I launch the Ram 2500 up the hill first in four-wheel drive with the rear differential locked. Its 405-hp 6.4-liter V-8 snorts and then roars. The crux of the route comes at a hairpin right where the trail is at its steepest and the sand, chewed up by everyone that’s come before us, is at its worst. My speed dips, but the engine keeps charging hard, and the 33-inch Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs throw up big rooster tails of grit. The rear axle hops violently, shaking the cab as if I’m driving a jackhammer up the hill, but the Ram keeps on making consistent, confident progress to the top.Senior features editor Aaron Gold takes the wheel of the Silverado EV. After a false start in the truck’s Normal mode, he backs down and selects Terrain mode, a new setting introduced on the Trail Boss that increases the amount of rear-axle steering available and uses the brakes to manage wheelspin and shift torque from side to side. The Chevy’s 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Territory AT tires bite into the surface with less slip than the Ram’s knobbies, making for an authoritative launch. As it approaches the right-hand hairpin, though, the Trail Boss starts losing speed rapidly. Gold has his foot to the floor, but the power gauge indicates the motors are sending just 40 of its maximum 725 horsepower to the wheels. There’s no wheelspin or any other indication that the vehicle is attempting to move forward. Gold tries a couple more times with the same result. The Chevy won’t make it up this relatively tame hill. Our second test takes place at Mount Magna, a small slice of Moab in Michigan. The poured concrete feature resembles the wind- and water-worn sandstone you find in Utah’s off-roading capital, except that it’s cement gray rather than the majestic blend of pinks, reds, and oranges. The roughly 40-foot-tall “mountain” is peppered with chuckholes and humps that lift wheels off the ground, testing a vehicle’s articulation and traction. The lines get more difficult as you move from left to right across the face of Mount Magna. I take a harder line, and the Power Wagon easily walks three-quarters of the way up before I get stopped with both front tires in chuckholes. With four tires spinning, the truck shimmies left and right but can’t find the grip to power out of the holes. Backing down a few feet and carrying a little more momentum would have gotten me over the top, but I instead enable easy mode. I shift into low range, disconnect the front anti-roll bar, and lock all the differentials. On the second attempt, the Ram makes it over the crest without so much as a squeak from the tires. With expectations already lowered, Gold lines up the Trail Boss further to the left where both the grade and the pockets are shallower. The Silverado EV aces that handicapped run, making it up the hill like it’s a highway on-ramp. With that confidence boost under his belt, Gold moves over to the same line I used for the Power Wagon, dragging the rear fascia through the dirt as he rolls onto the rock. Curiously, Chevy dropped the Silverado EV’s air springs when it replaced the RST with the Trail Boss as the top trim for 2026. Instead, the Trail Boss gets a 2-inch hike over other Silverado EVs. That gives it a better approach angle than the Power Wagon, although its clearance is substantially worse.As Gold inches the truck up the incline, the Chevy’s traction control works hard. In most cases, it shuts down tire slip before a wheel even makes a full rotation. As long as we’re making forward progress, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but then the electronic nannies bring the Trail Boss to a halt. The truck won’t spin a single tire, let alone move forward. Gold slaps the accelerator to the floor a few times in frustration, and the power gauge again shows the motors are outputting a fraction of what they’re capable of.We encountered this same problem a year earlier while trying to climb Mount Magna in a Silverado EV RST. At least back then we weren’t expecting a truck on 24-inch street tires to be a proficient off-roader. In a truck called Trail Boss, though, it’s utterly inexcusable that the truck can decide to stop responding to the driver’s inputs. Heading into our final challenge, I’m convinced the Silverado EV is about to get skunked and finish 0-3 in this competition. Holly Oaks’ Stock Rocks is a 100-foot stretch of basketball-sized boulders that test a vehicle’s clearance and a driver’s ability to pick their way across the right driving line. As the name implies, a capable factory off-roader should tiptoe through the granite minefield without much trouble, but to do that, you need to modulate the truck’s speed as you ride up and down each rock. Based on how things went in the hill climb and over at Mount Magna, I’m expecting the Trail Boss to lurch to a halt at the first rock and refuse to go any farther. And even if the computers don’t shut down its progress, the Chevy has 10.0 inches of ground clearance—4.2 less than the Power Wagon—putting that very expensive battery pack much closer to the rocks than the Ram’s underside. Predictably, the Power Wagon picks its way through the rock pile with ease. With the transfer case’s low range multiplying torque and the front anti-roll bar disconnected, it’s almost effortless. As easy as it is, though, I can imagine an EV with a well-tuned one-pedal driving mode would make it even easier. Dancing between the two pedals, I manage to prang the Ram’s skidplates a couple times when I come off a rock quicker than I intended.The Silverado does not get hung up on the first rock as I predicted. In fact, it doesn’t get hung up on anything. The dead accelerator that stopped the Trail Boss on the hill climb and rock scramble doesn’t rear its head here, maybe because we’re essentially on flat ground. With a spotter guiding him, Gold gracefully floats the 8,778-pound anvil across the Stock Rocks on the strength of its smooth, silent, and—at least in this instance—accessible 775 lb-ft of torque. The Silverado EV does drag its belly more often than the Ram 2500, and while each scrape proves harmless, you feel those hits deep in your soul as you wonder how much a replacement battery pack costs. For that reason alone, we’d rather be in the Power Wagon for this challenge, but since the Silverado EV still confidently conquered the Stock Rocks, we’ll call this one a draw. Ever since the Silverado EV Trail Boss launched, Chevy has repeated that it didn’t design this truck for hardcore off-roading. Fair enough, but we wouldn’t call these challenges at a suburban off-roading park hardcore. More damning, the Silverado was never stopped by the obstacles themselves. It didn’t run out of traction or get high-centered on a rock. It simply refused to keep moving forward when the driver put his foot to the floor. The Ram 2500 Power Wagon is an absolute monster in the dirt, as true to the name and the original concept as it’s ever been. We feel obligated to point out that comes with a lot of compromises in daily life. The ride is rough, the steering is vague, the cabin is noisy, and getting in and out could be a CrossFit exercise. Oh, and if Ram’s going to keep calling this thing a Power Wagon, it needs to bolt a Hellcat V-8 between the frame rails sooner than later. A power output that starts with a four just doesn’t cut it in the age of electric overabundance. Despite disappointing in our off-road trials, the Chevrolet Silverado EV Trail Boss did get the last laugh. While setting up for a sunset photo, the Power Wagon pulled too close to the edge of a pond and sunk deep into soft muck. Gold, still trolling around in the Trail Boss, cackled when he saw the burly Power Wagon solidly stuck. We hooked up a kinetic recovery rope and let the Silverado EV have a moment of glory yanking the Ram free. It may very well be the first, last, and only time a Silverado EV ever bosses around a Power Wagon in the dirt.The Trail Boss version of the Silverado EV feels no more capable than the street-oriented RST trim that preceded it.By staying true to an iconic name, a long-running philosophy, and time-tested hardware, the Ram 2500 Power Wagon hangs onto its crown as the king of big, burly off-roaders.F: permanent-magnet motor, NA hp, NA lb-ftF: live axle, coil springs, disconnecting anti-roll barR: 14.0 x 0.8-in vented disc, 1-piston sliding caliperStay Ahead of the Curve. Get the newest car reviews, hottest auto news, and expert analysis of the latest trends delivered straight to your inbox!I fell in love with car magazines during sixth-grade silent reading time and soon realized that the editors were being paid to drive a never-ending parade of new cars and write stories about their experiences. Could any job be better? The answer was obvious to 11-year-old me. By the time I reached high school, becoming an automotive journalist wasn’t just a distant dream, it was a goal. I joined the school newspaper and weaseled my way into media days at the Detroit auto show. With a new driver’s license in my wallet, I cold-called MotorTrend’s Detroit editor, who graciously agreed to an informational interview and then gave me the advice that set me on the path to where I am today. Get an engineering degree and learn to write, he said, and everything else would fall into place. I left nothing to chance and majored in both mechanical engineering and journalism at Michigan State, where a J-school prof warned I’d become a “one-note writer” if I kept turning in stories about cars for every assignment. That sounded just fine by me, so I talked my way into GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant for my next story. My child-like obsession with cars started to pay off soon after. In 2007, I won an essay contest to fly to the Frankfurt auto show and drive the Saturn Astra with some of the same writers I had been reading since sixth grade. Winning that contest launched my career. I wrote for Jalopnik and Edmunds, interned at Automobile, finished school, and turned down an engineering job with Honda for full-time employment with Automobile. In the years since, I’ve written for Car and Driver, The New York Times, and now, coming full circle, MotorTrend. It has been a dream. A big chunk of this job is exactly what it looks like: playing with cars. I’m happiest when the work involves affordable sporty hatchbacks, expensive sports cars, manual transmissions, or any technology that requires I learn something to understand how it works, but I’m not picky. If it moves under its own power, I’ll drive it.
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