Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that new cars are too expensive. In the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that situation isn’t looking to get better soon, especially for anyone wanting something battery-powered. Changing that overly spendy status quo is going to take something radical, and it’s hard to get more radical than what Slate Auto has planned.
Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point.
But this is more than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY purpose, an attempt to not just go cheap but to create a new category of vehicle with a huge focus on personalization. That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?
So they finally made a car for minimalists.
So like a fully plastic Pickman?
The specs on the website don’t have the number one statistic I care about: Can I, a 6’3" (190cm) man, fit comfortably inside without being forced to drive with my knees? It says it is 69" (175cm) tall which is not a promising sign. The website does not have warranty information yet either, the next most important thing for me. The fact it is mostly made in America, implies that it will probably break within a year which makes the price irrelevant. The lack of infotainment is a huge plus, I don’t understand how those things are even legal. A laptop dock would be much more beneficial in my opinion. One which can easily slide out of sight, like when I’m actually driving and not just watching porn while stuck in a traffic jam. The option for hand crank windows pretty cool, so I can re-enact that one scene from the movie The Game if I want.
After really taking a deep look at the customization options I can’t help but wonder, Am I dressing a Barbie or looking for a vehicle? Can I get the icon in cornflower blue? Is there an option to make the entire vehicle look like a 90’s geocities page, including gifs? I spent who knows how long looking at the options and went to see what the price would be. Well guess what? I can’t! Not without reserving one for $50. Even then I have no indication I’ll be told the price. Sorry but I don’t care what options there are, I’m not gonna pay one dollar, let alone fifty, if I can’t see what the final price will be, even just an estimate would be nice. Am I supposed to trust the word of random news articles that it’s actually under $20k with an asterisk? I don’t care if the $50 is refundable. Any company that requires I speak to someone for the price of their product, is a company that is lying about the price of their product.
Great idea and almost a step in the right direction for cars (in my opinion). However, I can all but guarantee this would be a bad car for me to buy, because car salepeople and car engineers simply can’t help but take any good idea and load it up with as much enshittification as they possibly can stuff in and then try to get the customer to pay more for heaps of shit on top, which they call icing but is really just shit, all while lying about every possible thing they can.
Love it. No connection to the internet except when you choose to, through your phone. Analog controls. Frickin roll up windows!
My only beef with the current concept is the bolt on body panels and other parts. Too easy to steal. Could replace those bolts with security bolts, if they aren’t already, but that just discourages the casuals.
My only beef with the current concept is the bolt on body panels and other parts. Too easy to steal.
I mean the same could be said about Jeep Bronco. Although these just being plastic means they’re probably not worth stealing…
Jeep Bronco
Hell yeah. I actually emailed them and they confirmed that there’s no data collection at all. That’s extremely rare for any new car these days.
I generally like the idea of smartphones as replacement for radio/nav but only if no specific app is required to do anything important with the car itself. Because then you are dependent on the manufacturer keeping this app up to date.
But the price for this thing is too high when incentives are excluded
No paint because you’re injection molding body panels? Sounds good.
No stamping? How are you getting away with that? Are they just outsourcing the stamping for frame parts? There’s no way this thing doesn’t require stamped frame components.
Tbh, this feels like vaporware. I’ll believe it when I see them actually being delivered.
I think the non-stamping is the body panels. They would still have to have a stamped metal frame to meet the S rating wouldn’t they?
They make it sound like not having stamping is helping them by not requiring expensive machines and a factory with a high ceiling. I’m betting they’re outsourcing the stamping. I’m also betting that they won’t ever deliver a truck.
My first thought as well. Feeding on the anti-Tesla hype to gain some clout and probably funding.
Are truck chassis usually stamped? I had assumed they were made from cast components.
Definitely not cast. Some suspension parts are cast but most car frames are made from stamped sheet metal welded/bonded together.
Frame rails are usually stamped. Although low volume sometimes will brake press them.
This sounds kinda cool. I like that ability to be able to buy a wrap and slap it on yourself.
A basic usable truck sounds good to me, but the price seems high for bare bones and the range seems equally bare bones.
I don’t know how the purchasing power differs across the pond but converting dollarydoos to pounds that sounds like a bargain for a new functional EV
I guess but I saw a used Volt on sale for under $4,000 and this is from a brand I’ve never heard of.
Time will tell if it’s a good price or not I suppose, if it’s a really solid truck then I guess it’s close enough to a fair price.
Volt or Bolt? Volt is a hybrid.
If Bolt, I’m guessing that was a very old one that will get like 50km of range.
Probably the Bolt? I think it was closer to 60 or 70 but yeah, it was definitely an older one.
Personally I think the telco is more compelling. If it wasn’t american i would strongly consider it.
Looks cool but it’s also twice as expensive.
TIL 27.5k x 2 = 41.5k
This thing also has way more range as standard and basic accessories like speakers and a backup camera.
when I looked it was 41k, maybe there’s a chapter trim option?
this strikes me as a fascinating idea–with a couple of eyebrow-raising backers–that is probably going to flop spectacularly because it’s too minimalistic to the point of just being cheapskate
They look like excellent fleet trucks.
I’d imagine the $20K price is for a model so basic many people won’t want it. it will be interesting to see what the price is for a model most people would consider an acceptable basic car or truck.
There may be a market.
The big 3 have been chasing larger trucks, effectively abandoning this market. I can see this being a farm truck that gets beat to shit.
Why this over a used vehicle?
Because it’s new? Among other reasons…
Is there a used electric truck old enough to be $20,000?
I found the specs a bit interesting. 52.7 kWh battery and a curb weight of 3,600 lbs is nearly identical to the Chevy Bolt, but this only has a range of 150 miles instead of 240. Is it really that much less efficient? The only thing I can think of is the aerodynamics, but that’s a 40% difference.
Also, the “(after federal incentives)” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The basic option for the 2023 Bolt comes out to about $20K after federal incentives, but you get way more range and a bunch of those “luxury” features this is missing. Considering how cheap low-end smart phones are, I have a hard time imagining that infotainment systems actually add more than 1-2% of the cost of the vehicle. Feels more like a type of virtue signal than a real cost-saving measure.
Your vehicle not being yet another surveillance vector can be a selling point.
I mean, I guess, but that’s only a selling point to the small number of people without smartphones, which isn’t a large enough group to make it a sound business strategy.
As I understand it, the aerodynamics can be no joke on EVs. The acceleration is very efficient, there’s very efficient regenerative braking, and an object in motion just continues in motion until there’s a force. That means drag is pretty much where your whole battery charge goes. (I’m not sure how much tire flexing accounts for exactly)
For an example off the top of my head, the Arrow concept car manages 500km by not having side mirrors. Compare that to an ICE engine which wastes most of the fuel energy as heat, but to a widely varying degree depending on design and implemented energy recovery features.
This is generally in line with ice, the drivetrain efficiencies anymore are in the high 90%s (applies to ev too), so from engine out you are losing basically everything to drag.
This is one thing I don’t get for the complaints about EV’s: Drag and towing. You have the same losses in ICE, just that the ICE powerplant is so much worse ‘before’ the drive
Yeah, friction losses scale with angular velocity and not torque, and moving a ton of metal takes torque. Don’t forget the braking losses, though, unless it’s a hybrid of some kind. There’s no turning movement back into fuel the way you can turn it back into electricity.
The point is if you’re looking good range, there’s several dials that can be adjusted on an ICE car, related to the prime mover. On an EV, drag is the start and finish of the considerations (unless you’re going to move it onto rails, maybe). And of course range is a huge deal, because a liter of secondary cell can’t come close to the energy density of a liter of petrol and 38 liters of ambient air.
That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?
I’m more worried about the cheapness and corner cutting.
My two immediate concerns would be whether it comes with AC and is there an AWD option. Both of those could be deal breakers towards the borders. I guess they’re not absolute deal breakers (we bounced around AZ in a '71 Datsun pickup that had about the same specs as this a kid) but they certainly would be huge QOL improvements as options.
It has AC and only RWD.
Ah, cool! Well AC pretty much solves my hesitations here in AZ, lol. But I know a lot of northern states still might want AWD as an option.
I live in a country that gets very icy for almost half the year and honestly while AWD is a QoL improvement, it’s nowhere near necessary. Good winter tires do so much more for you and RWD gives you more control than FWD at least.
AWD doesn’t help you brake better unfortunately.
I’m very meh on the AWD as someone in the north. Not needed, but a/c is definitely helpful!
Growing up in Phoenix, the national ads in the '80s that breathlessly noted “comes with air conditioning” was like … how could you sell a car that doesn’t have that?
Yeah, I’m still in AZ, thus my question, haha.
Can it tow?
Probably about as much as a Civic
Range is 150 miles so not holding my breath
I would still like one, but I’d wish it had the utility of a kei truck at least.
1000lb. towing capacity.
Dam, so even less than a Civic (around 1500lbs)
I pulled a U-Haul trailer with my Civic from Virginia to Oregon. Only took 2½ days, though the final few hours were harrowing. Maps back then didn’t so much express topography, so the trailer was actually pushing me down … I likely went through a year of brake pads in six hours.
Damn, be glad you didn’t boil your brake fluid though.
No paint? Sure. No touchscreen? Good.
…No radio? That’s going to absolutely murder their sales.
Yeah I mean they should include a standard double-DIN radio with Android Auto. Or at least make it optional. Using a Bluetooth speaker is ridiculous and will sound awful. And the battery will probably explode being it’s kept in a hot vehicle…
If they are targeting work trucks - which is where most bare bones trucks go - the buyers already have a bluetooth radio they use all day.
You know what, people can just add their own bluetooth speaker.
I think it’s fine.
Many will consider this a cost-cutting step too far, but the interior was designed for ease of upgrading, with easy mounting space for anything from a simple soundbar to a full sound system.
This isn’t for everyone, but if it’s easily accessible, I’d have no problem installing a basic CarPlay head unit and speakers in an afternoon.
I think it will depend on if they have lots of USB power conveniently available. Like you could literally make your own stereo with two bluetooth speakers and a phone as long as there’s plenty of USB power and mounting points.
Quite possibly. They’re gambling on a market for a no-frills car existing, but it might just be too small. That’s what killed economy cars the first time.
Saying they are cutting the EV incentive is just another form of market manipulation.
They want people to panic buy, just like they did with cell phones, just like the stock market. It’s all manipulation.
