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?
Want.
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The average truck buyer is looking for something that can do everything. Seating for the whole family, comfortable for trips across town or aria the country, able to pull a trailer and carry a load. Enough luxury to enjoy the drive.
This truck is for businesses. Construction or last mile delivery. Enough room for just the people necessary to load or unload it. No comfort features besides the bare minimum. No long range driving.
I expect to see these in fleet yards, not in driveways.
Or someone looking for a run around beater.
I would love this for going to work and back, doing my weekend trash run to the dump, and going to grab stuff to do things around my house.
And backed by Bezos
How big a trailer can it tow, and how big of an optional battery can I get? Those are my two questions.
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.
Are truck chassis usually stamped? I had assumed they were made from cast components.
Frame rails are usually stamped. Although low volume sometimes will brake press them.
Hmm. Well, plastic can have a pretty good strength to weight ratio, if taking up more volume in the process. If sheet metal can do it maybe they went all-plastic.
If they’re including fibres too, that famously exceeds metal’s rigidity depending on to what precision it’s done.
At the cost of the mold to do something like that (and the machine to even run it), I’m reasonably sure that stamped or brake pressed frame rails make more sense cost wise. I’m not sure that volume will ever drive the cost of that low enough to be worth it within the life of a mold like that. Like, I can picture the design to make it a basic two plate mold (I think, I’m more used to parts that top out a bit over a foot in the largest dimension), but then the gate size and shot volume I’m picturing to fill the thing is just bonkers, although apparently there are a few machines in the world that could theoretically do it if I’m reading their specs right from a quick search.
Unless your thinking a carbon fiber layup, which is feasible, but I believe metal becomes more cost effective again at that point.
My first thought as well. Feeding on the anti-Tesla hype to gain some clout and probably funding.
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.
EV truck vs. car? 40% difference sounds about right, even an aerodynamic truck isn’t much better than an aerodynamic brick
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.
As I understand it, the aerodynamics can be no joke on EVs. The motors are very efficient, there’s very efficient regenerative breaking, 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
On ICE vehicles you lose a lot more to braking
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.
Would definitely buy one of these. I miss having a truck, but I only need one occasionally for the occasional need to haul something that won’t fit in my car (e.g. Lowe’s trips). I also really dislike the “smartphone on wheels” aspect of pretty much all current EVs.
Plus, I hate the infotainment systems so I would be happy to roll my own.
Though I do wonder if it has a backup camera/screen. Aren’t those required nowadays?
Touchscreens are the worst interface in a vehicle. But yes, Amercian law says all automobiles must have a backup camera installed as of 2018. I need and use a truck but I do just fine with a smaller Tacoma, which these days are basically a full size truck of yester-yore. These look nice, like the UTE style; but the 150 mile range would be an issue for me.
That’s what I thought (re: backup cameras), and someone else mentioned the gauge cluster is a digital screen which switches to the backup camera view). In my case, 150 miles (round trip ) would be just around the upper edge of my use cases, though 15-20 would be more average.
which these days are basically a full size truck of yester-yore
Makes me miss my old 2003 Ranger. It was right where I needed a truck to be, size-wise.
According to the articles I read about it, the gauges are a digital screen which changes to the backup camara when in reverse.
Good to know. Will have to read up, though from the little I’ve read, it sounds like this is just a concept for now.
the website for it is pretty comprehensive as far as i can tell
Seems like they have physical concept cars they’ve built based off the Arstechnica article.
So like a fully plastic Pickman?
I really like this concept. Definitely catches my attention. But I think minimalists are in the minority these days.
What would you prefer, this for $20k, or a 6 year old truck with 50k miles and all the features for $20k? Most cheap people prefer the latter
The problem is you probably could not find a 6 year old truck with 50k miles. Most 2 year old trucks now have close to 100k miles on them.
What used electric truck costs $20k?
None yet. Electric trucks haven’t been available long enough to reach that price point. It will come.
I don’t disagree about what most people want. Personally, I don’t really care for the features, so I’m an outlier. The one thing I do miss on my 25-year-old Saturn is cruise control.
Plastic panels are awesome, BTW. 25 years and zero door dings.
So they finally made a car for minimalists.
This sounds kinda cool. I like that ability to be able to buy a wrap and slap it on yourself.
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.
I wouldn’t question interior space based on the height of the car. I’m also 6’3" and have comfortably driven Geo Metros and Mini Coopers while being cramped in 4Runners and Tacomas
More and more advertisements on here. Get the fuck out of here with your advertisements.
A basic usable truck sounds good to me, but the price seems high for bare bones and the range seems equally bare bones.
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.
when I looked it was 41k, maybe there’s a chapter trim option?
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.
I think it was closer to 70 but yeah, it was definitely an older one.
USA offering this trash b/c they still can’t compete with BYD.