I haven’t been excited about a car in quite a while, and I’m definitely not a pickup truck fan. That said, I’m on the waiting list for Slate because:
- Minimal electronics and no call-home. Almost every other vehicle on the market today (including all EVs) have OTA telemetry and insane data collection policies. The Slate will use your phone connection (at your option) to download OTAs if needed
- Cheap for what you get. Assuming the quality is OK sub-$30K without rebates gets you decent range and NACS charging
- Highly customizable - get what you need, and nothing else
That said, it’s a Bezos-backed automotive startup who hasn’t delivered a product yet, so there is clearly a lot of potential downside here.
Here’s the problem: Europe now has a dozen EVs under 25K euros that are signficantly better than this truck. So, it’s actually not cheap for what you get, just cheap compared to overpriced EVs in NA.
Yeah, but this is 'Murica and we’ll never get the cheap(er) imports, while tarrifs and incentive rollbacks make our own products more expensive, so now $30K is the new $20K! Yay!
Yeah this is now more than a fully trimmed new Chevy bolt was last year with tax incentives. With this you sacrifice basically everything to in theory be cheaply fixable and modable, and you get an open air trunk to haul light but bulky loads.
Slightly faster charging and slightly worse range if they keep to the website specs. If they can get work fleet vehicle sales this will probably do well, but for an average consumer seems DOA at $30k in a way it wasn’t at $20k