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A $20k electric truck with manual windows and no screens? Meet Slate Auto
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bediger4000 2y agoI bet the lack of screens makes it a no-go for a lot of truck drivers. Without a screen, and backup cameras, pickup truck drivers will find it much, much harder to back into parking spots, especially the narrower parking spots in urban parking lots.
- chvid 2y agoYes. A parking camera / screen is a straight up improvement compared to relying on windows and skill. People who complain about screens are usually not complaining about that but rather about common functionality that used to be a single physical button now is buried deep inside a buggy menu system.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> Yes. A parking camera / screen is a straight up improvement compared to relying on windows and skill. Car screens and I don't get on. At all. For backing up, what works for me is a full check first and directly viewing while backing up, augmenting with mirrors. Eyes-on is me being as safe as I can possibly be.
- sagarm 2y agoYeah no that's how parents used to run over their own kids
- 31337Logic 2y agoNow they're running over other people's kids due to being distracted by the screen.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> Yeah no that's how parents used to run over their own kids The Full-Check part is what prevents that. I also back-in to park. Pulling out compounds the safety.
- Marsymars 2y agoFor me, backing up precisely and not running over things are two different skills. I'll check the screen for obstacles, but find it much easier to use windows/mirrors for actually getting into the spot.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoArticle mentions backup cam is required now. Still, can't think of a reason I'd back into a space in a parking lot. Don't think I ever have. If I needed to for some reason, I'd lower the tailgate.
- bediger4000 2y agoThe majority of pickups I see in Denver and NoCo parking spots are backed in. This behavior seemed to come on very suddenly, maybe 3 years ago. I rarely saw it, and then suddenly, 3 out of 4 pickups are backed in. Puzzled me until I realized that a rearview camera with the green/yellow/red markings on the image made all the difference.
- Marsymars 2y agoI started seeing a lot more vehicles backed into parking spots when parking enforcement started using automated plate readers.
- fsckboy 2y ago>Still, can't think of a reason I'd back into a space in a parking lot I back into spaces almost exclusively. reason: I see that I can do it when I arrive, and realize that exiting forward will be a breeze regardless of the future conditions (you are backing into an empty space, and forwarding into a space with other moving cars that are out of your control). it's one forward lap and one backward lap, same difference, in addition to which I find steerability/maneuverability is much better with the "steering" wheels in the back, because after you get the forward aligned to enter the slot, you can simply steer away after that.
- anamax 2y agoYou're ignoring differences in the size of the space and the ability of most drivers to back-up vs going-forward into a small space. >90% of the people who back in take much longer to back-in than they'd take to back-out because it takes them more time to back up with any accuracy. Head-in to the spot is just as fast as head-out into the lane because most people don't have any trouble going forward. The result is that back-in is a net time loss.
- zelon88 2y agoThis particular truck pictured appears to have a footprint about the size of a Toyota Camry, but with far greater rear visibility due to the additional headroom and no rear seat.
- dharmab 2y agoIt's much more common to park a truck backed in than a car, in order to load the bed e.g. from a loading ramp or dock. The backup camera is great for lining the bed right up to where you are rolling on the cargo. You _can_ do it without a camera, but the camera saves a ton of time.
- defrost 2y agoThere's a niche here given the prevalance of smart phones. The last tow truck I took a ride on (modern, tilt tray, full lifts, etc) was operated by the driver who happily and easily juggled two phones ... he had one in a cradle, the other hand held, used the cradle one to look up routes, bid for jobs, and general map operations. At lights or when refueling he was talking on the free phone while cross referencing via text and map searches on the cradle phone. Additionally the truck console had screens for reversing, etc. Point being .. we live in a world where it reasonable to have physical control, screen free, relative "dumb" vehicle that still has a diagnostics bus and rear cameras and distance sensors that can accessed via the drivers phone or tablet. With cable | wifi and auth or some kind the operators smart device can upload music to the cars sound system and the vehicle can return infomation and visuals from sensors .. perhaps.
- inverted_flag 2y ago> Will younger generations actually plunk down $20,000 or more to own a Slate vehicle that won't go into production until the fourth quarter of 2026 Not worth devoting any brain cycles to this thing if it’s that far out still given how fast the situation in the US is changing.
- to2i3u423i4j234 2y agoIndeed - pretty much every single EV maker gets its most important physical bit, the batteries, from BYD.
- tzs 2y agoNo consumer EVs sold in the US use BYD batteries. There are some buses and commercial EVs in the US with BYD batteries. US consumer EVs mostly use batteries from LG Energy Solution, Panasonic, and SK On.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mixmastamyk 2y agoSays no screens, but I'm interested in the absence of surveillance as well. If there's no telemetry/forced-apps I'd be interested. I've asked before but still not sure how much information is given to a charger when you plug in an EV?
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoI feel ya but sabotaging telemetry still feels possible. De-screening a car seems solidly out of reach.
- snailmailman 2y agoI'm very curious how they are managing "no screens". I thought all vehicles in the U.S. were required to have rear-view cameras for safety. I'm curious how they are getting around that. Edit: I now see that the article speculates that maybe there's a screen in the rear-view window for this. But I can't find anything concrete.
- LegionMammal978 2y agoMy understanding is that the regulations require a certain amount of rear visibility, either directly in the mirror or via a rear-view camera. But the former likely wouldn't be possible with the bed in the way.
- lyrrad 2y agoThe Verge reports that the rearview camera will be on "a small display behind the steering wheel as a gauge cluster." https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric-truck-price-paint-radio-bezos https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric...
- jeffrallen 2y agoThe basic protocol from an AC charger to your car is, "hello, I have X amps available, don't take more or you will trip my circuit breaker". The car responds by charging at or below the current advertised. When you charge in a context where the car unlocks the charger (i.e. Tesla Supercharger), the protocol must divulge the car's certificate, signed by the owner of the charging network (like mTLS). There would be privacy-preserving protocols for this, but they are not used in practice.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoPrice comes with a depressing caveat. at a starting price of less than $20,000, assuming federal clean vehicle tax credits continue to exist.
- NewJazz 2y agoThat just means 27500 MSRP, still very low compared to the 70k-80k existing US options.
- tzs 2y agoYou are overestimating the price of EVs in the US. I was recently in the market for an EV and my budget wasn't anywhere near 70k and I found several options--way more than I had expected. In the following when I saw "tax credit" I mean the federal $7500 tax credit. Many EV makers with models that do not qualify for the tax credit are offering an equivalent credit which I will call "tax match". For some that is a straight up $7500 off. For others it is only if you finance through them (but if you prefer to buy outright just finance and then pay it off right away). It is this tax match that was responsible for there being way more cars in my price range than I thought there would be. BTW, if you are leasing instead of buying the tax credit is generally available even for EVs that do not qualify when you buy them. I'm mostly going to be giving prices and discounts as you would find them at a dealer to better reflect what you are actually looking at out of pocket. • Nissan Leaf S for around $29k. Tax match plus some other Nissan bonuses that every dealer seems to be offering brings it to $20k. • Nissan Leaf SV Plus for around $39k. $29k after tax match plus other common discounts from Nissan and dealers. • Nissan Ariya $42k for FWD, $46k for AWD, or $35k and $38k after tax match. • Chevy Equinox EV for $35k, $27.5 after tax credit. That's the FWD model and has a 319 mile range. $5k for an AWD model (which drops the range to 309). (AWD actually adds $3k, but the base AWD model has $2k of other packages that are optional on the $35k model. If you start with the $35k model and add the packages you want you will almost certain add those packages too, and so then going to AWD will just add $3k). • Hyundai Kona SE at $33k or $26k after the tax match. • Hyundai Kona SEL at $37k or $30k after the tax match. This is what I ended up buying. • Kia Niro Wind for $40k (but really $42k because I think most dealers add the package that replaces resistance heating with a heat pump) or $35k after the tax match. • Kia Niro Wave for $47k (with the heat pump package) or $39k with the tax match and other discounts I saw at most dealers. • Toyota bZ4X for $40k FWD or $44 AWD. No tax credit and no official tax match but the dealer I visited really wanted to push it so offered about $5k in discounts and rebates and offered $3k more in trade for my 2006 Honda CR-V than anyone else did and something that I don't remember that brought the AWD down to $35k. Oh and also 0% financing. • Chevy Blazer EV at around $49k or $42k with the tax credit. I've seen some big discounts on this. My nearest Chevy dealer has a $6500 "Discount for Everyone" on these which would bring it $36k. I currently don't see that anywhere else so it may just be that one dealer. • Hyundai IONIQ 6 SEL at $52k or $44k after the tax match. IONIQ 5 SE is about the same. • Subaru Soltera at $40k. No tax credit or match. • Fiat 500e at $34k MSRP. Dealers seem to give a discount of around $2k. • Volkswagen ID.4 is a little confusing. My nearest dealer has an 2025 ID.4 Limited for $42.5 MSRP. So do other dealers. But Volkswagen's site does not list a Limited. The lowest trim is the Pro at $45k MSRP. Anyway, no tax credit or match but it looks like there is some sort of $5k bonus going on so about $36k. I think that might be all the current model EVs in the US that are generally available for under around $40k after widely available incentives. There are also several between there and the $70k range you mentioned.
- zelon88 2y agoI think it's perfect! I've fantasized about getting an old Nissan Hardbody, stuffing the bed with batteries and putting 2 overvoted forklift motors under the hood. This is basically a reliable, commercially viable version of that concept.
- guilamu 2y agoJerry rigs everything did just that with an old army humvee. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0vZL9uwyfOFezIOiBjkdW3TTdn0Q_AKL https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0vZL9uwyfOFezIOiBjkdW3...
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoIt has a reasonable profile instead of engineering based on overactive pituitary glands. A truck that doesn't make roads more dangerous feels unamerican.
- legitster 2y agoI'm the weirdo who still likes crank handles. They are actually faster at opening/closing windows. And one less set of electronics to fail. Americans complain about the lack of affordable cars, but can't be bothered to buy anything with less than 4 doors and AWD and 20 inch wheels. So good luck to these guys.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> I'm the weirdo who still likes crank handles. They are actually faster at opening/closing windows. Absolutely. Only one vehicle here has electric windows but that car was given to us. The other 6 vehicles are hand crank.
- switch007 2y agoDefinitely easier and less cognitive overhead when wanting it just open an inch or two! Rather than remembering the exact right amount of pressure for that mode on the switch
- Marsymars 2y ago> Rather than remembering the exact right amount of pressure for that mode on the switch That depends a bit on models - there are various cars you can buy that don't have various modes of pressure - there's only a single mode, and the window stops moving when you let go of the switch.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago> And one less set of electronics to fail. In my experience, cranks are relatively complicated mechanical linkages, failed quite regularly and were sometimes not easy to repair. OTOH, I've never seen an electronic opener fail since the 80's. Yes, sometimes they don't have the torque to open a window when it's iced closed, but that's an advantage, not a disadvantage -- the ability to put a lot of torque on a manual opener was the cause of many failures. A couple of articles on the Slate have also pointed out that electric openers are cheaper than manual ones.
- omgwtfbyobbq 2y agoBuild it, please. The lack of affordable EVs in the US is depressing.
- Ancalagon 2y agoHave you seen the used Tesla market lately?
- bsder 2y agoYeah, but have you seen the Tesla repair parts prices? Buying a used car presupposes the ability to service it.
- pazimzadeh 2y agohow much of the original range do they retain? you have to consider the price a new tesla battery (between $12,000 and $15,000)
- Dylan16807 2y agohttps://www.nimblefins.co.uk/study-real-life-tesla-battery-deterioration https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/study-real-life-tesla-battery-d... I bet they have more than half the original range, so I don't have to consider a new battery at all.
- pazimzadeh 2y agotesla inflates their range estimates until the battery is half empty: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-ba... Idle draw/phantom drain of 5-10% a day seems like a common complaint with Teslas as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43314781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43314781 I personally don't want to be left holding the bag on a used battery since I like the option traveling long distance without stopping, but obviously it's your choice.
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- Ancalagon 2y agoC’mon you can’t be building ev’s in 2025 with less than 300 miles of range
- dmoy 2y agoI want a cheap ev with less than 150 miles of range for city use. With traffic here I'm literally never driving more than 100 miles a day, and virtually never driving more than 50 miles a day. I can charge at home, I don't care if it takes 12 hours. But I'd want that car to be under $15k. That car doesn't exist, at least not in the US, so I'm still on an old ICE. My current car is worth at most $5k, and I spend maybe $500/yr on gas.
- stickfigure 2y agoThe car exists, you just have to look at used. About three years ago I bought a gently used 2013 Fiat 500e for $8k. It gets ~80mi range in the summer (a little less in the winter though). Super fun, drives like a gokart. Plugs into 110 and charges overnight. My wife uses it for commuting and it's our standard "run to town" car. We have an ICE vehicle for trips. Absolutely would buy again.
- NewJazz 2y agoThere is a nonprofit near me that has some trucks they use for hauling trash, weeds, and some misc equipment on occasion (they do habitat restoration). They rarely go more than 20 miles in a day. This would fit their needs perfectly, assuming they could cheaply charge it. They probably could figure something out, they already have a van with an RV style charger hooked up.
- smallerize 2y agoAt 60 mph, it would take 5 hours to go 300 miles. I do that much driving in a day maybe once or twice a year. It's not a big deal.
- Jtsummers 2y agoThis truck only offers 150 miles in the base model. That's the problem. If you consider the round trip distance, unless you have a chance to charge it at your destination or reliably on your route it gives you about a 60-70 mile practical range from home. And that's if you do a there-and-back with no detours. GP is pointing out that anything less than 300 is not practical, and they're not wrong. 150 miles, in particular, is just too low to be used for anything other than a basic commuter vehicle. It's useless on highways (try driving I-70 through KS in this thing) and if you change job sites more than once, you're likely to run out of range in one work day. Traveling between cities is going to be unreliable if you're not able to stop and charge at your destination. Live in Colorado Springs and want to go to Denver? You probably have to stop and charge before coming home.
- boznz 2y agoI kind of like it, but re-use is the way to go, Problem is you get Tax credits for buying new EV but just a shit tonne of regulations and no money to convert your old truck; that was New Zealand five years ago. I really hope other countries have it easier as most older gas trucks are easy to convert to EV's at the end of their lives by a decent amateur. I have a 1990 Hilux pickup working just fine as my daily driver, but it cost about US$20K to convert and with only 100KM range it is only effective as a second vehicle. Good news though is with a couple of future battery swaps it will only get better and should outlive me.
- zoom6628 2y agoLooks like is designed as a custom platform. The sort of things the kiddies will go mad over and build all sorts of custom rides. Bring it on!
- trhway 2y agomany of us would like to repeat and relive the tech magic like that of PC circa 90-ies and into 2000s. >The myth of the sub-$25,000 electric vehicle has been around for more than 10 years now, Equinox EV is MSRP 33.6K before 7.5 tax rebate. Looks and sounds like a decent modern compact SUV.
- screye 2y agoI accidentally flagged the post. Mods, please ignore the flag. The car looks great.
- Jtsummers 2y agoYou can unflag things you flag and there's no time limit on it. Just go to the top of the page and click on "unflag".
- screye 2y agodid that but it still showed up greyed out. So replied for good measure.
- Jtsummers 2y agoSubmissions don't turn gray from getting flagged. Even [flagged][dead] submissions (if you have show dead on in your profile) show up in the same color as every other submission.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoJust to explain (probably) why it is grey: the link was visited.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoI want a hilux champ to do odd jobs around town. It will never make it here because it doesn’t meet safety standards, I really wish the nanny state would let me make my own decisions.
- shermantanktop 2y agoIf it doesn’t meet safety standard that protect the driver of the vehicle, that’s one thing. But unsafe cars are sometimes unsafe for the other car.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoWhere I live you are much more likely to die getting hit by a logging truck than being harmed by a small utility truck without collision avoidance sensors. Hell I almost died in a head on collision with a semi truck if I didn’t swerve out of the way. Commercial trucking is where safety should be emphasized, not people who just want a small utility vehicle to do jobs around town.
- shermantanktop 2y agoAside from anecdotes, is there data on that? I suspect it’s a small minority of people that encounter a logging truck in a given year. I’m in the PNW and you don’t see logging trucks barreling through big cities. I found this: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/data-and-statistics/large-truck-and-bus-crash-facts-2021 https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/data-and-statistics/large-t... 5k fatalities.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agohttps://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/driving-and-cycling/road-safety-rules-and-consequences/be-truck-aware#stats https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/driving-an... > In an average year in B.C., large trucks are involved in less than one percent of all crashes – but they’re involved in nearly 20 percent of fatal crashes. If you exclude motorcycle fatalities (which is usually only the motorcycle rider is seriously hurt, and that is a known risk they take) the numbers get even worse for commercial trucking.
- consumer451 2y agoHere is a video tour of the truck that just came out today: https://youtu.be/out-F6n91qs https://youtu.be/out-F6n91qs
- Bender 2y agoIf this is void of telemetry, dial-home and other fascistic crap then I would seriously consider it. It's in a similar price range of street legal UTV's but with more room assuming it stays in that range when it launches.
- diggernet 2y agoSadly, their jobs site lists a position for "Flash Over-the-Air (FOTA) Validation Engineer".
- Bender 2y agoThat's unfortunate. Maybe I just need to be patient and wait until they are done battle hardening these things and don't need OTA or telemetry.
- diggernet 2y agoCommenters in another thread were suggesting that the OTA updates would be via their phone app. Which opens the possibility of simply not connecting your phone to it, one hopes. Of course, we are talking about a car that doesn't exist yet. Who knows what the facts will be once it does.
- constantcrying 2y agoIt is an interesting idea, but there is obviously a lot which can go wrong here. Can you actually build an EV like that, conforming to all regulations, with significant cost reduction? Do people actually want less screens or do they just say that? Is customization a road to profitability?(VWs ID.1 concept has a similar idea to lower entry price, by making several upgrades user installable, so they can be bought over time. This is obviously a US only car and the US is very lacking in EV adoption. Will this sell in significant numbers? Can you actually make it cheaply? Rivian is notoriously unprofitable and making cheap cars is, far, far harder than making expensive cars.
- red-iron-pine 2y agopeople definitely want less screens and have been loud about it for years now. the industry finally listened. https://spectrum.ieee.org/touchscreens https://spectrum.ieee.org/touchscreens https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/automakers-rethinking-move-to-touch-screens https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/automakers-reth...
- constantcrying 2y agoBoth articles are about touchscreens, doesn't really seem relevant. In either case stated preference and revealed preference are different things.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoWe won’t know until real choices are given. So demanding to know beforehand feels needlessly antagonistic.
- constantcrying 2y ago>So demanding to know beforehand feels needlessly antagonistic. I said it was an open question and the company was betting on peoples stated preferences being identical to their revealed ones. I never "demanded" anything. I just said that the articles you posted were irrelevant to the question, as physical buttons and large displays can exist at the same time.
- M95D 2y ago> Rather than relying on a built-in infotainment system, you'll use your phone plugged into a USB outlet Absolutely horrible. 3-4 standard DIN slots with simple plastic covers would let users install anything they want: a 2-DIN player, a 1-DIN CB radio and a 1-DIN equalizer or amp or tachograph, or simple storage space.
- BobaFloutist 2y agoI don't know, as long as I can do basic controls (pause, play, skip, previous, and maybe go ahead/back 10-20s if you're feeling nasty) this is basically my dream setup. Why futz with pairing and connecting via Bluetooth when you probably want to charge your phone anyway?
- tzs 2y agoI keep an insert in my phone's USB-C port that blocks it. It would be kind of annoying to have to take it out whenever I want to connect the phone to the car and then put it back in when I leave the car. I'm not actually sure that this is necessary with USB-C, but when I had Lightning phones I noticed that every so often they would stop charging when I plugged them in. I determined that was from pocket lint getting into the port. Scraping the lint out with a toothpick would fix things. When I got a phone with wireless charging I switched to using that and put a cover on the Lightning port. I kept the habit of using a port cover when I got a USB-C phone. I've not actually checked to see if pocket lint is a problem with USB-C ports.
- M95D 2y agoBecause basic controls belong on the steering wheel or at least physical buttons that you can find while looking at the road.
- tw1984 2y agostill a rip off. you can probably get the exact same spec for just $5k USD without tariffs
- BobaFloutist 2y ago>You wanted a bare-bones EV? Here it is. It's a truck. I want a bare-bones compact EV. Whatever happened to economy cars? I want a Corolla or a Civic-(hatchback if you must)-style EV. But, you know, before the screens.
- mmmlinux 2y agoCan't fit Braxley Jr and Aiden in the back of a civic with all their Lacrosse equipment. obviously everyone needs a big SUV now.
- asoneth 2y agoBetween Slate and Telo[1] it seems like there's finally some new ideas for small electric trucks. I totally get that some people's use-cases necessitate 300+ mile range, touchscreens, infotainment, DIN slots, four passengers plus a bunch of sheets of plywood, whatever. But why complain about the existence of a truck that doesn't meet your requirements if so many existing electric trucks already meet all of those requirements? Isn't it OK if other people want something different? [1] https://www.telotrucks.com https://www.telotrucks.com
- kjohanson 2y agoBed is too short to be very practical. Also too expensive for what it is. I wanted a maverick but it’s a 4.5’ bed… Ended up with a 6’ Tacoma. You can find good condition used tacomas in the low 20s