Interested to see how this turns out. I'd like to see a size comparison. Is this actually a reasonably-sized vehicle, like a pre-2000 pickup, or just a cheap modern monster truck? Sadly it's not on carsized.com (yet).
If the company is still around 5 years from now, I could see myself getting one of these to replace our current "compact" (but still enormous) SUV.
Yet it still has a relatively tall, straight hood that tends to drag people underneath the car. These designs are terrible in pedestrian accidents; to a significantly greater degree when children are involved.
The hood is very short and you sit way closer to the ground. I have driven one of their comparison vehicles (the 1985 toyota) with a very similar profile. There is no way you are missing someone in front of you compare to other vehicles. This thing sits lower and gives better visibility than many SUVs people are driving. This truck is small.
It's still square rather than sloped, and higher than massive vehicles like the Pacifica. It might be low enough that it'll bounce an adult off the hood rather than drag them underneath, but it'll still drag kids underneath.
That 1985 Toyota had a radiator in the grill so had a reason for that shape. This truck doesn't.
Compared to that Toyota the sightlines are objectively worse with the longer hood. Using the comparison cars the hood stands at 1.12m before the sloped part; a 6 year old could easily stand in front of that and you'd never see them.
Compared to a Toyota corolla, there's at least a 50% higher fatality risk in pedestrian accidents solely from the higher hood. That's for the general population. Given how these fatalities usually work, the risk to children is exponentially higher. There are dozens of studies on this.
No, this car isn't the worse offender, but lets not forget the important part here: This hood design is exclusively done for aesthetics.
You've got the direction right, but the numbers are inflated in the Slate's disfavor. The 1.12m is an unmeasured estimate of the hood's high point; the figure that actually drives risk is the leading edge, realistically ~40–42" here — the very floor of the "tall" category. The "50%+ solely from the hood" is really IIHS's 45%, and that's a bin average for everything over 40", a group dominated by full-size trucks whose leading edges sit at 46–50"+. A vehicle sitting right at the 40" line doesn't carry that average, and the 45% bundles height with front-end shape, so it was never "solely" the hood. The F-150 and Silverado people are actually buying are a clear tier worse than the truck you're complaining about.
Kids, women, and the elderly do take a disproportionate share, but nobody measured anything "exponential". "Dozens of studies" is fair. "Exclusively for aesthetics" isn't, though: the front houses a 7 cu ft frunk, and more importantly the Slate's short hood and modest height give it a smaller forward blind zone and better sight-lines than a full-size truck, which is the axis that decides whether the driver sees the kid at all, and the one the 45% fatality stat doesn't even cover. The real villains here are taller, longer-nosed, and parked in way more driveways than this thing will ever be.
This vehicle is a step in the right direction, especially for the urban environment. If we really cared, everyone would drive a Honda Acty in urban zones.
You wouldn't cross-shop a Rivian and a Slate. The Rivian is a high-end luxury vehicle with a laundry list of features, including things like self-driving. The Slate is literally the opposite: it has a laundry list of things it doesn't have and, indeed, its lack of features is part of the sales pitch.
Right. Even the cheaper R2 just released is in a different market segment. There will be some cross-shopping of the Slate with the upcoming new platform Ford EV truck, which Ford is hinting will be $30K. Of course, I remember when Ford hinted that the F150 Lightening would initially be a $40K truck, so we'll see.
On your point of self-driving, I was just looking into if this would be compatible with a comma.ai autopilot, and it looks like Slate doesn't even have the default hardware onboard to allow it (and there's no option to add it?). Unfortunate miss.
I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. The Rivian R1T starts at $80k for the dual motor trim and the quad starts at $116k, before options. This is so far outside of the average car that I am comfortable considering it high-end luxury. A Ferrari is unattainable luxury. A custom-built coach should come with an invitation to the guillotine. I forget sometimes that this forum is full of wealthy individuals who insist that they are still just common folk.
Has it at all occurred to you that "luxury" and "attainable" are mutually exclusive, like definitionally? Of course there's more to luxury than it simply being out of your reach, and there are many things which are absolutely not a luxury which are assuredly out of your reach to begin with. A house is not a luxury, for example. Especially not a mass-produced timber framed shitshack made out of particle board and sheetrock in the middle of nowhere. But the system certainly tells you it's a luxury, and you can't afford one anyways, so it must be a luxury, right?
I understand you're probably frustrated because you have been sold a manufactured idea that as an American, luxury is supposed to be attainable to you. That you were promised a high end lifestyle. That the American dream guarantees to lift you out of the filthy squalor of the ancestors. Finally, the common man is to be given nice things! He will live as a king! Or maybe you're just a westerner in general, and you really bought the lie that you are actively wealthy compared to the rest of the world.
That was all a lie.
And your assumption is absolutely faulty, by the way. I just actually know a nice thing when I see it. It's defined by it being a nice thing. An ugly, mass manufactured truck filled with materials that feel bad in the hand is really not that nice in the grand scheme of things. Sorry. You should absolutely be filled with outrage that even something as mundane as this is unattainable though. Projecting that frustration on to me for not letting shitty marketing jargon slide is ridiculous. This doesn't just affect us, either. You should remind the wealthy at all points that their standards are sliding backwards, and their hollow sense of luxury has become a category of complete crap driven by lowered standards and artificial scarcity.
One under-appreciated value of having an EV is that you don't have to buy gas. You literally do not have to buy gas. I cannot emphasize this enough: you do not buy gasoline for these cars. Not only that, but many places let you charge them for free. That is like someone giving you free gas.
Not only that, if you have access to an outlet at home (many do; many do not), then you just never have to think about your "gas tank" at all. You start every day at a full "tank". After a month of ownership, your state of charge is just not even something you think about, at all.
Not quite that simple. "Normal" home outlets (120v, 15A) charge EV's very slowly. And even then, non-trivial driving will show up on your electric bill.
As someone who does non-trivial driving: When I switched over, I was floored - that electric bill increase was less in a month than gas was in about three days. And yes, I also have a dedicated 240V/50A circuit, 120/15 is only fine for normal commuters.
In Seattle, we also went from flat 13.4c/kWh to a new variable rate with 8c/kWh available from 12-6am. My electric bill just dropped by about 30%.
Based on how many of my friends followed their first EV purchase with an electrical outlet upgrade - even those with very short commutes - I suspect your "120/15 is only fine for normal commuters" is still a tad optimistic.
EDIT: Re-reading comments here - I'd bet a leading reason to upgrade from 120/15 to 240/50 charging is to get much more of your charging done within the 12am - 6am "lowest rate" time window. Or whatever that window is, locally.
Our car (2025 Ioniq 5) gets about 3-4 miles of range per hour on a 120V outlet. If you're home for 10 hours overnight, that's at least 30 miles of range each day. Some random article I found[1] suggests the average commute is about 42 miles. So if you include some extra time on weekends, a 120V outlet easily matches the average commute distance. If you drive less than that, or are home more often due to WFH or whatever, then a 120V outlet is definitely enough.
In reality, probably people drive significantly more than that, eg for shopping and seeing friends and shuttling kids around and whatever. So in the end I do agree with you, lots of people will want to get a 240 line to their garage. But an existing 120V line is probably genuinely enough for a whole lot of people, too. It is for my wife & me.
Yes, it will show up on your bill as a cost drastically smaller than purchasing the equivalent amount of gas. If you put solar panels on your house you can get that cost even lower.
I'm sure it shows up on my bill, but there are so many other variable costs that I can't find it. The weather (how much I use the heat pump) is a much larger factor
400 miles of driving a month in my EV van which gets on average 1.7 miles/kwh is around 235.3 kwh.
At local rates that $16.47 in electricity (235.3 x $0.07). On average my electric bill went up 15-25 dollars a month.
I spent the first two years of ownership charging mostly from the 110v socket outside the house because over night its enough to cover my commute of around 27 miles at the time.
Now that I have a 60A 240v circuit setup outside and a 40A EVSE I never even worry about what state of charge I get home with.
Well, if you had never used Amazon before and all you did was drive to the store it kind of could be considered under-appreciated if you didn't give it the proper weight in the convenience factor.
It really is under appreciated how much less stressful EVs are to own on a day-to-day basis until you have one. Never worried about gas prices, it's always "full", don't have to deal with crazy people bumming money at the gas station, &c.
It's hard to understand beforehand just how game changing it is when you switch. Once you're not constantly thinking "Wait, is 60% enough?", it's incredibly freeing. No more "ugh, I'll have to spend $70 before I do that."
True, but one does not have to replace their gas powered engine and fuel tank and drive train every ten to fifteen years if they want to drive several hundred miles. The problem with EV is destroying the economy to shift it to a tiny few people. From all the gas station workers, fuel distribution, parts makers, parts suppliers, etc. for several hundred moving part vehicles. To the oligarchs who control the thirty moving parts that must be replaced every ten years for ten grand.
EVs are a massive serfdom wealth and freedom transfer masquerading as a decade of not having to visit a gas station while hiding the country sized hole that will be needed for all the battery trash.
They are a blight on humanity. China survives them at scale because they are communist and have policies to mitigate economic fallout in one sector by having people supported in others. The USA just makes more homeless people and tells the next generation of high schoolers to enroll in a special work ready jobs pipeline program for whatever the local school board thinks will be left. And their non-employment rate skyrockets.
Probably, but that is a difference concern. The concern here is the average car is 12 years old. If your battery only lasts 10 years, odds are the car is worse less after you replace the battery than the cost of a battery replacement. Thus the concern - if a battery only lasts 8-10 years that means there are less used cars for poor people to buy.
Fortunately it appears that only the leaf is destroying batteries that fast. Everything else we don't know how long a battery will last, but likely long enough that only collectors (who pour more money than the car is worth into it anyway) will care.
Most EVs are not old enough to need a replacement so no surprise you haven't seen it.
I've seen places offering to do it to a leaf. However the cost is more than the leaf is worth by the time it needs it. I know a few people with a leaf that has half the factory range left and they just deal with it because the cost isn't worth it.
Talking the power company into taking it and calling that recycling is really just renaming the landfill location and making the electric customer's pay for it. Repurposing a failing piece of hardware is not recycling it.
You always buy fossil fuels with an EV, not directly but you do. When you stop at the plaza for a quick super charge there’s no way to tell where is the energy sourced from, it could very well be from a diesel generator a few miles down the road. The value is in all the parts found in an ICE that need servicing or replacement that you don’t have in an EV. With an EV you basically need tires and maybe brakes once every 8-10 years, no oil and fluids, no oil or engine filters, water pumps, spark plugs, valves, seals, etc etc
While it may be dirty sourced electricity, there are still significant benefits many people don't think about. As (or I suppose now, if) the grid moves towards cleaner electricity sources, the total emissions go down, where the ICE vehicle will always be an ICE vehicle.
Generators are also much more efficient at converting fuel to electricity. They don't have to provide pretty good power output at all RPM's, they are much more fine tuned. There are also emission reduction options that are economical at the scale of a power plant, but not when attaching to millions of cars.
You also get regenerative braking; some of the energy that you took out of the battery and put into the wheel can be recaptured and stored. The alternative is burning the fuel and ablating your brake pads.
Where I live my utility generates more wind power in a year than all customers use. (I assume the excess is sold to some other utility) There is also a lot of solar people are putting on their houses.
> no oil and fluids, no oil or engine filters, water pumps, spark plugs, valves, seals, etc etc
Those are cheap though.
You still have tires, shocks, and the general body wearing out from use.
GP didn't say that you don't have to use gas; the comment says you don't have to buy gas. Which IMO signifies how miserable gas pump experience is felt to them.
Where people snag is the "gas station mentality", where everything they know about car ownership revolves around "filling up at a station".
So when they think about owning an EV, they focus really hard on "gas station mentality" things like "how long does it take to fill" and "how far can you go between fill-ups?".
Once you own an EV (and have a home charger) you pretty quickly forget about those things shy of the occasional 300+ mi road trip.
It's true it only matters for the road trip, although a slight note that the slate has a stated 150 mile range so you may have to take it into account if you're driving all over a metropolitan area.
For an around-town daily, the only real reason you wouldn't want to take an EV is because literally all of your options are rolling privacy violations. At least with an ICE you can buy a 2011 panther platform and rest easy.
Thankfully, Slate solved this problem. I don't care that it's a cheapy, uncomfortable shitbox with no range. Please yes, more modern cars that aren't literally made out of spyware at an atomic level.
These things remind me of my dad's 90's ford ranger. I would love a small functional pickup. I don't need to drive a battle-tank around town. If all works out for these trucks, it's a top contender for my money in the near future.
> any of various forms of vehicle for carrying goods and materials, usually consisting of a single self-propelled unit but also often composed of a trailer vehicle hauled by a tractor unit.
> any of various wheeled frames used for transporting heavy objects.
> Also called hand truck. a barrowlike frame with low wheels, a ledge at the bottom, and handles at the top, used to move heavy luggage, packages, cartons, etc.
> a low, rectangular frame on which heavy boxes, crates, trunks, etc., are moved; a dolly.
> a tiered framework on casters.
> a group of two or more pairs of wheels in one frame, for supporting one end of a railroad car, locomotive, etc.
> Movies. a dolly on which a camera is mounted.
> British. a freight car having no top.
> a small wooden wheel, cylinder, or roller, as on certain old-style gun carriages.
> Nautical. a circular or square piece of wood fixed on the head of a mast or the top of a flagstaff, usually containing small holes for signal halyards.
I see no mention of "body on frame" as part of what makes a truck a truck.
1990 Ranger Regular Cab Short Bed [1]
108in wheel base, 175.6in long, 66.9in wide, 6ft bed.
2025 Ford Maverick
121.1 inch wheel base, 199.7in long, 72.6in wide, 4.5ft bed.
1990 Ford F150 Regular Cab Short Bed
119.9 wheelbase, 202.2in long, 78.4in wide. 6.5ft bed.
Idk how you get "almost identical" out of those numbers, unless you are using the long bed ranger or an extended cab short bed ranger. Even the longest 1990 ranger was shorter than a Maverick by a few inches.
The Maverick is actually the size of an F150 from 1990. Similar to how the Colorado/Ranger today is the size of a full size truck in the 2000's
The Maverick is barely a truck because of the bed size. But a lot of modern trucks have comically small useless beds so it is hard to fault it for that.
> The Maverick is actually the size of an F150 from 1990. Similar to how the Colorado/Ranger today is the size of a full size truck in the 2000's
A 13th gen RCSB F-150 is only modestly larger than a 1990 RCSB by your definition here, but we know that's not practically true because you are only comparing very specific measurements. Anyone that's had an OBS and been around Mavericks would never say the Maverick is the actual size of an OBS F-150.
Trucks are bigger than ever, that's self evident, but saying an OBS and Maverick are the same size is a stretch.
> The Maverick is barely a truck because of the bed size. But a lot of modern trucks have comically small useless beds so it is hard to fault it for that.
Well it fits sheets of 4x8. I finished half my basement with supplies and tools trucked around in my Mav. Wouldn't have been any easier with an F-150. Would have been more difficult with my hatchback.
I have a 91 Ranger Club Cab, 4.0L RWD sitting around waiting to get used again. The only reason I upgraded (2016 Tacoma) was because of how bad it was in the winter (Western Canada, lots of snow and ice). Couldn’t get good tires for it anymore (15” is so passé) and often got stuck on flat icy surfaces. If it had been 4WD I’d probably still be driving it every day.
I love the Tacoma for a lot of reasons, but that Ranger really had a lot going for it in the summer.
Loved that Ranger my father owned. Rolled it onto the driver's side, totalling it. Still have road rash on my left forearm from when the window broke mid-accident and my left arm dragged a touch.
If not bankrupt in three years like Lucid and Rivian, I'll still buy a Cybercab instead. Also, I hope they succeed. There's definitely a market for them.
The Slate only tows 2000lbs, and has a tiny bed. If you need a truck it isn't for you. Maybe it works as a SUV.
Of course most people only need a coupe to begin with. Too bad you can't buy any that are cheap. (that and you mostly only need a coupe, but at least once a week need something more)
I bought a house recently, and need something to haul landscape stuff around. Slate is perfect for that. I also need something to haul wood around for woodworking etc. Slate is perfect. If I need to help my kids move out of their apartment or move some furniture, this is perfect. Can't do any of that with my coupe.
I don’t care that it’s EV. I’m just stoked that they’re making an actually modular system like this. I don’t know why it’s not possible with other cars.
The modularity is there with classic manufacturers too, just not "exposed" to the buyer. Cars use a common platform and you can still buy the classic or fastback, different styling packages, but you won't be able to self service them after the sale. I don't really know how much Slate is the Framework of the auto world, and how much it's just customization options at purchase time.
Most people who buy a car would never be bothered to "tweak" it later, upgrade, add stuff. Modularity also constrains the design and could add some reliability issues.
The biggest benefit would be home repairability so I think that's a big driver for why other manufacturers don't do it. EVs already require less maintenance so that's lost revenue.
P.S. Looking at the options on the site, other than the body style everything else is just as easy to have on any other car. Most of the customization is purely esthetic (wraps, decals, rim options, light plates) and even the practical options like light bars or roof racks are common in the OEM world for any classic brand.
The difference is that with a slate you’re not limited to buying one of the versions of the modular platform - you can swap them out yourself.
Want an open air 5 seater in the summer and an enclosed pickup the rest of the year, except for November when you really want an SUV? Sure, no problem.
This concept makes a lot of sense for first time car buyers. Having never owned a car, maybe being fresh out of college, a car can be a big leap. What will it need, what will it do? Commute? Car pool? Camping? Moving? Boating?
If the customization can be done after the fact it lowers the risk of buying.
If you go to a BMW or Mercedes dealership with no coupons or anything it'll be about that.
It's less that the oil change costs that much and more that they don't want you to show up with a car they've never seen for an oil change when they can make more doing other work in that bay. So it's priced to keep people out rather than to draw people in.
My stealership wanted $158 for the 10k mile maintenance for my EV. That maintenance is a visual inspection, tire rotation and "high voltage battery test" (meaning they plug it into their charger for 5 minutes and see if it charges).
I can charge it at home. The tire discounters by me charges $15 for a rotation if they didn't sell you the tires, and they do the inspection to see if there's anything they can sell you.
I decided I hate their website.
If I'm looking for a part, sometimes the part applies to multiple model years and I'm not convinced that they've organized it with that taken into account. Also, I don't necessarily want to search for a specific part -- I may just want to know if they have certain vehicles. Why can't I just search by make/model/year and give me a list of all parts. If that's too taxing on the database add in classifiers like "electrical" "interior" or whatever the hell else. And the initial search form is enraging because it "tries to help" by automatically selecting the subsequent dropdown when I'm already clicking it and it sends me into the wrong section.
I blame the dealers, at least somewhat. In the early days of the Scion brand, the idea was something like, all of the cars are shipped to the dealer as base models, customers could choose from a menu of add-ons, and the dealer would install them. Want just the basic car? Fine. Want to add keyless entry and mood lighting and a CD changer and chrome alloy wheels? They'll add those for you.
But (at least in my experience), that made for a worse product than having factory installation and QA. I bought a brand-new car from a Scion dealer in 2005 and indicated I wanted to add keyless entry. I paid the dealer, they did the install, and I left ... with a car that would intermittently fail to lock some doors with the key fob. I realized shortly thereafter that the dealer had installed an aftermarket system to save money rather than the offical Scion keyless entry system. I complained and eventually got them to install the right system, but jeez, that did not enhance my experience compared to just finding a car that was built in a factory with the options I wanted.
I'm not saying the modular Slate pickup isn't cool. I'm kind of tempted by it. But I wouldn't be surprised if people find themselves with leaky roofs, electrical gremlins and random squeaks and rattles compared to if they just bought some other truck/SUV and left it alone.
Also assembly lines can achieve the scale factors needed to pay for all the jigs needed. A dealer doesn't sell enough cars to afford those expensive jigs. Making your cars in the factory is nearly always going to be cheaper the dealer customization. The dealer can do minor things that are quick and easy, but putting a different back on the bed on is something the factory should be able to do better and cheaper.
Ideally you would design it perfectly self centering, fool prove install and so on. So that the cost at the dealer would be small and quality high. But that's easier said then done, specially if you move deeper into the available features.
I vaguely remember that from the Scion days. I wonder what that does to liability? Like if it's something that impacts the safety of the vehicle - like a roll bar? - who takes on the liability if it's a dealer option?
Probably depends on who made the mistake. If the design is faulty the designer, if the part itself is faulty factory, if the installation was wrong even though the instructions were reasonable, the person doing the installation.
Does the modularity make it easy to steal the accessories? I'd be sad if my new customized truck were downgraded to the base model while parked on the street overnight.
Just built a "hatchback" Slate with what I guess will be common options (speakers, wheel upgrade, spare wheel carrier, and a few other odds and ends) and it came to $35k. So, still pretty inexpensive, but also getting close to some existing EV sedans that are known entities and have pretty decent interiors. So, I'm not totally sold on these, but not not sold either. Need to see one in person, I think.
Yeah, you could buy a basic one and add the rear seats and roof later.
But, is that likely? Most people buy cars on credit and won't have $10k cash to spend on those bits later. I guess they could put it on Visa, but that's a terrible financial choice.
If these become popular it should be reasonable to expect the aftermarket to provide less expensive options. These are clearly where Slate's margin will live right now.
If the company is still around 5 years from now, I could see myself getting one of these to replace our current "compact" (but still enormous) SUV.
That 1985 Toyota had a radiator in the grill so had a reason for that shape. This truck doesn't.
Compared to a Toyota corolla, there's at least a 50% higher fatality risk in pedestrian accidents solely from the higher hood. That's for the general population. Given how these fatalities usually work, the risk to children is exponentially higher. There are dozens of studies on this.
No, this car isn't the worse offender, but lets not forget the important part here: This hood design is exclusively done for aesthetics.
Kids, women, and the elderly do take a disproportionate share, but nobody measured anything "exponential". "Dozens of studies" is fair. "Exclusively for aesthetics" isn't, though: the front houses a 7 cu ft frunk, and more importantly the Slate's short hood and modest height give it a smaller forward blind zone and better sight-lines than a full-size truck, which is the axis that decides whether the driver sees the kid at all, and the one the 45% fatality stat doesn't even cover. The real villains here are taller, longer-nosed, and parked in way more driveways than this thing will ever be.
This vehicle is a step in the right direction, especially for the urban environment. If we really cared, everyone would drive a Honda Acty in urban zones.
High end luxury vehicles are coach built. The Ferrari Luce is a mid end luxury vehicle. Rivian is more like a low end luxury vehicle.
I understand you're probably frustrated because you have been sold a manufactured idea that as an American, luxury is supposed to be attainable to you. That you were promised a high end lifestyle. That the American dream guarantees to lift you out of the filthy squalor of the ancestors. Finally, the common man is to be given nice things! He will live as a king! Or maybe you're just a westerner in general, and you really bought the lie that you are actively wealthy compared to the rest of the world.
That was all a lie.
And your assumption is absolutely faulty, by the way. I just actually know a nice thing when I see it. It's defined by it being a nice thing. An ugly, mass manufactured truck filled with materials that feel bad in the hand is really not that nice in the grand scheme of things. Sorry. You should absolutely be filled with outrage that even something as mundane as this is unattainable though. Projecting that frustration on to me for not letting shitty marketing jargon slide is ridiculous. This doesn't just affect us, either. You should remind the wealthy at all points that their standards are sliding backwards, and their hollow sense of luxury has become a category of complete crap driven by lowered standards and artificial scarcity.
In Seattle, we also went from flat 13.4c/kWh to a new variable rate with 8c/kWh available from 12-6am. My electric bill just dropped by about 30%.
https://www.tesla.com/charging-calculator
"Seattle" may be a critical bit here. The Fed thinks the "U.S. City Average" cost of electricity is far higher than yours:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610
Based on how many of my friends followed their first EV purchase with an electrical outlet upgrade - even those with very short commutes - I suspect your "120/15 is only fine for normal commuters" is still a tad optimistic.
EDIT: Re-reading comments here - I'd bet a leading reason to upgrade from 120/15 to 240/50 charging is to get much more of your charging done within the 12am - 6am "lowest rate" time window. Or whatever that window is, locally.
Our car (2025 Ioniq 5) gets about 3-4 miles of range per hour on a 120V outlet. If you're home for 10 hours overnight, that's at least 30 miles of range each day. Some random article I found[1] suggests the average commute is about 42 miles. So if you include some extra time on weekends, a 120V outlet easily matches the average commute distance. If you drive less than that, or are home more often due to WFH or whatever, then a 120V outlet is definitely enough.
In reality, probably people drive significantly more than that, eg for shopping and seeing friends and shuttling kids around and whatever. So in the end I do agree with you, lots of people will want to get a 240 line to their garage. But an existing 120V line is probably genuinely enough for a whole lot of people, too. It is for my wife & me.
[1] https://www.axios.com/2024/03/24/average-commute-distance-us...
At local rates that $16.47 in electricity (235.3 x $0.07). On average my electric bill went up 15-25 dollars a month.
I spent the first two years of ownership charging mostly from the 110v socket outside the house because over night its enough to cover my commute of around 27 miles at the time.
Now that I have a 60A 240v circuit setup outside and a 40A EVSE I never even worry about what state of charge I get home with.
It really is under appreciated how much less stressful EVs are to own on a day-to-day basis until you have one. Never worried about gas prices, it's always "full", don't have to deal with crazy people bumming money at the gas station, &c.
EVs are a massive serfdom wealth and freedom transfer masquerading as a decade of not having to visit a gas station while hiding the country sized hole that will be needed for all the battery trash.
They are a blight on humanity. China survives them at scale because they are communist and have policies to mitigate economic fallout in one sector by having people supported in others. The USA just makes more homeless people and tells the next generation of high schoolers to enroll in a special work ready jobs pipeline program for whatever the local school board thinks will be left. And their non-employment rate skyrockets.
The problem is we can only guess because we are talking about going to trash in 8-10 years, and most EVs are not near that old. Still signs are good.
Fortunately it appears that only the leaf is destroying batteries that fast. Everything else we don't know how long a battery will last, but likely long enough that only collectors (who pour more money than the car is worth into it anyway) will care.
I've seen places offering to do it to a leaf. However the cost is more than the leaf is worth by the time it needs it. I know a few people with a leaf that has half the factory range left and they just deal with it because the cost isn't worth it.
"always" is just not true. "most of the time" is true, and it will get less and less as time goes by.
Generators are also much more efficient at converting fuel to electricity. They don't have to provide pretty good power output at all RPM's, they are much more fine tuned. There are also emission reduction options that are economical at the scale of a power plant, but not when attaching to millions of cars.
> no oil and fluids, no oil or engine filters, water pumps, spark plugs, valves, seals, etc etc
Those are cheap though.
You still have tires, shocks, and the general body wearing out from use.
So when they think about owning an EV, they focus really hard on "gas station mentality" things like "how long does it take to fill" and "how far can you go between fill-ups?".
Once you own an EV (and have a home charger) you pretty quickly forget about those things shy of the occasional 300+ mi road trip.
For an around-town daily, the only real reason you wouldn't want to take an EV is because literally all of your options are rolling privacy violations. At least with an ICE you can buy a 2011 panther platform and rest easy.
Thankfully, Slate solved this problem. I don't care that it's a cheapy, uncomfortable shitbox with no range. Please yes, more modern cars that aren't literally made out of spyware at an atomic level.
I’m pretty sure that’s the whole g-damned point of an EV. Who are you thinking needs to be told this?
The only reason it takes an EV to get this is CAFE.
So if the maverick is barely a truck, then the 1990's ford ranger is barely a truck too.
> any of various forms of vehicle for carrying goods and materials, usually consisting of a single self-propelled unit but also often composed of a trailer vehicle hauled by a tractor unit.
> any of various wheeled frames used for transporting heavy objects.
> Also called hand truck. a barrowlike frame with low wheels, a ledge at the bottom, and handles at the top, used to move heavy luggage, packages, cartons, etc.
> a low, rectangular frame on which heavy boxes, crates, trunks, etc., are moved; a dolly.
> a tiered framework on casters.
> a group of two or more pairs of wheels in one frame, for supporting one end of a railroad car, locomotive, etc.
> Movies. a dolly on which a camera is mounted.
> British. a freight car having no top.
> a small wooden wheel, cylinder, or roller, as on certain old-style gun carriages.
> Nautical. a circular or square piece of wood fixed on the head of a mast or the top of a flagstaff, usually containing small holes for signal halyards.
I see no mention of "body on frame" as part of what makes a truck a truck.
2025 Ford Maverick 121.1 inch wheel base, 199.7in long, 72.6in wide, 4.5ft bed.
1990 Ford F150 Regular Cab Short Bed 119.9 wheelbase, 202.2in long, 78.4in wide. 6.5ft bed.
Idk how you get "almost identical" out of those numbers, unless you are using the long bed ranger or an extended cab short bed ranger. Even the longest 1990 ranger was shorter than a Maverick by a few inches.
The Maverick is actually the size of an F150 from 1990. Similar to how the Colorado/Ranger today is the size of a full size truck in the 2000's
The Maverick is barely a truck because of the bed size. But a lot of modern trucks have comically small useless beds so it is hard to fault it for that.
[1]https://www.therangerstation.com/tech/ford-ranger-dimensions...
A 13th gen RCSB F-150 is only modestly larger than a 1990 RCSB by your definition here, but we know that's not practically true because you are only comparing very specific measurements. Anyone that's had an OBS and been around Mavericks would never say the Maverick is the actual size of an OBS F-150.
Trucks are bigger than ever, that's self evident, but saying an OBS and Maverick are the same size is a stretch.
Well it fits sheets of 4x8. I finished half my basement with supplies and tools trucked around in my Mav. Wouldn't have been any easier with an F-150. Would have been more difficult with my hatchback.
I love the Tacoma for a lot of reasons, but that Ranger really had a lot going for it in the summer.
And the Slate should have better utility, for anybody who needs a truck/SUV vs coupe. And also comes without the Musk stigma.
Of course most people only need a coupe to begin with. Too bad you can't buy any that are cheap. (that and you mostly only need a coupe, but at least once a week need something more)
Most people who buy a car would never be bothered to "tweak" it later, upgrade, add stuff. Modularity also constrains the design and could add some reliability issues.
The biggest benefit would be home repairability so I think that's a big driver for why other manufacturers don't do it. EVs already require less maintenance so that's lost revenue.
P.S. Looking at the options on the site, other than the body style everything else is just as easy to have on any other car. Most of the customization is purely esthetic (wraps, decals, rim options, light plates) and even the practical options like light bars or roof racks are common in the OEM world for any classic brand.
Want an open air 5 seater in the summer and an enclosed pickup the rest of the year, except for November when you really want an SUV? Sure, no problem.
If the customization can be done after the fact it lowers the risk of buying.
Makes sense to me.
It's less that the oil change costs that much and more that they don't want you to show up with a car they've never seen for an oil change when they can make more doing other work in that bay. So it's priced to keep people out rather than to draw people in.
I can charge it at home. The tire discounters by me charges $15 for a rotation if they didn't sell you the tires, and they do the inspection to see if there's anything they can sell you.
But car batteries, brake pads, tire pressure sensors are all becoming increasingly software-locked in. We're lacking open standards for this stuff.
https://kagi.com/search?q=gmc+sbc
But (at least in my experience), that made for a worse product than having factory installation and QA. I bought a brand-new car from a Scion dealer in 2005 and indicated I wanted to add keyless entry. I paid the dealer, they did the install, and I left ... with a car that would intermittently fail to lock some doors with the key fob. I realized shortly thereafter that the dealer had installed an aftermarket system to save money rather than the offical Scion keyless entry system. I complained and eventually got them to install the right system, but jeez, that did not enhance my experience compared to just finding a car that was built in a factory with the options I wanted.
I'm not saying the modular Slate pickup isn't cool. I'm kind of tempted by it. But I wouldn't be surprised if people find themselves with leaky roofs, electrical gremlins and random squeaks and rattles compared to if they just bought some other truck/SUV and left it alone.
But, is that likely? Most people buy cars on credit and won't have $10k cash to spend on those bits later. I guess they could put it on Visa, but that's a terrible financial choice.