“No touchscreen” is a really great selling point imo
I fucking hate the touchscreen in my vehicle.
Fucking FINALLY.
I’ve been waiting for a small pickup like the old 90s 4-banger Toyota. And this is electric, simple for function, and actually affordable?
Capitalists must be seething. If it doesnt have leather interior, 19 speaker surround sound, and cost 80k, get it out of our country! /s
Small gas-powered trucks are effectively illegal in the US.
It’s regulation made in response to automakers calling everything a “light truck” to get around fuel economy and emissions standards in the 90s and 2000s.The straw that broke the camel’s back was the PT Cruiser being classified as a truck by Chrysler.
So, starting in model year 2012, vehicle fuel economy standards started being based on vehicle footprint. The side effect was that small, powerful vehicles designed for moving cargo more efficiently or in tighter spaces than large trucks were impacted. It’s why 2011 was the last year model of the old Rangers, S10s, Dakota, etc.
That’s why the new Rangers are larger than the old F150s. They have to make them bigger to meet CAFE standards.
Same issue hit the small cargo vans in 2021/22. As the CAFE standards went up, it became impossible to meet fuel economy standards for the NV200, Ford Transit Connect, and Ram ProMaster City compact cargo vans, so they were all discontinued.
New York City was changing its whole Taxi fleet to NV200s due to their flexibility and accessibility options, and now can’t buy new ones because a Toyota Camry has less-strict fuel economy requirements.
What are the Maverick and Santa Cruz classified as? I think they fit the small or light truck category, if they are categorized as trucks at all.
A Maverick is a light truck in much the same way a 737 is a small plane. Sure there are bigger ones, but it’s a 4 door truck with a 4 foot bed that’s high enough to make loading and unloading harder than it needs to be. It’s twice the weight and almost twice the size of a 70s/80s Toyota Pickup, which is a light truck.
Hybrids meet CAFE.
But their towing and carrying capacity versus the old Rangers and S-10s is pitiful.
Relatively affordable. It is 20k after the federal discounts and kick backs. Meanwhile, the Chinese EV market has been making cars as low as 4k. https://greenspeedx.com/cheap-electric-cars-available-in-china/
I’m not a pro China person (because one time in Ark, a Chinese team kept destroying my thatch base), but they seem to have the things. Apparently Mexico is aiming to compete in the EV market as well.
If by “the things” you mean underpaid labor, then yes.
You might ask yourself what it is that allows them to produce and sell a brand new vehicle for $4k, basically the same price as a high-end PC or a couple of high-end smartphones.
There’s no radio, no Bluetooth, and no speakers of any kind beyond for those required to play basic warning chimes.
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.
There’s an integrated phone mount right on the dashboard, but there’s nothing stopping you from bringing something even larger. I expect the low-cost Android tablet and 3D-printing communities to have a field day coming up with in-car media streaming solutions.
This is 100% it.
All I want is a modular car system. Everything modular. Dashboard. Body panels. Whatever. I want 3+ cars possible on one frame, and to not need anything more than basic tools to swap parts around.
You wanna drive a FOSS OmniMech and so do I
I do. I really do.
framework truck😭
If only that money wouldn’t be partially going into the pockets of Bezos, it would be amazing.
And while easily replacable panels and such are a good thing. Having the mounting screws exposed like that is a horrendus idea. Because I suspect I know what much younger and very drunk people would do, based on the Mercedes hood ornaments I have in a box somewhere.
I am excited, this is what my husband and I have been waiting for - a regular vehicle with no bells and whistles just to raise the price
Fun fact, this isn’t $20K but that’s what it takes to get people, to share the article. The actual arrival says that it’s $20K after government rebates in the US. So it’s actually expensive without tax dollars.
I wonder how much petrol/diesel would cost if the government didn’t subsidise it. And if they were actually held liable for oil spills.
And if they were held liable for the damage they’ve done to the environment and climate, and people’s health.
I’m at least glad it’s not yet another bigger truck. I just want a vehicle to get from A to B that can actually fit things in the bed
More to the point, you can’t rely on the US government to continue rebates for EVs unless the manufacturer is owned by Musk.
Yup! And hopefully starts a new thing that other makers get behind!
It’s backed by Bezos. Wouldn’t even consider it for that reason alone.
There is also the Telo Truck. It’s advertised as being as capable as a Toyota Tacoma, but the footprint of a Mini Cooper.
It’s asthetic is more akin to the small trucks in Japan, though.
Edit: it does seem like it has more tech-forward features, but it is otherwise a relatively simple truck in a very manageable size.
Man that fucker is ugly
I’ve had a lowkey obsession with this truck for a few months now. Sure, the looks aren’t for everyone. But I would get one tomorrow if I could afford it.
I have an older Kia Soul EV that I absolutely love, but could use a truck bed from time to time. I also love kei trucks (I live in Hawai’i and they’re everywhere!). Small vehicles with clever use of space is my jam. And I will never go back from an EV unless I’m absolutely forced to. This Slate truck is kinda awesome as well. Gives old 80s pickup truck vibes and I’m here for it.
That glass roof is a hard sell for me. The truck I currently drive has a sunroof with no cover and I need to wear a hat just to drive comfortably on a sunny day. I never need to see straight up while driving.
I like the Telo, though it is about twice the price of the Slate.
The design is bad. The front trunk is a bad use of space, and the Japanese figured this out decades ago with the Kei truck. If you want to see real utility, look at this design.
The front trunk is a safety feature called a crumple zone and is objectively safer to be in a crash with.
Hm. Interesting point.
Maybe as we move our economy away from cars, and people dont all have to be drivers, we could also move away from cars that are poorly designed specifically around bad drivers.
You need infrastructure to actually support an alternative, otherwise cars are a necessity for many people to get to work and the grocery store.
Kei was recently found to botch all of their safety test scores for many years. As another commenter said, any crash in that design is guaranteed life threatening without some type of buffer.
If theres anything Ive learned from the fire departments insistence to have big wide roads so that they can shave off nano seconds to their response time, sometimes theres bigger things than persieved immediate safety to the individual.
For example, if we all drove Kei trucks slowly on small roads, a collision would not be as bad as driving a big safety focused truck at 80mph.
Still, your point is well taken. Maybe there are some ways to make safe small vehicles, including trucks, that arent explored yet.
Yeah, it would be nice to not need cars. I feel like this is a step towards function and away from vanity. Which is a good thing, even if it’s not the end goal.
That is true, except I’m talking about utility primarily. Garbage trucks already fulfill the design I’m mentioning and are used daily in most cities already.
Are you saying that because a heavy duty, highly specialized, utility vehicle, doesn’t have a crumple zone that the Slate truck is a bad design?
In my view the Slate truck is designed as a work vehicle. It’s for people who need to both hual things, and have a place to store tools. It’s trunk is perfect for that.
The Kei, and box trucks that we have in the US (which would have been a way better example for you to use.), are great for delivery vehicles. Jobs where you load things up and come back with an empty truck.
There’s a place for both form factors. The Slate is not a bad design, it just doesn’t fit what you think the use case for a small truck is.
People in garbage trucks don’t experience the same magnitude of force in a crash of equal speed, even without crumple zones, for a few reasons:
- Sheer mass of the garbage truck means that the same amount of momentum transfer results in less force to the humans inside. A garbage truck might weigh literally 20 times as much as a kei truck, which means that an abrupt collision will transfer 1/20 as much impulse to the passengers (as most of the force goes into changing the speed of the truck). Even collisions with still objects (trees, walls, poles) result in less force on the passengers, as a lot of the energy ends up deforming or disintegrating that stationary object as a crumple zone.
- Driver/passenger height in a garbage truck is generally above where the collision/deformation occurs. The passenger compartment isn’t under as much crushing force in a garbage truck crash compared to a kei truck at normal human height.
- The height of a garbage truck gives a lot more physical structure to dissipate the forces in a crash.
So the exact same shape/proportions of vehicle can be vastly different safety when large versus small.
Counterpoint: One of the first things people buy for a truck is a container for the bed for things they don’t want to be in the weather but also not in the cab.
A front-trunk eliminates this need which also frees up bed space.
Exactly, you can usually tell someone actually needs a truck if it’s got a stainless box behind the cab. Obviously there’s still people who cosplay as truck drivers that will have them too, but there are other signs you can use to tell them apart.
Americans won’t buy a Kei truck though. Granted, the frunk is a marketing concession, but it’s a fine one, if it can help push the market away from huge and expensive SUVs.
Or, more succinctly, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Americans won’t be able to afford anything anyway pretty soon.
Front trunks save lives in collisions though. I’d 100% rather be in a vehicle with a hood between me and another car, and I say this as an avid kei-truck fan.
They don’t make electric Kei trucks though.
This will never come to market. Perhaps in a different timeline, but not this one.
Please make a 4x4 model I will definitely buy one.
This is a truck I’d actually feel comfortable driving. Unlike those gender affirming, semi truck adjacent, embarrassing pavement princess trucks that you see everywhere now.
Definitely interested…
I will buy this immediately if it’s even close to this price point.
How are they going to get around the backup camera requirement? I guess it could be done through your phone but that sounds like it might be a support nightmare.
Europe and Japan had backup cameras with no touchscreen on cars 10-15 years ago. The radio head unit just switches from a small 4x6 inch LCD display to back up camera when in reverse.
The rear view mirror has been used in The past as a mini screen and I liked it. And if you unhook the camera in my Ford it would flash the little screen blue for a moment then realize nothing was hooked up and would turn off. Though you could just unhook the mirror connector and it would be just a mirror as well if you want to disassemble the interior to unplug it.
no touchscreen
Sounds like a dream. Or public transport. It doesn’t have touchscreen either.
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.
Instead of steel or aluminum, the Slate Truck’s body panels are molded of plastic. Or, as Slate calls them, “injection molded polypropylene composite material.” The theory is that this makes them more durable and scratch-resistant, if only because the lack of paint means they’re one color all the way through.
By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint shop, Slate’s manufacturing process is massively simplified. So, too, the lack of metal body parts. “We have no paint shop, we have no stamping,”
Plastic with no paint is not going to do well in places like the Southwest. But I’m sure that getting it painted or wrapped won’t be a huge deal.
Many vehicles have some sort of MIC paneling these days. It does fine in the SW.
You can paint it if you’d like.
It does fine for a few years, but eventually starts sun bleaching and looking terrible. Seen a lot of hacks to make it look better, but the plastic still gets brittle and dry. A coat of paint or spray on bed liner does wonders to fight that.
Seems like half the article is talking about paint.
