Slate is a good concept but I seriously doubt they will survive. They are barricaded on a tariff island and Americans have proven they hate EVs. All EV companies are fighting for a sliver of market share in the US.
Failure to go global is what will kill Slate. Wrong government to start an EV company with. If they even get a sniff of sales, China will just copy it and sell better, cheaper. It’s very fast to develop EVs.
A few reasons. Crash safety and comfort. It’s hard to make comfortable driver and passenger seats over the wheel well. It’s also hard to make that part reinforced for side impact and behind a crumple zone for head on impact when it’s over the wheel well.
I drove past a 70s era pickup someone obviously took great care of. It was striking how small, low it was compared with modern trucks just designed to look bigger for no engineering purposes.
Those two trucks will be late 80s early 90s and late 90s early 2000s vingate, respectively.
The Slate is actualyl even smaller than those trucks. The bed is shorter. The thing with the Slate is, it’s designed to be an SUV. Slate set out to make a 5-seat SUV and realized that they could offer a lower starting price if half the roof and three of the seats were optional.
They’re either going to have to come out with an uprange model with AWD and proper offroad capabilities to angle toward the Subaru BRAT/Geo Tracker market, the cute little offroad toy market, OR they’re going to have to stretch it a bit to, say, exactly the size of that silver Tacoma. Add another foot of bed behind the axle.
I could also see an XL version that’s the size of a 1992 Chevy Silverado. I want a full size truck that isn’t the equivalent of a watermelon in a jock strap. A real truck for real men with real jobs to do.
Slate’s employees, the ones allowed to talk to cameras anyway, have been carefully trained to mention how “fun” the truck is and how “proud” owners will be to have it. They’re very careful to NOT depict it achieving anything. They want you to imagine driving it to parties, not to the lumber yard.
Why does the nose have to be so large?
It’s not appealing and you lose like 25% of cargo space for the vehicle
The nose IS cargo space.
Slate is a good concept but I seriously doubt they will survive. They are barricaded on a tariff island and Americans have proven they hate EVs. All EV companies are fighting for a sliver of market share in the US.
Failure to go global is what will kill Slate. Wrong government to start an EV company with. If they even get a sniff of sales, China will just copy it and sell better, cheaper. It’s very fast to develop EVs.
A few reasons. Crash safety and comfort. It’s hard to make comfortable driver and passenger seats over the wheel well. It’s also hard to make that part reinforced for side impact and behind a crumple zone for head on impact when it’s over the wheel well.
The “hood” area houses an enclosed “frunk” cargo area, the 12V battery, steering and braking gear, and the radiator.
It also allows the vehicle to strike a pose and form factor familiar to its intended market of American pickup truck drivers.
I drove past a 70s era pickup someone obviously took great care of. It was striking how small, low it was compared with modern trucks just designed to look bigger for no engineering purposes.
Those two trucks will be late 80s early 90s and late 90s early 2000s vingate, respectively.
The Slate is actualyl even smaller than those trucks. The bed is shorter. The thing with the Slate is, it’s designed to be an SUV. Slate set out to make a 5-seat SUV and realized that they could offer a lower starting price if half the roof and three of the seats were optional.
They’re either going to have to come out with an uprange model with AWD and proper offroad capabilities to angle toward the Subaru BRAT/Geo Tracker market, the cute little offroad toy market, OR they’re going to have to stretch it a bit to, say, exactly the size of that silver Tacoma. Add another foot of bed behind the axle.
I could also see an XL version that’s the size of a 1992 Chevy Silverado. I want a full size truck that isn’t the equivalent of a watermelon in a jock strap. A real truck for real men with real jobs to do.
Slate’s employees, the ones allowed to talk to cameras anyway, have been carefully trained to mention how “fun” the truck is and how “proud” owners will be to have it. They’re very careful to NOT depict it achieving anything. They want you to imagine driving it to parties, not to the lumber yard.
It’s not really that big in person tbh, unless you’re talking about length (which is probably to help crash safety)