Live data from Hacker News

Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

slate.auto

391–400 of 524 posts

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#391
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I just think that's a luxury for folks who have plenty of money. When you're basing your use case on 1% of use, then you're buying a luxury car, but pretending it's practical. A practical plan is a diversion of labor that maximizes the best and most frequent use cases.

That is how most of the middle class in the US works. Now granted the US middle class is well off by world standards but they don't consider it luxury they consider it normal.

Yes, and at the same time they are whinging about the price of automobiles and gasoline.

Preferences are driven by culture in the short run and by practicality in the long run.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the vinyls will feel like "Hooray my own kinda car!" but will end up in the storage room with "I'll stick these on later" note in the buyers' heads.

You can order a wrapped professionally from the factory. Depending upon which segment of the body panels it's as cheap as a few hundred bucks all the way up to something like 800 bucks for a full wrap. I don't think I've ever gone shopping for a car and had the dealer present me with the exact same trim options but color selection was only going to change the MSRP by $800 at most...

> I don't think I've ever gone shopping for a car and had the dealer present me with the exact same trim options but color selection was only going to change the MSRP by $800 at most...

Am I misunderstanding here? I bought a new vehicle last year, and for a given trim there were a half-dozen colour options available at no extra cost, with the upscale options either a $600 or $800 upcharge.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat cheaper anyway (30% according to https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/petrol-vs-electric-servicing-... ), but I wouldn't be surprised if that is wiped out by the increased insurance costs. I definitely wouldn't buy an EV based on lower service costs.

That's based on the manufacturer's "lets not upset our dealers" maintenance schedule and is completely unnecessary. In reality you can probably bring your EV to the dealer once every 4 years or so. On that schedule you should: - check the brake fluid for water - change the cabin air filter - change the gearbox oil - check/change the battery coolant If you're going in more frequent than that you're getting a very expe…

FWIW, my 10+ year spreadsheet of the maintenance costs on my last ICE lined up pretty well with that - about 1/3 of the costs were ICE-specific issues, 2/3 were for parts that would have been common to an EV.

> In reality you can probably bring your EV to the dealer once every 4 years or so.

Not really, I need twice-yearly seasonal tire changes/rotations.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#395

Its size and range are too low for the price. End of story on this one.

The range is fine. Did you overlook that it has an LFP battery? LFP batteries do not suffer increased degradation at either end of their charge range. You can charge to 100% daily and run them down to 0% (although if you leave them at 0% parasitic drain could drain them below the built in below-0% buffer which can be bad).

The other common EV batteries suffer increased degradation at the high and low ends and it is generally recommended to stay in the 20-80% range except on road trips. Then charging to 100% just before you start and driving down to 10% if you are going to recharge soon after back to above 20% is OK.

Let's first consider non-road trips. With level 2 home charging and a 200 mile range LFP EV like the Slate, I could actually get 200 miles between charges. I'd be cautious though and try not to let it go below 10%.

That's 180 miles of usable range.

On a non-LFP where I only get to use 60% between charges (80-20%) I'd need a 300 mile range EV. That's more than the 262 mile range of the 2027 Chevy Bolt which is doing fine and costs more than Slate. That's also better than or close to the most popular non-Tesla EVs in recent sales, namely the Chevy Equinox, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and Hyundai Ioniq 5.

For road trips it is a little different because even though LFP won't be harmed going to 100% it, like non-LFP, slows down when you are trying to charge with high power DC chargers, so it is almost always faster to just charge to 80 and get back on the road than charge to 100 to get maximum distance before the next stop. The LFP still punches above its weight on road trips, but not by as large an amount as it does for around town use.

On a road trip, past the initial segment when running on home charge, if we assume the Slate will be going from 80 to 5% and the non-LFP is doing 80-10%, the Slate would be equivalent to a non-LFP with around 215 miles of range.

For people who won't want to use it for long road trips (road trips long enough that you would have to charge before reaching your destination) it should be fine.

BTW, for long road trips charging speed is generally quite a bit more important than range as long as you have enough range to cross the gaps between charging stations. The Ioniq 5 is widely considered to be one of the best long road trip EVs because of its fast charging even though its range is smaller than many competitors. It is 800 V so can accept very high power without excessive heating, and its charging curve stays high for longer than most others. (But you need a trip that has high power chargers, which most Tesla Supercharger stations lack).

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#396
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to gas cars: Kia K4 hatchback is $26k with a lot more creature-comforts. Gets 34mpg, so if $6/gal gas is here to stay that's $0.17 per mile of fuel costs. My EV gets almost exactly 4miles/kW average and I pay $0.21 per kW so that's about $0.05 per mile. So $0.12 per mile saved in fuel costs implies about 80k miles for break-even. This excludes costs of servicing, which should be higher on the gas car. [edit…

California (and many other states) also charges you an additional annual EV registration fee of $121 in lieu of gas taxes. There was some noise earlier this year about a federal EV tax too.

I wish they'd just tax the tires. Bigger vehicles, more tires, more wear.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the lack of a center console touch screen precisely so I can add one I made myself with a raspberry pi and some cool shit from adafruit

Entertainment, telemetry, weapons systems?

https://youtu.be/9nJtXiK7bPk?si=rPyR3FpOIVRfa3mG

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#398
post #137

The color options are a much bigger deal than I think many people realize. It's been too many years since I saw the studies so I have no hope of being able to cite it, but in a marketing class in college I remember reading about how much people value picking a color they really like, that they feel matches their personality. It increases satisfaction, significantly reduces the cognitive dissonance (aka "buyers remors…

Definitely! Gen Z & A value uniqueness and authenticity. I think the customization options will resonate a lot with them.

I heard cars with zany colors get stuck on the sales lot for much longer than boring colors. If that is true, customizations lower the value on the secondary market relative to factory restrained factory options, and the owners may get lowballed when trading in their cars, or will invest more time of selling as a 1st party.

If car colors were not mired in paperwork, I imagine dealers would respray them some shade of Millennial-gray, similar to realtors' M.O. when prepping homes for sale.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can find 1000 watts of electric anyplace. However to get any reasonable range from that means my car has to sit there 3-4 days! This works for me because I only make the long trips on weekends (I ride my bike to work when the weather allows). For practical EV purposes there is not electric everywhere. If there isn't enough at home chargers are hard to find. Sure they are all over - but they are not advertised and n…

This is just fundamentally not true, literally every single home in the USA is capable of level 2 charging, the question is just do they have a 240v outlet somewhere nearby to a garage or parking spot. Using apps like ABRP you can easily schedule your drip to have the optimal stops for route planning based on your battery technology, if you are doing a drive long enough to have multiple stops that should be part of y…

> This is just fundamentally not true, literally every single home in the USA is capable of level 2 charging, the question is just do they have a 240v outlet somewhere nearby to a garage or parking spot.

Technically true, but if you've only got 60 amp service to your home because it was built in 1955 and the cost to run a new service line is greater than the cost of a new car, it's pretty difficult to get any useful amperage to your level 2 charger.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's based on the manufacturer's "lets not upset our dealers" maintenance schedule and is completely unnecessary. In reality you can probably bring your EV to the dealer once every 4 years or so. On that schedule you should: - check the brake fluid for water - change the cabin air filter - change the gearbox oil - check/change the battery coolant If you're going in more frequent than that you're getting a very expe…

FWIW, my 10+ year spreadsheet of the maintenance costs on my last ICE lined up pretty well with that - about 1/3 of the costs were ICE-specific issues, 2/3 were for parts that would have been common to an EV. > In reality you can probably bring your EV to the dealer once every 4 years or so. Not really, I need twice-yearly seasonal tire changes/rotations.

How much of that 2/3 was brakes? In 100,000 miles on our ICE we replaced brakes twice and they likely need replacing soon again. On our EV at 100,000 miles they look like they'll last another 100,000.
Post reply on HN