A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen • Hacker News Board

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#151

Post by conradev » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

adamhowell wrote: post #122

taylodl wrote: post #43

I LOVE it! THIS is the kind of truck I'd be looking at to replace my 1998 Ford Ranger. Here is what could be potential deal-breakers: - Lack of a mobile app. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues. - Lack of good charge management and battery conditioning. Either that, or a cheap and easy to replace battery pack. I'd really like both! - Comparable h…

> Lack of a mobile app… At the 6 mins and 40 seconds timestamp on this video ( https://youtu.be/cq1qEjwSYkw?t=400 ) he shows the car app that will tell you current range, etc

I'd recommend folks watch the video – it's fascinating.

The truck gets OTA updates through your phone and not some LTE modem. It doesn't have one. They moved all car management including OBD-like functionality to the phone, too, which I think is awesome.

This is how I want the interior design philosophy of manual controls to be digitized – with digital control. I'd pay $10k more for physical buttons, though.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#152

Post by cityofdelusion » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

discmonkey wrote: post #12

I love the look and the idea, but I wonder if it will go the way of the small/budget phone? Will folks revealed preference continue to be big and expensive?

Agreed. The U.S. market had a very long run of both large expensive and small cheap pickup trucks, and people consistently have bought the big luxury pickups. It is why all the small trucks were axed to begin with. Even back in their prime, I saw many more F-150s than Rangers. Its an easy up-sell as I'm sure any car salesman will say: well for only a few more thousand you get into a full-size, and from there, add some options and its over.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#153

Post by soared » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

Does this strategy even make sense? You can charge $20k for a car. Why wouldn’t you add options that cost you nearly nothing but some amount of buyers will opt in for a meaningful revenue increase.

Charge $1k for paint. Even if 95% of people don’t do that, 5% of orders just increased their revenue by 5%. Paint doesn’t take engineering time.. just spend $500 and let some other company do it. This is why trims exist, having a single low price point means people who want to spend more either produce lower revenue than possible, or are disappointed.

IMO this one trim, one price is almost certainly a prelaunch marketing gimmick as from a business perspective there is literally no benefit.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#154

Post by Suppafly » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #67

The $20K is after incentives, so it's actually $27,500. That still compares favorably to Ford's closest offering, the F-150 PRO, which is $54,999 (pre incentives): https://www.fordpro.com/en-us/fleet-vehicles/f150-lightning/ The Ford comes standard with the same range as the upgraded Slate, though. The slate can tow 1000lbs, and hold 1,433 lbs, vs the Ford's standard 5000 / 2235, respectively (you can upgrade the ran…

It's meaningless to compare a small city truck to something like a full-sized truck, they are totally different classes of vehicle. I get that ford doesn't make a small electric vehicle, but that doesn't make the lightning the "closest offering".

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#155

Post by robertlagrant » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #90

From the related Ars article[1]: > Rather than relying on a built-in infotainment system, you'll use your phone plugged into a USB outlet or a dedicated tablet inside the cabin for your entertainment and navigation needs. How is a "dedicated tablet" different than an infotainment system, other than not having vehicle telematics and controls? Also, a regular tablet UX would be dangerous while driving, and typically th…

> Also, a regular tablet UX would be dangerous while driving

A passenger could operate it.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#156

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

rozap wrote: post #120

PaulHoule wrote: post #14

I like it. My wife runs a riding academy and we use a Honda Fit the way some people would use a pickup truck: we can fit 10 bales of wood shavings in the back. [1] We’re dreading when it fails because they don’t make the fit anymore and compact hatchbacks seem to be on the way out. Recent experiences have made me a bit of a Buick enthusiast and I can see driving a 2005-ish sedan except that I won’t get those sawdust…

I also love this design and I'm happy that someone is doing it. I think it's unlike anything else on the market. But, they won't necessarily be competing against other new things on the market. My wife also rides horses and we got a $5000 20 year old F250 which is very basic but has been bulletproof, and it can tow. I imagine old, basic trucks, either cheap domestic ones or kei trucks will be what this thing competes…

To be fair, a lot of farms need a big-ass pickup truck because they are always towing horses to go to shows or trailheads. We have 70 beautiful acres and a network of trails my wife built that were inspired by Het Vondelpark in Amsterdam. [1] If everything goes right we trailer in a horse once and never have to trailer it out although some horses don't fit in or have to go to the vet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vondelpark

The Fit, however, is really genius. It's got the utility of an SUV in the body of a compact. I can't believe Honda's excuse that it wasn't selling -- in my area it is a running gag that if you have a blue Fit somebody will park another blue Fit next to you at the supermarket or that it makes a great getaway car, if somebody catches you doing donuts in their lawn you can say it musta been somebody elese.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#157

Post by krunck » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

water-data-dude wrote: post #75

The fact that it’s so bare bones (no stereo, etc. unless you put one in) makes me really hope that it doesn’t phone home with a firehose of telemetry like pretty much every other new car. If so, they’ve got my interest

Excellent question. Isn't that required by law in the US now?

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#158

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

x436413 wrote: post #144

PaulHoule wrote: post #14

I like it. My wife runs a riding academy and we use a Honda Fit the way some people would use a pickup truck: we can fit 10 bales of wood shavings in the back. [1] We’re dreading when it fails because they don’t make the fit anymore and compact hatchbacks seem to be on the way out. Recent experiences have made me a bit of a Buick enthusiast and I can see driving a 2005-ish sedan except that I won’t get those sawdust…

how do you haul hoss though? i would imagine you then outsource to professional hauling services? what do you do for vet visits, when it's not a farm call?

Just pay somebody. In a rural area there are a lot of farmers with a big truck and a trailer and it costs less than the monthly payment on a big truck.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#159

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #101

bko wrote: post #53

This looks great. But isn't there a long history of new car companies over the last few decades that have an impressive car, take pre-orders and never deliver? Something about production hell?

Slate is financially backed by Bezos [1] and Eric Schmidt [2] so it's not like they're going to run out of money unless they choose to do so. And it's staffed by a bunch of Detroit automotive engineers, so it's not like they're going to be surprised to learn that building and selling automobiles is harder than launching a CRUD app or SAAS. I do expect a steep price jump when they realize that all this customization (…

Why would post-purchase customization be crash-tested at all? It’s not currently. If I buy an F-150 and jack it up, it’s not Ford’s responsibility to crash-test my work. Even if I use genuine Ford parts I buy from Ford.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#160

Post by Suppafly » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

cityofdelusion wrote: post #152

discmonkey wrote: post #12

I love the look and the idea, but I wonder if it will go the way of the small/budget phone? Will folks revealed preference continue to be big and expensive?

Agreed. The U.S. market had a very long run of both large expensive and small cheap pickup trucks, and people consistently have bought the big luxury pickups. It is why all the small trucks were axed to begin with. Even back in their prime, I saw many more F-150s than Rangers. Its an easy up-sell as I'm sure any car salesman will say: well for only a few more thousand you get into a full-size, and from there, add som…

>Even back in their prime, I saw many more F-150s than Rangers.

I think you're misremembering. The streets were flooded with Rangers and S10s back in the day. Full sized pickups have been the most popular class of vehicle for decades but that number is grossly inflated by the amount that are bought as fleet vehicles or work vehicles.