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

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

#251

Post by darknavi »

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. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues.

Would be nice if they had a protocol locally for a 3rd party to step in an offer their own offerings here.

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

#252

Post by maxglute »

patagonia wrote: post #52

If this can’t compete head to head (no tariffs or other import restrictions) with BYD and the like, then I don’t know why one would get excited. Feels like an expensive consolation prize with tons of compromises. I want competition.

It's a pickup for US market because it has no plans to remotely compete with BYD.

I think most Americans would go for a 15k Toyota Hilux Champ with similar design ethos, but chickentax.

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

#253

Post by aidenn0 »

For anyone curious, if you made a similarly sized gas-powered pickup with an i4 engine, it would be penalized more than a full-sized pickup for being too fuel inefficient, despite likely getting much better mileage than an F-150 because, since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...

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

#254

Post by hylaride »

ryandrake wrote: post #96
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. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues. Noooooooooo! No apps, please ! Finally a car not tethered to and dependent on your phone, and we already have our first request to app-ify it! EDIT: Ughhh, according to the video that another user posted, it looks like there's an app, and yes, "updates" go through it :( > - Lack of go…

> Yes, definitely. It being a 2 seater is kind of a deal breaker for families.

What you need is not a pickup truck. Catering to families means expensive bells and whistles, like entertainment systems, etc.

> Back in the day, we'd stuff 3 kids between two adults, but these days the Safety People would have a heart attack just thinking about that.

Rightfully so. Back in the day we did so many things we shouldn't have, and survivorship bias makes us default to thinking it was ok. As kids, we used to go barrelling down dirt roads in the back of pickups or played in the backs of station wagons. There's a reason automobile deaths have gone down.

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

#255

Post by sema4hacker »

pnw wrote: post #244

I'm really intrigued to see how this does. Kudos to Slate for trying something new and building it in Detroit at a great price point. I see a ton of discussion on social media from people who want to buy simpler vehicles with less features at a better price point (e.g. the Japanese Kei trucks). I'm not convinced Americans will actually buy such a vehicle because we are used to our modern conveniences in new vehicles.…

> I'm not convinced Americans will actually buy such a vehicle because we are used to our modern conveniences

My town is FULL of workers doing hauling, painting, gardening, construction, etc., and they're all driving old worn rusting pickups that barely seem held together. There's definitely a market for minimal trucks designed to just get the job done without the "modern conveniences".

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

#257

Post by kstrauser »

alephnerd wrote: post #36
kstrauser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true but totally irrelevant. I wouldn't get this to make a cross-country trip, but I would absolutely, 100% get this to have an errand vehicle that never leaves the metro area.

> All true but totally irrelevant Not really. The average pickup truck purchaser's has a household income of around $110,000 and 75% live outside cities [0]. When they are purchasing a pickup, it is meant to be both a daily driver and an errand vehicle. Not have 4 seats AND having a lower range makes it a niche vehicle from a consumer sales perspective. This is most likely being targeted at fleets, which tend to have…

> Not have 4 seats AND having a lower range makes it a niche vehicle from a consumer sales perspective.

In the Bay Area alone, that's huge. A cheap electric 2-seater that can get you into the HOV lanes? Yes please! Who cares if it happens to be truck-shaped. Squint and pretend it's an Electric Camino.

> You're a software engineer in the Bay Area.

...who grew up in the Midwest, learned to drive in a 1970 Chevy Custom with 3-on-the-tree, spent many adult years on the Great Plains, and who happens to live in the Bay Area now.

I am no stranger to trucks.

There are a million things I could use a pickup for today, especially for that price.

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

#258

Post by pglevy »

eweise wrote: post #238
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…

Same. Only thing missing for me is is a gas engine and manual stick shifter.

Same. Though this looks like the first EV I might actually consider.

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

#259

Post by InitialBP »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #107
InitialBP wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you're looking at extremes exclusively when it comes to your assessment. I live in a "city" in WV and need my truck all the time to get to rural areas, but that doesn't mean that I don't have reasonable access to electricity. Furthermore delivery around my city really isn't affordable or available in a lot of cases. That being said, I really wish we had a small ICE truck in the USA, or an equivalent to t…

I bought a Maverick and it wasn't noticeably larger than my extended bed ranger, I actually feel like it is smaller, especially considering modern A pillars and such are very thick and rigid compared to the death trap of the old ranger. I have had no issues moving construction materials with the Maverick. I've moved around 12ft boards and stacks of drywall. The only real difference I noticed is I can't lazily hang th…

Not sure which ranger you're talking about - but if you mean the 6ft one, 18 inches of bed length is definitely noticeable.

It's also definitely possible to haul all those things with almost any truck. Hell, you could even buy a rack for a maverick that makes full 8ft by 4ft sheets of drywall/plywood super easy to carry around, but being able to really easily load up stuff and not have to do some complicated strapping/securing of the payload is a big win with a bigger bed. I personally haul motorcycles a lot, and being able to have two motorcycles in the bed with tailgate up is a huge plus for me.

edit: misunderstood your first comment. What year Ranger are you talking about? The difference between an 80's/90's small truck and an early 2000s can be very considerable.

There's a whole different conversation and argument about the general size of vehicles in the US that is essentially circular and leads to bigger and bigger vehicles in the name of "safety".

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

#260

Post by aidenn0 »

nrmitchi wrote: post #230

I see this and I don't see it as an every day, driving-on-my-commute style vehicle. As someone who (previously) drove a 2014 honda civic, cheaper cars leave a lot of comfort for longer drives. I can't imagine this barebones vehicle being fun to drive for any extended period of time, or any extended distance, unless you'd spent considerable time customizing it to those needs (at which point, you've probably spent more…

If the timing weren't so off (I just bought a compact electric car), then this would have been a real possibility for me: 150 miles is about 1 weeks worth of driving for me, it's usually just me (or occasionally +1), and we have my wife's car for driving the whole family long distances. Of course I'm skeptical that it will come in under $27,500 (implied by the "Under $20k after federal incentives), and if it's much more than that it will start to get squeezed by other options.
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