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Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

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Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#271

Post by doodlebugging »

I like the idea of the Slate. I think the ability to transform from truck to SUV mode in your driveway is pretty great. It reminds me of my Broncos where I can remove the top and the rear seat and have a truck. I love the idea of individualized wraps as there are far too many white, black, silver, and grey vehicles on the road. We need some color.

I love that it is a bare-bones basic vehicle that can made to be whatever you need it to be and that it does not have all the factory owner tracking bullshit in new cars today.

I can see this being useful to my wife and I both as a small truck and as an SUV. For the things that we do every week this vehicle would work fine and would replace our Ford Ranger. It might be able to replace our 90's F150 too.

I do most of my own maintenance so a vehicle that comes with factory manuals at no cost is far superior to any other that I have owned. I have bought factory manuals for all of our vehicles so that I can minimize downtime when doing maintenance. I would also take advantage of a service network in the event that I had more projects than time, which is increasingly the normal case at my house. With that network I could spend my time on things that have the highest impact.

The vehicle's range works fine for my wife and I. As a vehicle for our kids off at college it is not as attractive. The distance from our house to campus is just under the stated range of the Slate so anything that prevented the vehicle from hitting maximum target mileage would cause it to fall short and I would need to tow or trailer it the rest of the way home. That would be a drag (haha, I made a pun). Adding the ability to run from an external battery would be a huge plus since that would eliminate range issues.

I wonder how difficult it would be to add connections and charge circuitry for an EcoFlow or Jackery battery bank so that it could be carried in the cargo compartment and serve as a backup.

I would also probably use solar panels to keep it topped off while in my driveway. I think the existing EV chargers manage that well today.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#272

Post by __s »

whycome wrote: post #214
__s wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.andysautowreckers.ca they have a field of junk cars that people come in & harvest parts from

I decided I hate their website. If I'm looking for a part, sometimes the part applies to multiple model years and I'm not convinced that they've organized it with that taken into account. Also, I don't necessarily want to search for a specific part -- I may just want to know if they have certain vehicles. Why can't I just search by make/model/year and give me a list of all parts. If that's too taxing on the database…

They're not organized: you go into the yard, find the vehicle you're looking for, take the part out yourself, & they weigh it on the way out

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#273

Post by bruce343434 »

p1mrx wrote: post #113
alistairSH wrote: post #14

Just built a "hatchback" Slate with what I guess will be common options (speakers, wheel upgrade, spare wheel carrier, and a few other odds and ends) and it came to $35k. So, still pretty inexpensive, but also getting close to some existing EV sedans that are known entities and have pretty decent interiors. So, I'm not totally sold on these, but not not sold either. Need to see one in person, I think.

> wheel upgrade At the same size (17"), going from steel to alloy improves performance but reduces durability. Larger wheels (20") are generally a downgrade for performance and ride quality. Engineering Explained has a video on this topic: NYvKxsYFqO8

tldw:

- wider wheels are marginally less efficient but almost negligible

- rims with larger diameter have larger air resistance. Probably because the rim patterns intersects the air in weird ways but it's not explained. Tire walls are relatively smooth, so tires with higher aspect are way more aero-efficient despite having more marginally lower rolling resistance.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#274

Post by vel0city »

bluGill wrote: post #219
vel0city wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah all of us Americans drive 200mi+ each way nine days a week 'cause the average house is on a 2,000 acre ranch. People often really overestimate their driving habits. Some Americans would absolutely be heavily impacted by a vehicle with a vehicle with 200mi range on a good day. A ton of Americans would never really be affected.

That is 200 miles in perfect conditions. Last winter I tried to make a 120 mile trip in my EV and I didn't make it despite having a claimed 220 miles of range when I left. I realized in time to make it to a charger (this was in a very rural area there were few gas stations), but it was a slow level 2 - an hour having lunch someplace other than where I would have chosen and I was able to get home but the car switched…

I agree with your take, hence my "on a good day" part of the comment. For a lot of people, 200mi of on a good day range on an EV probably isn't enough. In fact, for a number of people who drive a good bit in very cold climates, I don't think an EV will make sense for them without some pretty radical changes in battery energy density. The fact an ICE throws off so much waste heat is such a feature and not a negative in some climates.

Not everyone lives in the rural parts of the North though. In fact, most of the country doesn't.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#275

Post by aidenn0 »

baby_souffle wrote: post #217
vel0city wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tank of gasoline that you can find all over the place I can find electricity in far more places than I can gasoline. It even comes out of my walls. Do you have gasoline piping throughout your home?

Lots of people only have street parking or their apartment complex has detached parking where they can't realistically charge overnight. But otherwise... Yeah, That's absolutely amazing to wake up every morning to a full tank/charge

My mom has an EV, and when my parents bought their condo they got a promise in writing that they could install a charger at their parking spot. Condo board reneged on that agreement and so she's selling her EV to buy a hybrid. If gas prices return to pre-Iran-war it will be cheaper than paying to use an L3 charger, and even if they don't it will be far more convenient.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#276

Post by simonsarris »

efsavage wrote: post #77
freedomben wrote: post #31

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…

AFAIK there's actually only one color and you can wrap it. The wrap kits are supposed to be DIY friendly so you can change it yourself when you want a new color.

That sounds a bit like one of Saturn's (1985-2010) original ideas from the 80s. The plastic paneling was easy to take off so that people could DIY change the colors or add their own panels (and Saturn engineers could quickly revise styles). I am not sure very many people ever did, however. Or even if the cars were all that customizable in the end.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#277

Post by Server6 »

voakbasda wrote: post #171
cptaj wrote: post #122

Dead on arrival. China will sell you fully kitted hilux equivalents with japanese engines for 10k. Even toyota is making 10k trucks in thailand. US manufacturers are just not ready to face free market competition these days. They're entirely reliant on tariffs protecting them.

That is not just the auto industry either. US manufacturers have really dropped the ball across the board, and tariffs are not going to fix it for them. I’m not really sure what the solution is at this point. We can’t just drop the tariffs, as that will decidedly end almost all manufacturing that has been propped up by them. On the flip side, the current administration’s recent erratic application and resulting litig…

I think the answer is subsidy rather than tariffs (maybe a combination). One of the reasons China is beating the US in manufacturing is because they have a fully thought out economic plan and directly subsidize targeted sectors. In the US its a free-for-all with tariffs, which means we can't compete on world markets.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#278

Post by aidenn0 »

superxpro12 wrote: post #243
aidenn0 wrote: post #169

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…

$.21/kw seems high for home charging... im at $.12, before the extra savings that gets me closer to $.10

$0.21 was from memory, so I pulled up my bill and it was actually low:

Southern California Edison on the time-of-use plan, charging during "Super off peak." Note that nowhere on the bill do they show one number for how much you pay per kWh. These numbers will change next month as we go from "Winter" to "Summer"

Delivery charges: $0.17664

CCA Cost responsibility surcharge: $0.02007

Nonbypassable charges: $0.00644 + $0.00591

Fixed recovery charge: $0.00619

Generation charge: $0.05958

Unless I typoed something again (oops 800k) that works out to $0.27 for the cheapest I can pay in winter. I compared last fall and this was by far the cheapest plan offered to me for overnight charging.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#279

Post by aidenn0 »

neogodless wrote: post #254
superxpro12 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$.21/kw seems high for home charging... im at $.12, before the extra savings that gets me closer to $.10

Varies widely by state and other factors. I'm at around $0.18 for 1kWh when you look at the overall bill including generation, supply, and all other fees. (My car averages 3.3 miles / kWh, so ~$0.055 / mile assuming 100% charge efficiency... I'm using a 120V outlet so it's probably 75-80% charge efficiency, pushing the cost to ~$0.068 / mile.)

Is using a 120V charger really only 80% charge efficiency? That would add another penny or two per mile to my cost.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#280

Post by baby_souffle »

froindt wrote: post #151
tedggh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You always buy fossil fuels with an EV, not directly but you do. When you stop at the plaza for a quick super charge there’s no way to tell where is the energy sourced from, it could very well be from a diesel generator a few miles down the road. The value is in all the parts found in an ICE that need servicing or replacement that you don’t have in an EV. With an EV you basically need tires and maybe brakes once ever…

While it may be dirty sourced electricity, there are still significant benefits many people don't think about. As (or I suppose now, if) the grid moves towards cleaner electricity sources, the total emissions go down, where the ICE vehicle will always be an ICE vehicle. Generators are also much more efficient at converting fuel to electricity. They don't have to provide pretty good power output at all RPM's, they are…

You also get regenerative braking; some of the energy that you took out of the battery and put into the wheel can be recaptured and stored. The alternative is burning the fuel and ablating your brake pads.
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