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Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

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Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#421
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

It is far more difficult to properly paint a vehicle than it is to paint a house.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope it gets a US market release. So far only Ford (e-transit) and VW (id.BUZZ) have attempted EV vans in the US and they both cost extreme amounts of money new. I bought an E-Transit anyway to setup as a Home/Office on wheels. Really hoping that in the future we see aftermarket long range batteries for these first two decades of mass market EV's being produced.

There's also Mercedes (eSprinter). Electric vans will remain ecpensive until the eSUV market has been saturated: the cost to make either is similar, and using the limited inputs and lines to make more of the lower-margin vehicle model makes no sense when the market can absorb more of the higher-margin ones.

I see Rivian vans all the time.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#423
post #383

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…

they’re selling a diy wrap. in other words, you get a large flat colored sticker (maybe pre-cut if you’re lucky, but these actually fit worse). wrapping your car and making it look good is NOT diy friendly, it’s a pain in the ass. you need special equipment, space to do it, etc. it’s actually incredibly disappointing, because 99% of people are just gonna get the gray, and will be unhappy because it’s super boring. re…

The way I see it, you buy the kit and take it to a professional who is going to charge somewhere between $1000 and $3000 to install it. That's a lot more onerous than the buying a pre-colored car right off the lot, but many people already opt to have their car wrapped anyway. It's a wait and see game to see what installers like that would want - the pre-cut package or just buy the material directly from them.

The real downside to wraps from my perspective is that they don't last as long as a regular paint job. After 4 or 5 years you'll see damage and need to get it re-done if you care about the look. And if the underlying plastic is scuffed up, the plastic panel will need to be repaired before the new wrap will go on smoothly.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a Polestar 2 with an effective 75 kWh battery and an average efficiency of 3.3 mi / kWh. So 248 mile range if you charge to 100% and run it down to 0%. Real world, 99.9% of driving I do is well under 100 miles per day, and my charging between 6pm and 8am on a 120V outlet adds 50-60 miles. You could plug in every night, but in practice I wait until the battery is below 40%, and tend to plug in every 1-2 weeks de…

> average efficiency of 3.3 mi / kWh. I'm curious, is that your personal average or is that what the company claims? I've not taken the plunge on an EV yet, but realistically I'm interested in the actual range driving 70-75mph on the highway, with the AC running, as compared to the manufacturer's claims.

Probably worth noting that Polestar 2s are not particularly efficient, though lovely to drive. Mine averages about 3.2mi/kWh for most trips, though there are lots of EVs out there getting 4+ miles/kWh.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a Polestar 2 with an effective 75 kWh battery and an average efficiency of 3.3 mi / kWh. So 248 mile range if you charge to 100% and run it down to 0%. Real world, 99.9% of driving I do is well under 100 miles per day, and my charging between 6pm and 8am on a 120V outlet adds 50-60 miles. You could plug in every night, but in practice I wait until the battery is below 40%, and tend to plug in every 1-2 weeks de…

> average efficiency of 3.3 mi / kWh. I'm curious, is that your personal average or is that what the company claims? I've not taken the plunge on an EV yet, but realistically I'm interested in the actual range driving 70-75mph on the highway, with the AC running, as compared to the manufacturer's claims.

That's my personal... to get the 260 mile advertised range on 75 kWh battery, it would have to average 3.47 mi / kWh. I sometimes get over 4... but I also often get under 3 (especially in winter, when 2.5 is common.) Highway at those speeds in the summer (with AC) is ~3 or so which gives you ~225 effective road trip range between fill-ups.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#426
post #57

Can't believe it's come down to this in 2026, but if this does not beep incessantly and slam on the brakes when maneuvering around some foliage I'm all in.

You can usually disabled the automatic braking in every vehicle I've driven from 2020-2025. I tend to leave on the warning noises, but disable to auto braking.

I went through all the settings on my vehicle, and I can't; all I can do is just lower the sensitivity.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body panels are some sort of composite polycarbonate plastic. They offered a number of colors in the UI for the pre-order system. It basically allows you to configure options that are available and see what it looks like. The wraps are (offered) DIY and they claim it will take two people 14-16 hours. They offer a number of colors that cost $500 right now. Pretty interesting as far as cars go. I think all of the c…

It does not take 36 man-hours to wrap a vehicle. I think that 16 hours is the "SLA"/drop-off-to-pick-up time.

A big part of the wrap is cleaning the paint first. At least it was when I got mine clear wrapped (ppf). You want it clean so the contaminates don't mess up the paint under the wrap. I left it with them for 3 days because there's also process time to dry or sit. Maybe it's different with a textured polycarbonate panel though

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Toyota runs dealers on allocation. Subaru allow you to order a car to spec. They make the "twins", gr86 and brz. You cannot order the Toyota. You have to try to find what you want being built or on a lot already and contact the targeted dealer to buy it. You can order the Subaru and wait 6 months for it to be built to spec.

Re: Slate EV truck starts at $24,950

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this? I find it hard to imagine the appeal of so much grey. Half of them look like cheap plastic.

Supposedly it holds/people think it holds more resale value to not have loud colors.

I think it's less about the value. Special cars do well in loud colors. World rally Blue on Subaru, Tahitian Green and Barbados yellow on Honda, sunburst yellow on Miatas, all demand a higher price for the color. Loud colors reduce the pool of buyers. A yellow Rav 4 isn't desirable outside of a few people but they're not going to pay more for it. A yellow crx is a rare car and someone is looking for it willing to spend more for that cursed paint code than the same spec in white.
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