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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

#491

Post by f001 »

hinkley wrote: post #428
fishpen0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bench seats are almost certainly not coming back in modern low cost vehicles due to side impact safety regulations. They aren't _illegal_ but its extremely difficult to meet those standards with a bench configuration and ironically probably why a budget pickup is less likely to have them. Cutting those corners by not having a bench at all is an easy way to save money in the design. The hauling and towing is another o…

The problem with bench seating is not side impact but accidental steering wheel input during hard cornering. In the typical 10 and 2 hand position having your butt move makes your shoulders move, the shoulders make the hands move, and now you’re understeering. Understeering on a mountain road likely means death, and on other roads a ditch or hitting a phone pole.

Steering position has been taught as 9 and 3 for a long time now… but still fair point. You can add a bit of alcantara to the seat to help you stay in place though. My RDX has it for the sporty-ish trim and it helps.

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

#492

Post by anannymoose »

Brybry wrote: post #459
mtillman wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine print: The truck in the link is only $20K after government subsidies/rebates. So if the government gives my tax dollars to buyers of this truck, then it will cost $20K.

Electric vehicle tax credits are non-refundable tax credits meaning you can't get a credit for more than you owe. [1][2] Which means no one is getting your tax dollars to buy vehicles (though there may be some infrastructure or manufacturing grants for companies). [1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12600 [2] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-individuals-wha...

So, should I wish to purchase a vehicle this tax year, I tell my HR to adjust my income withholding such that I owe 7,500$ come tax time and then reap the rewards?

Or is there more to the incentive structure?

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

#493

Post by doright »

From the Wikipedia page:

> Unlike most vehicles sold in the United States, the Slate Truck is not expected to have any Internet connectivity

Well that's certainly a sentence. It wasn't true just 20 years ago. It makes me wonder about the world we've grown into with deeply intertwined apps becoming not only the norm but expected.

The idea is there but I'm wondering about the execution. Here's hoping it takes off.

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

#494

Post by stantaylor »

data_ders wrote: post #485
thederf wrote: post #462

I'm quite excited about this. Ticks all my boxes for "low" tech, simple, moddable, useful, and cheap. I'm hoping my aging Pontiac Vibe holds out long enough to upgrade to one of these, if they succeed. I put in a preregistration!

Hell yeah Pontiac Vibe! My 2008 is at 308k! I’ll drive into the ground

My 30-year-old daughter is still driving the Toyota version, the Matrix, also 2008, that we bought in about 2013. She loves the thing. If she didn't have it, I'm sure I would still be driving it.

I find it hilarious that it's a limited-edition M Theory model. It has a badge glued to the dash that says "1926 of 5000." For a Toyota econobox.

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

#495

Post by andrewla »

nine_k wrote: post #413
EvanAnderson wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noooooooooo! No apps, please! I wish devices could have web servers and web-based UI rather than thick "apps" that end up rotting when device manufacturers arbitrarily decide that old software won't work anymore (cough, cough-- Apple-- cough, cough). I know we can't because "security", no end-to-end over the Internet anymore, etc. >sigh It seems like we've engineered the networking and software ecosystem to promote…

Why, we of course could if we cared. Let the car offer a wifi access point. WPA3 is secure enough, but you can of course have an extra layer of TLS inside it. For the extra paranoid, a car could have a USB socket that pretends to be a wired network interface, offering DHCP. Run a web server for car diagnostics and maintenance when connected to this interface. Do it from the comfort of your laptop, or anywhere anytime…

Not with off the shelf protocols. Yes WPA3 is plenty secure, but any AP advertising the same SSID with the same key would allow the device to connect. So how do you know that you're connected to your car, and not to the black hat AP next to it?

From there, you can have as much TLS as you want, but that still won't give you server identity unless the server certificate is signed by someone you already trust. So a generic web browser would be screwed, because you either add SlateTruckCertificateAuthority to the globally trusted list, and then you still have to deal with revocations and certificate expiry, or you use some other CA that is willing to delegate. There's no good support for self-signed certificates or pinned certificates, and even if there were, the initial connection would be tough.

Unfortunately this really isn't a well-solved problem. Bluetooth can get you part of the way there, but it only offers really good security in theory (in practice it is constantly having issues) and it is intrinsically limited.

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

#496

Post by Maxamillion96 »

doright wrote: post #493

From the Wikipedia page: > Unlike most vehicles sold in the United States, the Slate Truck is not expected to have any Internet connectivity Well that's certainly a sentence. It wasn't true just 20 years ago. It makes me wonder about the world we've grown into with deeply intertwined apps becoming not only the norm but expected. The idea is there but I'm wondering about the execution. Here's hoping it takes off.

if the truck becomes popular enough post-market modifications will probably be sold as an extra.

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

#497

Post by stantaylor »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #490
thederf wrote: post #462

I'm quite excited about this. Ticks all my boxes for "low" tech, simple, moddable, useful, and cheap. I'm hoping my aging Pontiac Vibe holds out long enough to upgrade to one of these, if they succeed. I put in a preregistration!

The problem is, the kind of person who cares about those things, as valid as they are, buys 0-1 cars per 20 years, and the market is driven (ha ha) by people who buy 2-3 cars every 2 years.

Very true. This truck appeals to me very much. My wife and I have a 2010 Accord and a 2014 CR-V. We could afford newer and/or fancier cars, but we just don't care about those things.

We're thinking of buying a newer car at some point, but between interest rates and, now, tariffs, we're not in any hurry.

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

#498

Post by aaronschroeder »

thederf wrote: post #462

I'm quite excited about this. Ticks all my boxes for "low" tech, simple, moddable, useful, and cheap. I'm hoping my aging Pontiac Vibe holds out long enough to upgrade to one of these, if they succeed. I put in a preregistration!

Vibe solidarity! I have a 2009 with manual everything - even the old crank windows and manual door locks. This truck seems right up my alley.

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

#499

Post by danesparza »

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 (…

"Slate is financially backed by Bezos"

This is too bad. I'm not buying anything from people who showed up January 20th. It hasn't been difficult. And luckily there is plenty of competition in the electric car space.

If they get somebody else at the helm (not Elon), I'll root for them like crazy.

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

#500

Post by pavlov »

rchaud wrote: post #488
pavlov wrote: post #469

For comparison, this is a $16k car in China: https://carnewschina.com/2025/03/25/byd-sealion-05-ev-launhe... It’s like if you could buy an old Nokia for $200, or a new Android smartphone for $160. The old Nokia certainly has nostalgic qualities and some concrete practical benefits like all-week battery life, but overall it’s not a great deal. And this is why you have >100% tariffs on Chinese cars — American manufactu…

Those cars are priced for the budgets of domestic Chinese consumers. BYD exports to Europe are priced similarly to car models sold there. For the same reason, this Slate truck is very unlikely to cost just $20k when it reaches the mass production stage.

There’s a 27% tariff on BYD cars in Europe, designed to bring the price more in line with European manufacturers.
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