Really really hoping the slate pickup does well. If it does, it might inspire other automakers to go back to the basics. Like do people really want a heated steering wheel when it probably adds $500+ to the MSRP of the vehicle? I think probably not.
Fathom will be the EV for the people. Prepare for a very Tesla Model 3-ish interior mixed with Lightning Pro materials. It's gonna be pretty cheap on the inside, but it will hit the sub 30k price point with 4 doors and all the basics and not be completely gutted like the slate.
Although the cost of owning a vehicle isn't actually the purchase price, it's depreciation, fuel, insurance and so on.
I think the potential advantage of the Slate is that it will be cheaper to repair, and insure, and maintain, precisely because it doesn't have features like metallic paint, ultrasonic sensors, complicated lights or whatever else.
You prang the bumper or front quarter on a bollard with a normal car and that's how many hundreds of dollars to take out the dent, respray the bumper, replace the ultrasonic sensor, do the wiring, do the programming. The Slate has plastic panels which will be much less likely to scratch or dent, if you want to replace it you can buy another panel for $50, unscrew the old one, screw in the new one and carry on.
A fancy headlamp can cost literally $2-3k to replace, the device itself could be over a thousand dollars for matrix headlamps, sometimes mechanics need to disassemble part of the car to fit the new module, and the labour alone is hundreds. With the Slate the module can be bought and replaced easily.
That money is either paid by you or the insurer who then bumps up the premiums for everyone who owns that car.
There's also potential that depreciation will be lower if parts are much easier and cheaper to replace. Say, older cars partly depreciate because the seats get stained or leather cracks, but if it's cheap and easy to replace the seat covers, that isn't an issue. Or cars depreciate because the infotainment software immediately goes out of date, old hardware, old software, poor designed software from the start. Most cars now just basically have a shitty ipad stuck to the dashboard, why not just have a slot and put an actual ipad in it? That could be replaced whenever someone wanted an update.
EVs are cheaper to fuel and maintain, but I'm not claiming they're cheaper to repair because they're EVs.
There is extra cost in repairing and insuring EVs at the moment but a lot of that is because of the way they are engineered, these are exactly the sort of thing the design of the Slate should help with:
The issue, it seems, comes from the way many EVs are designed.
"There's a real focus on keeping weight down, because electric vehicles are heavy," says principal advanced technologies engineer Dan Harrowell.
"To save some weight, there's a lot of integration of components. They're glued together, rather than using fixings, which is great to reduce weight, but not great for repair, because you have to replace whole systems rather than individual components."
In a nearby workshop, a nearly-new model from a mainstream manufacturer is jacked up on a ramp.
This car was brought in following a relatively minor accident, and Harrowell points to a few scratches and scrapes on the protective casing of the battery underneath the car.
The core of the battery, containing the cells which provide power for the car, is unharmed. But because the whole assembly is supplied as a single unit, it would need to be replaced in its entirety for a full repair.
I think Teslas are also expensive in part because they have insane acceleration and attract a certain form of driver. And most modern cars are expensive to insure because they are so expensive to repair.
its not just the design, its the supply chain. companies are following tesla model and trying to be as vertically integrated as possible. so repairs must use oem parts and only oem has all the knowledge to repair properly. thats changing over time as telsa relaxes who can buy oem parts. but its still a choke point.
while slate is less complex, its new and low vol, so it supply chain wont be robust as some other ice cars.
Good points. Don’t you think though a low volume manufacturer is more likely to pick a part off a shelf rather than try to design something custom? Maybe some potential there for simplicity. Although you’d need an off the shelf component which didn’t come as a single integrated unit. I guess I’d say this is the aim of Slate, whether they’re successful is uncertain, but it should be visible in the insurance premium.
For me in Toronto, I feel like both are nice luxuries. The AC seats annoy me sometimes though because 1) they reduce airflow from the main vents when turned on and 2) the cold air feels slightly wet on your back, ass and everywhere else.
Between the two though, Id say only heated seats are critical. Regular AC works just fine for me in the 30°C+ summers. But come the -30 winter days in Jan/Feb, heated everything feels just necessary.
I also live in Toronto, this is my first car with the AC seats and i have had it on since April. Absolutely will not buy a car without it again. The fact that my taint isn’t forming a puddle on my pleather on a 3km drive that takes 30 minutes is my greatest joy
Lots of downvotes from people with numb frosty hands that fat fingered trying to upvote or people who don't live in the north. Come on people, gloves are not remotely as nice as a heated steering wheel. Yes, you can physically drive a car without one. No, gloves do not work just as well.
I’ve lived in Wisconsin for forever and have never considered the need for a heated steering wheel. Even heated seats are an unnecessary luxury. Just preheat your car for five minutes before getting in it….
PHEV is going to burn a bunch of electricity trying to heat the whole car prior to departure and you can get away with a low climate set point with a heated seat and wheel.
Personally with a ICE I've found that 5 min is not nearly enough to preheat in the dead of winter. It's like 5 min to warm up driving with load, but idle takes longer.
Driving with the right gloves is easy as hell. It’s a giant wheel; most of the precision comes from your arms, fingers aren’t even required aside from grip. I drive a manual with gloves, even shifting isn’t affected. It’s not that tough
Correct. That’s why it’s a luxury: Because sure, you can do without it or get a somewhat lesser experience for much less money. That’s what luxuries are.
I live in rural MN, I get real winters. You have heat in your vehicle, you don’t even realistically need gloves inside the cabin. Light gloves will work perfectly fine, driving gloves are not what I was recommending. If you can see your breath or are chilly inside the vehicle, consider fixing your heat. You should be warming the vehicle up for a few minutes in chilly conditions, after that it should be nice and warm in the cabin. Idk how this is hard to figure out, heated seats make sense because it’s hard to warm your arse without a ton of difficulty, it’s not hard to throw on some light gloves and leave them in the car.
🤣 I’m just saying it should be an optional thing, majority of places on earth don’t even need it and those that do have more cost effective options. I’m not against it being a dealer option you can pay for; I’m just tired of basic economy cars boosting their msrp with 500 little luxury features.
I've got flannel-lined jeans that I'll wear once they start salting the roads, and they're fantastic at keeping me warm. That's still not even close to the comfort that heated seats provide in those first 10 minutes of driving when the car is still frigid on the inside.
Gloves don't work nearly as well. I've been using gloves my entire life and my hands will stay cold for 30 minutes until the HVAC has a chance to warm the air and warm the steering wheel. The steering wheel heaters have that thing toasty in a minute. That's one of my most desired modern features in any new car I'd be looking at living in North Idaho
I think the issue is that luxuries like this now come standard on so many models, so the price creep is real. Take Suburu for example, their basic models have tons of features considered “luxury” just 5 years ago. If they dropped those features and offered a true “bare bones” model, I bet they could sell it for $8k less at least.
Not to mention all the super unnecessary safety sensors now. They might not add a lot individually, but it adds up. Seat sensors for seat belts, sensors for pedestrians, sensors for lanes, sensors for other cars. They are amazing devices and I'm sure they have saved lives. I should be able to grab a barebones model though.
I agree with others I really hope Slate trucks take off.
My wifes Kia is a perfect example of too much. If theres 2 turn lanes and my blinker is on, it will yell at me, thinking I'm merging into the other lane with a car in my blind spot.
I agree! I just bought a used one and it has so many things I absolutely do not need or even want… (except the heated steering wheel—I really want that and it doesn’t have it lol). And things people do generally want, like physical climate control? Nope. Screen for you.
I life in Canada without a heater steering wheel and after trying my wife’s, yeah I do. But you make a very valid point regardless. Sorry to be a total dingus. Anyways to your point - the wireless phone charging was in so many car ads, I found it crazy how a gadget you can get on Amazon was worth including in your 15 second ad buy showing off your latest SUV.
Automakers will never go "back to the basics". They're not throwing all that extra stuff in there because they think people want them, but because it justifies the markup.
The Hyundai Venue is the cheapest new car on the US market at $20k. It costs Hyundai somewhere between $15k-17k to make it, and they have to sell it around $1k USD below MSRP so that Dealers can make some money, too (otherwise Dealers won't buy it to sell). That leaves them a maximum possible profit of $4k, but that building cost only covers the specific labor and materials for the vehicle. It doesn't include corporate costs like rent, marketing, accounting, etc. Hyundai has an overall profit margin of ~6%. That means that the Hyundai Venue is likely a loss leader (i.e. they probably lose money making a $20k car).
There's a real consumer burnout going on, the strategy of convenience has been overdone in the last 20 years to the point of being gratuitous, but that's not what Slate is doing.
What Slate is doing, is selling a vehicle that's more impractical than a truck, and less useful than a car, with a price that's both reflective of that but still within the same profit margin as everything else.
You're getting a truck, without any of the benefits- no AWD, no real ability to transport cargo more than a short distance, with the attractive 24k price also relegating it's usefulness to a category below a standard car, because you only get two seats instead of four. If you want the seats, the price jumps up to 30k, and it's you're still paying for the downsides since that doesn't change the fact that it's range with zero load is 2nd to worst on the EV market.
This impulse for "simplicity" is engineered. Companies know that consumers are tired of the frills and the cost that comes with, so they're capitalizing on that by offering you less, but for the same relative price. What you get is what you pay for, except not really because they're actually trying to make more money by giving you less.
I hope so too but I have a hard time convincing myself Slate will succeed in the long run and after the hype dies down in 2-3yrs after launch.
I feel like they are not really desirable by most adults because of the lack of features and being kinda small for families, slow (for an EV), and they don’t handle great. Which leaves the primary crowd as primarily first time car owners or maybe second cheap car for the family
While $25k is a great price for a new car I bet most people will be closer to $30-35k after customization and you can buy fully equipped and overall “better” EVs for around that price. I think many people will also consider the used market for much cheaper vehicles instead.
I do love the modular nature to them and I hope other manufacturers take notice.
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u/Candid_Cat_5921 8h ago
Really really hoping the slate pickup does well. If it does, it might inspire other automakers to go back to the basics. Like do people really want a heated steering wheel when it probably adds $500+ to the MSRP of the vehicle? I think probably not.