I think there's room in the market for a back to basics car company that takes out all this bs, goes back to crank windows and all that crap and sells new vehicles for an affordable cost with a good warranty.
It would probably crush today.
Edit: I got like 400 responses saying "slate" ok I get it you can stop
the reason crank windows are no longer even an option is because any changes to the cockpit require extensive testing of airbags and restraint systems in order to ensure that the handle sticking out of the door doesn't interfere. it's not cost effective to have both options.
At what speed is that an issue in your car? I know one of my cars when I was young and dumb would do that if I was going 90+mph on the highway, but just cracking a rear window while my drivers window was open fixed that. That really seems to be an issue with the car’s aerodynamics and speed, that doesn’t ever seem to happen unless a car is driving too fast or is boxy and poorly shaped.
It’s going to happen with anything when you have the window cracked just the right amount.
It’s called Hemholtz Resonance. A small amount of air shears off and pumps into the car, which increases cabin pressure and then gets pushed back out the same window by the pressure change. This happens over and over and over until you do something to equalize pressure - like open another window.
Blow across the top of an open bottle and the same effect happens.
I drive rentals for a living. It depends on the vehicle. Mazda Speed 3 is SO bad with this, but a Civic will be fine. You can tell how bad your ears will pop by how warbly the air is when only one is cracked. I find the best mitigation is to have it barely cracked, or as you said, crack another window just a bit
Slate is a scam. It’s larping as back to basics. They’re not even giving you a radio in the base when it costs almost nothing to put one in, but then they can give you AC in the base price which is more expensive to manufacture? You can get a Ford Maverick for slightly more, with better quality and capability of a truck with access to dealers and repair centers that aren’t 700 miles away from you. It’s so much less of a headache. It’s what sucked about Tesla for years as they started. Not to forget residual values. People regardless of what they claim, do not keep their vehicles long. These niche manufacturers get killed on that, plus it’s an EV. Factor value into ownership and the state is more expensive to own than the maverick almost off the lot.
One of the other reasons is manufacturing costs, if you have a cheap winder version and a higher spec with electric you need different door cards, injection moulding tooling, training, warehouse space, mechanisms, suppliers/supply chain and hundreds of other things. If all models use the same part it’s much cheaper!
Well, the Dacia Spring (their small electric model) has crank windows in its base configuration for front and back. The mid-price configuration has electric windows in the front and crank windows in the back. At least last years version did, haven’t looked at the newest one that was just released.
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u/burge4150 9h ago edited 3h ago
I think there's room in the market for a back to basics car company that takes out all this bs, goes back to crank windows and all that crap and sells new vehicles for an affordable cost with a good warranty.
It would probably crush today.
Edit: I got like 400 responses saying "slate" ok I get it you can stop