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Never Stop Driving #142: The People’s Car Version 8.3
Could a new electric pickup become the Model T or the VW Beetle of the millennial generation? We’ll find out in 18 months when Slate, an upstart American automaker, plans to begin selling its all-electric pickup for less than $30,000. Last week, Slate held a press conference that revealed its new trucklet for the first time.
There’s a lot to unpack about this new venture, which is based in Troy, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. Jeff Bezos is one of the main investors, and members of the executive and engineering teams, including CEO Chris Barman, are veterans of the Big Three car companies and Harley-Davidson. The new truck will be built in Warsaw, Indiana (near Fort Wayne) and buyers can have any color they want as long as it’s gray.
During the press conference, Slate chief commercial officer Jeremy Snyder, who spent more than a decade working for Tesla, shared some statistics that highlighted the need for a low-priced car: Seventy percent of Americans make less than $100,000 a year, which means they can afford only $400 or less for a monthly car payment. Today’s average new-car payment is $742 and even used-car payments average $525. It’s no surprise that the average age of the cars on our roads continues to climb and is now over 12 years.
You might have heard that the Slate will sticker for about $20,000, but that’s accounting for the current $7500 EV federal tax credit, which has several requirements. The truth is that we don’t know what the Slate will cost, but the company claims that it has made the truck simple and therefore affordable. The windows use hand cranks as standard, for example, and the name harkens to the idea that the vehicle is a blank canvas, a clean slate. A raft of accessories for DIY customization will be offered.
My automotive-pundit peers are abuzz, but our tribe is an enthusiastic and idealistic group that often heaps praise on cars that the public shrugs at. What to make of this thing? I like the idea and the design and plunked down a refundable $50 to be in line to buy one. There’s a tiny chance I’ll actually purchase one but like everyone else, I’m swept up in the novelty of the idea.
These days there just aren’t a lot of fresh cars that cost less than 30 grand. Most of the action lies in six-figure sports cars like the Corvette ZR1, endless special edition Porsche 911s, and other costs-as-much-as-a-house cars like the Ferrari 296, which recently announced a Speciale edition. So the Slate is bound to generate buzz just for its newness, novelty, and price point.
There are still plenty of cars that sticker for less than 30 grand, like the Ford Maverick, Chevrolet Trax, and VW Jetta. None of them feels cheap and are all actually pretty good. So, I wonder what people mean when they claim there are no affordable cars. There are, it’s just that humans are strivers who say they want cheap and cheerful but behave differently when it’s time to drive a new car off the dealer lot.
The Indian car company Tata produced its own Model T in 2008 with the Nano, a tiny hatchback intended to rescue the masses from having to pile their families onto motorcycles, then the most affordable transportation option. The Nano’s engine only had two cylinders, and the wheels were secured to the hubs with only three lug nuts, efforts to help keep the cost to about $2000. The Nano flopped, for complicated and unclear reasons. Some said that people didn’t want to be seen driving a cheap car. This Harvard Business Review article claims that the company made too many early promises without properly testing the market. It certainly didn’t help that there was no pizazz to the design; the Nano looked like a penalty box on wheels.
What made the VW Beetle and Ford Model T so successful? Both were created during eras of scarcity. The Ford came along when there were no inexpensive cars and the Beetle thrived in a postwar world where its cheapness was hidden by a cute design and clever marketing, attributes no other car possessed.
As cars have matured, however, there are fewer penalties to buying a used car. A three-year-old car has many of the same features, if not all of them, as a new car. That was not the case during the Beetle’s reign.
I’m sure you can poke a hundred holes in any of the points I’ve raised above, and I invite you to do so in the comments. I’m trying to assess the chances of Slate’s success. I think EV demand is cooling or leveling off, but the Slate truck’s low price might make it an attractive second or third car for the affluent. It’s certainly a terrific design, novel enough that it doesn’t look cheap. I doubt the company’s founders really intend the car for those who earn less than $100,000 a year. I just don’t think folks who can buy only one car will want an EV with 150 miles of range when the charging infrastructure is still very much a work in progress. Slate says the car will be for sale at the end of 2026, but new-car timelines always go long so we’re more likely looking at two years. Who knows what the economic environment will be like in mid-2027.
Speaking of success, Top Fuel Drag racer Brittany Force set a speed record last weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, when she ran 341.58 mph during a four-wide drag race. That’s roughly 500 feet per second! Drag races no longer run the traditional 1320-foot quarter mile. To reduce speeds, officials shortened the races to 1000 feet, making Force’s feat even more incredible. Brittany’s father, of course, is John Force, the charismatic drag-strip legend who is still competing at age 75. I can’t imagine watching one of my kids crawl into a Top Fuel dragster, a barely controlled bomb that burns gallons of fuel in under five seconds and produces more than 10,000 horsepower. On the other hand, there are probably only a few adrenaline rushes as powerful, so I understand how John Force might find retirement hopelessly boring. Congrats to Brittany.
And congrats to our video team this week. This past Monday, we posted another of our viral stop-motion engine rebuilds. This Redline Rebuild features a six-cylinder taken from a Dunesmobile, which were pickups used to ferry sightseers on northwest Michigan’s magnificent Sleeping Bear Dunes.
YouTube turned 20 this year and we’ve been part of the action for more than a decade. Hagerty’s channel now has some 3.5 million subscribers. Here’s a rundown of some of the most-watched videos.
Don’t miss the latest from Hagerty including:
- Oh man, this vintage Toyota pickup is screaming at me to buy it. And the proceeds go to a great cause: Trout Unlimited.
Have a terrific weekend!
Larry
P.S.: Your feedback and comments are welcome.
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As of today, the Slate is vaporware. They have yet to build one that runs, correct? All they have are non-running shells. Let’s see what it really costs when they actually have running and driving versions that have to meet Federal regulations, and without the EV tax credit that will most likely not be there at that point. See how they compare then to cars only a few grand more that will seem like luxury vehicles. I’m just not impressed with “announcements”; show me a car I can drive and evaluate.
The reveal had several running vehicles, and attention-seeking camouflaged units were driven and parked on public streets. That’s still a long way from a finished product, but also a long way from “non-running shells”.
I’ll be following the slate! If Kei trucks were electric i’d work much harder to try to import one
“Ford Pro” talked about EV operating cost savings for fleet/service use, and I have to wonder whether Slate could make inroads there at a more attractive total cost price point. Coincidentally, these fleet/service vehicles often have vinyl wraps, which Slate seems to be tooling the vehicle to facilitate. It is not a large enough market to support a car manufacturer alone, but it wouldn’t hurt.
I think it is time for a smaller truck instead of the behemoths that are on the road. Only problem is that if you get hit by one of the behemoth trucks or SUVs won’t be much left. I have a 1990 Mazda B2200 that I love, but I am of smaller stature, my big boy friends when they try to get in it their bellies hit the glove box, and they just can’t get in. So, is there a market for it? Not sure as we have a rather large population that sure does not seem like it will be slimming down anytime soon.
I’d love to have a small EV truck, and I’m already in a target demographic: one of our cars is a Chevy Bolt, and we already have a level 2 charger in our garage. Oddly, the deal-breaker in the currently published specs is the wind-up windows. I’m old enough that reaching across the cab to wind down a passenger window is a drag. Make it easy for me to get some airflow in the cab, and we’ll talk.
The final cost will be telling, to many claims have been made for lost cost vehicles that never make it. The added cost to EV for home charging can be a turn off just like crank windows.
I have been talking about a $20-25,000 car for more than a few years now, I truly believe in the idea, however my thoughts were based around using a gas engine and manual gearbox.
I have run numbers and its very doable, I will be cheering SLATE on.
Why do young people not get drivers licenses or care less about cars? Because they cant really afford them.
I hope this is the spark that drivers the car industry in a different direction.
From your recent newsletter, which linked to this story, “I wonder what people mean when they claim there are no affordable cars.” Seriously?! You cite three entry-level vehicles as evidentiary of a car market providing meaningful pricing alternatives? How about a story about the industry amortizing EV-related investment costs across all models, impacting all buyers, making a new car purchase unaffordable?
I feel like I am near the target demographic for this vehicle. I run a small business. We currently have a Maverick XL Hybrid that is quite useful and economical. It was $25K but I think if you bought one today it would be more like $30k. Based upon our use, it burns about $1100 per year in gas.
The Slate would be cheaper to buy, cheaper to run (about $400 in fuel charge for the same usage) and actually will have a slightly bigger bed. The only thing is the Maverick has four doors and can carry 4 people with stuff in the bed.
For our company use, we don’t carry more than 2 people but we do sometimes have stuff in the back seat. On the other hand, having an EV means I don’t have to give a credit card to people so they can fuel our truck. I imagine if you had a fleet of trucks that would be a relief.
It’s a tough comparison. If I was a fleet buyer would I choose it? Down the block from my company is a extermination company. They run Tacomas, a base Tacoma regular cab starts at $33k. They have about 40-50 of them. Would they switch to Slate? I dunno. It would be 40% less capital cost for the trucks. That’s a big difference.
The Slate is a cool little truck, but if anyone else came out with a car-based UTE (especially Toyota) this company would be completely toast.
Larry, you reminded me this week of Redline Rebuild. I miss that show. Why did y’all stop producing it? Love to see it back
Lots of people on both sides of the “it’ll work / it can’t work” of this, but I say let’s give it a try. Things sure haven’t been going on a good direction for some time now, and change is needed. Whether this is the right change or not is yet to be seen – as has been pointed out, many change direction attempts have failed. But as the old saying goes, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, so my opinion is let it pan out.
Having said that, will I buy one? I doubt it. But just because it’s not for me – only one person – doesn’t mean it’s gonna fail.
You neglected to mention the term of the payments too, 7 years, people sign up for seven years of payments, wow. Just give me the 28″ rims, glass folding roof I’ll never actually open, because, you know, buffetting, yeah add all those shiny, shiny piano black surfaces and the eight foot digital distraction device, er, I mean dashboard. Seven years? Sure, where do I sign?
Also, you missed the other great people’s car, one that was “classless”, owners, assorted Beatles, Paddy Hopkirk (Monte Carlo Rally) or average blokes, the original BMC Mini, Austin or Morris. Why was it classless, because it was clever and great fun, more than the sum of its parts and all that (you have to drive one to know).
The fact that the buying public has no choice but to pay extortionate amounts for new cars traps everyone, there is no real alternative. Slate is trying to offer one. All manufacturers can, as you point out make “cheap” things decently, (kinda not really cheap). GM, VW and other’s cars are pretty good but still loaded with unnecessary, costly doohickey junk.
The one-upmanship, overcompensating for something, most expensive car need (drive a Mercedes? Sniff, not an AMG is it buddy?) is a puzzling one to me. For real car enthusiasts, especially if you like classic cars (as we all do), getting them as cheap as possible (in as good as possible condition) is the goal.
Most bang for buck the goal, no? Not getting banged to hand over the most bucks.
Quote from Micawber in “David Copperfield”: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Getting yourself in hock for an unrepairable, disposable, money pit of instantly depreciating plastic, with never ceasing nagging electronics hardly seems a goal worth pursuing. And if your new car is disposable (and they all are now), paying $100K+ for it seems rather stupid.
Yes, there are expensive cars I like, but ultimately, I’d rather have 3 or more cool old cars for the same money thanks. And I do practice what I preach, a ’31 Model A hot rod, ’81 El Camino and ’79 Jeep – and a ’70 BSA A65L and ’18 Moto Guzzi V7III – which, ALL TOGETHER, cost me less than some mid-range Play-Doh engined modern junk, and I own them, cherish them and have no payments. Yes, I have a “modern”, it’s 16 years old, paid off and does the drone work (as long as I can still get parts for it and do the work myself).
Or, um, maybe all I’ve said is just because I’m too pathetically poor to blow money that pointlessly.
Cheap and cheerful, bring it back.
I believe I’d rather have a used Ford Ranger (and $15k.)
Larry, I like you, like the concept. The psychology aspect of being “seen” in something below what your ego says you should be seen in aside, ongoing EV infrastructure issues, and not everyone having 200 AMP service in their homes, are what I see as the biggest roadblocks. That’s why most companies have moved or are moving to the hybrid driveline. It’s going to take some time before the mass public feels comfortable purchasing an EV as their primary mode of transportation. And for those without 200 AMP service, (I’ve read that many EV’s require 80 AMPs for charging, and that leaves nominally, only 20 left for other household uses.
Mark: I’ve had a Tesla for the past seven years. My level 2 wall charger is connected to a 50amp 240 volt circuit, but the reality is that if you have an electric dryer, you’ve got a 30amp 240 volt circuit that you can share with the EV. I’ve charged my Tesla Model Y on a 30 amp circuit and took it from 20% to 80% in about 3 hours. I was sleeping while it was charging, so the time it took wasn’t an issue. Any home with a 100amp service can support a 30 amp circuit for charging the EV. If you treat it like a cellphone and plug it in before you go to bed, you’ll be amazed at the money you save and the time you save not going to gas stations.
Very Gen 1 Bronco-ish. Quite attractive. The EPA and NHTSA killed truly affordable vehicles. Nanny state regs and bottom feeding trial lawyers have forced the bloat and complication of today’s cars. Look at the vehicles they build in “health and safety” regulation crazy EU and UK. And we can’t? We also need to remember what we truly NEED, not want or like in entry level cars. Think Datsun 510, VW Rabbit, Ford Maverick, Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Dart, etc. And I do like the features in my Ranger Lariat, after all, I’m not a luddite. But my ’48 Chevy 3100 pickup has the luxury options of a heater and radio. Seriously. Those were options….