Slate Truck: el pick-up elèctric modular de 24.950 dòlars

All right, so here's an idea. Electracars are pretty expensive, typically, right? And they also frequently have a lot of bells and whistles. But what if you already know you don't need all of the bells or all of the whistles? You only want some of them, but you still want an EV. What if you could pick which bells and which whistles you actually get and save money on the rest? Well, that's the idea behind the slate truck. You might have heard of the slate truck recently. It's made a lot of headlines. And I've got my first look and first hands-on and first drive of the slate truck today. And I have a lot of thoughts in a very curious which you guys think. But let's just start with the headlining number here, which is this is the blank slate, the slate gray, blank slate truck with no options, and the headlining starting price of 24, 950. So for that price, I'm wondering, what is the slate truck? What do you actually get? Well, the base truck, every single truck from the factory is going to be slate gray to start. It's also all going to be rear wheel drive and a roughly 65 kilowatt hour battery that charges at up to 120 kilowatt, so on at an ACS port. It's also a 181 horsepower, and they've been able to promise about 205 miles of range. Now, I'll get more into how it drives pretty soon because I actually got to drive it, which is very interesting. But I think what's much more interesting

is the actual hard work story here because, like I said, every single slate truck comes from the factory in slate gray, which you might have seen the different colors of slate trucks. Those are all vinyl wraps, and that's a really good proxy for the story of what this truck is. This is the base underlying truck for every single slate truck that comes out of the factory, but you can customize it. And what feels like really economically viable ways from things like vinyl wraps, seat covers, and then these modules that sort of bolt on or bolt into the truck to transform it into very, very different looking and feeling vehicles. But it also does mean things like power windows and speakers and displays are not included by default, but you can add them in ways that feel pretty good. So this is the blank slate. I'm gonna walk around this one, because I think this is the most interesting truck and then I'll show you some of the other more customizable ones. But I'll go front to back here. So there is some customization available around the front fascia, but I think in general, it looks a little bit bronco-ish, and it does actually have a pretty good sized front trunk, which I can open and show you. And the whole point of having that big front trunk is obviously closed lock storage is still a premium in a pickup truck, so they know that. And so even this compact pickup truck has a good amount of closed lock storage base.

You've got these steel wheels down here at the bottom that you can throw those final wraps on as well. And then up at the front, it's got the shape of, well, kind of a classic, I would say, right? You have this big bed, you have the two seats at the front, and then a pretty good sized front trunk. That's a nice proportion for the size of the wheels, the shapes in general. I think it's a pretty friendly looking truck. The wheels at all four corners are these steel wheels. They're 245, 65, 17, so 17 inch wheels all the way around. And then at the back here, this is the NACS port. I don't think it's going to open on this one, but I'll show you the NACS port back left corner, which is where you want to see it. And then a five-foot bed. So I think that back in this late truck is actually maybe it's most attractive angle. You've got these nice bar tail lights back here. You've got this little mini spoiler back here. But this is only when it is configured as a truck, obviously. Users and owners will be able to bolt in a roll cage, which has airbags built in, and at a second row of seats to turn it into an SUV if they want to, which is something you can do after buying, something you can do in the configurator as you buy. So customizable, but this is just one of very, very many ways. I don't know, maybe thousands of different ways

a slate truck can look. But you have this tailgate here. This is a pretty reasonable, normal looking tailgate, opens all the way down. And then we can get inside the truck with these flesh door handles to see what these seats and interior look like. So this is the cloth interior seats, but you can again get different looking seats, which is just a seat cover to change it to even like a faux leather version if you want. And then this is the driver seat here. So steering wheel, slate, a little bit of display on the right, which doesn't seem to do anything quite yet, but then these buttons on the left for cruise control, your blinker stocks, your gear selector, and then the only display in the whole slate truck, which is just this one back here behind the steering wheel, for your speed, range, region, odometer, simple stuff like that. This interior is both roomy and compact at the same time, if that makes any sense. Like in most pickup trucks, pickup trucks are generally huge. And then you see the pictures of this one and you realize how small and how compact it is. I'm still happy to say how plenty of headroom over here. I'm 63. There's the seat goes far enough back that I have lots of legroom too, but I can also reach across and touch the other door, which is something I can't do in most other vehicles. I can do that in my little small sports car, but that in a pickup truck shows you it's not super big,

not super wide, so it's compact and roomy. And a lot of that is because of how minimal it is, how little stuff there is in here. So this nice center console here, again, it's pretty minimal, but you can get a second stackable one on top of it with a more natural feeling armrest position. That's an option. You also have this not power opening and closing window here, because that's an option as well. You can obviously pull that shut, which is a nice little grab handle and a consistent material throughout the entire interior. And you see all the AC, of course, that's standard. But this back here is actually storage, as a prototype, so it's not gonna be perfect, but there's some storage cubbies behind these as well. This phone mount is an option. Again, there's no display here, but you can also decide to make that an iPad center mount if you want it as well. And then there's just these minimal AC controls, here, which are pretty satisfying. The only buttons they really needed to put in the car, because those are the only ones that are guaranteed to be part of your slate truck. And then the key, which I kind of like, is just gonna slide in right there, and you push it in, and it's pushed to start, and then the EV comes to life. So, yeah, really, really minimal, not a whole lot to say about what you're seeing in here, but then there are tons and tons of accessories, everything from vinyl wraps and little rails

that you can mount things to, that can transform this interior to being exactly as functional, or as aesthetic as you want. You can go anywhere from the blank slate, which I'm sitting in, all the way up to pretty robust feeling, customized, colorful interior, which is obviously going to cost you more. And I don't know how much these options are going to cost, but I get the sense from talking to them and from playing with a feeling, a lot of these materials, that they're not gonna be super expensive. The whole idea is the slate truck is cheap, and the options are cheap enough that you can just pick the ones you want, and you don't feel like you're transforming into a different price category. A full wrap, for example, about 500 to 700 bucks starting for the entire truck to be vinyl wrapped in new color. Wrap could have been five to six thousand dollars, so that's good to see. So let me get out and show you something really interesting. I'm gonna show you a totally different variant of the slate truck and what that could look like, which is this one over here, which is a full-on five-seater SUV, and since it's open, and I can actually see a whole bunch more. But it's this totally open air vehicle. See, this is still a slate truck, right? Still the same panels that you recognize, still the same proportions, the five-foot bed, and the front seats. But now, you can essentially bolt on, and customers can do this themselves,

but I imagine they'll want some help. They can bolt on this fastback or a square back version of a roll cage here, and then they'll just get an open seat, five-seater SUV type of setup. So different, there's obviously no windows here, but you can just sort of pop in, and they've designed the slate trucks so that you can actually fold that passenger seat down in the front and get easy access in the back. Because again, there's no back doors here, but if I just go ahead and grab this rail right here, this slides forward, I'll try to do two hands, but there we go. This slides doubly forward all the way, and then I give you open access to just jumping into the back seat here, which you've bolted into your truck. So very customizable. This is not stuff you typically think about doing DIY, but you can. This one's a really good example though, of the tremendous amount of flexibility, and a sky being a limit as far as what sorts of things you can add to accessorize and modularize. This truck is out of word, but look, all these fasteners here are mounting points for rails, and at the top too, so that's mounting points for rails. So there can be tons of accessories in the middle, in the back, here's more mounting points back here. Slate is going to be doing a ton of designing accessories that will work with the truck, but I imagine a lot of other people will have fun designing the own accessories.

And then in this driver seat here, this is a good way to see this upgraded speaker system. So you've probably heard about the single JBL speaker that would mount down here. That's one of the speaker options, just a single Bluetooth speaker. And honestly, that's probably fine for such a small interior like this, but this is a much more full size. You can see this center channel right here, right channel over here, left channel over here. This will be a premium option for your sound system for the Slate truck. And you can see this is a much more involved and colorful, full body wrap, which is obviously a lot more character to it, but here's another good look at the front trunk, which, like I said, is more than enough room. They actually have this slightly lower point here, which you can easily get things in and out of it. But that's a good amount of closed lock storage, which is a concern in any pickup truck. And as you can see, the Slate truck has thought of that. This will all close down and be nice and secure. Now, I'm in Slate space here, so they actually have a bunch of other stuff on display that they're going to be showing people later today, which is this Slate truck here, which if I'm looking at this, now, this seems like the top is Slate, but then the bottom is decals. They've got some decals on their wheels, some off-road tires, a little bit of a bar back there

for accessories, just little things, little things. Then this is a little closer to a half wrap, right? So, top is still Slate, bottom half is yellow. You've got that full on tire on the back. And then here's a full wrap. Fullly customized. Again, you still don't have a back door, but you've got to hold out more going on with the full wrap color, the decal on the wheels. It's a lot. You can really choose exactly what to make of your Slate truck and you can choose it long after you buy the thing, which makes it appealing to certain groups, obviously people who are into customizing, but also people who are potentially looking for their first ever EV and don't want to start off with too much. Again, there's certain bells and whistles you might want, certain bells and whistles you might grow into and want later, but I think the last thing I want to show you is driving the Slate truck, because I was a little bit surprised at how Peppie it feels. It's again, the numbers on paper are 181 horsepower, rear wheel drive. And they will all have this exact same drive train, but I got some information on this suspension. And I was pleasantly surprised driving it, including one pedal driving, that was actually very confident. So, here's the drive. So, I did get to be one of the first humans on the planet, outside of the company to be driven in and then to drive the Slate truck. And this one also has a fun wrap on it.

So, as a passenger, they showed me the route. I pretty quickly realized just from being a passenger that this thing has quite a bit of zip. You wouldn't think it from the numbers on paper, but there is plenty of torque for popping around town on roads like these. My test driver here was absolutely cooking, so it was very fun, and I was curious to drive it myself. Then I got to swap around and get in the driver seat and take the Slate truck for a spin. I would say my entire ride very much embodied the simplicity and minimalism of the rest of the truck. When you're sitting in the driver seat, there's no HUD, there's no paddle shifters, or buttons, or displays, or anything to distract you, or beep it to you or anything like that. Just the small display, behind the steering wheel, with your speed, range, and region, and the steering wheel and the road in front of you. That's basically it. You're just looking right over the hood. The Slate truck does have full-on one-petal driving on by default, and as far as I can tell, there's no driving settings to change it, but I will say it is tuned really nicely in my opinion. It's close to what Tesla does with the heavier brake region. When you lift off the accelerator pedal, it slows down pretty firmly and comes to a stop, really confidently, so I like that. No sport mode or any other modes to change between, but every Slate truck will have the same drive train,

the same rear-wheel drive, single motor, setup, pushing, about 180 horsepower, and they are absolutely quicker than you think, with those numbers. It's actually fun to drive. It's zippy, and it's compact, too. That's the thing. This is a small truck that's a bit lower to the ground than your classic full-size pickup trucks. So you actually feel the speed a little bit more connected to the road a little more, than those other big boats. This suspension setup is also the same across every Slate, its McPherson Strucks at the front. It's a little firmer than I expected to be honest, but it's not too bad. Part of my drive was on these rougher roads with some undulations and big dips and bumps, and it handled them pretty well. The bigger stuff was just fine. I think the little smaller stuff, it was a little firm than I expected. Overall, though, for a nearly final production prototype of a 25 to 30 something thousand dollar EV, not much to complain about, I honestly wouldn't expect to do a lot of truck things in this thing, like carrying super heavy cargo or towing, but this feels like a fleet truck. Like if you're just trying to throw some stuff in the bed or or maybe even just in the front truck, they're grue grocery shopping, carrying some stuff around. This is more than capable of it, and you pretty quickly forget that it's even a truck at all into you look behind you and see that there's a five-foot bed. So, all right, at the end of the day, the Slate truck,

as of right now, it's brand new, doesn't exist yet, but it is an idea that I think a lot of people, and you could let me know in the comments what you think, but I think a lot of people will be interested in. I think a lot of people think about, okay, I'm going to go with this starting price, and I'm going to do just exactly what I need. I'm going to get like the phone mount, I'm going to get power windows and a couple of vinyl accessories here and there, but pretty close to the blank slate, well under $30,000, should be a pretty appealing, like first EV for a lot of people. Not going to road trip in it, not going to put your family in a blank slate, because there's only two seats, but you can do that stuff later in the future if you choose to upgrade, which I think is legitimately a brand new idea for EVs. Yeah, I'm rooting for it, I think it's really cool. Let me know what you think, though in the comments, because I'm curious. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.