2026-09-26

I haven't talked about EVs in awhile on this here phlog of mine.
Frankly because I have been pretty disappointed in their progress...at
least in the USA.

My honest opinion is that if you live in the US, buying a hybrid
or gas car is the rational choice 100% of the time. There is no
situation where buying an EV will make more practical and financial
sense than an equivalent hybrid or gas car.

The reasoning is simple and stark. EV cars can only do 90% of the
things that a gas/hybrid car can do but they cost 50% to infinity%
more. Does that make sense? EVs will never succeed until they are
cheaper than their equivalent gas cars. Less capability = Less
cost. It really is that simple and the car market knows this which
is why EV adoption has slowed drastically.

Which is where the Slate truck comes in. I am really really excited
about the Slate truck because their philosophy is truly aligned
with how EVs should be sold in my opinion.

With the Slate truck you will get pretty low EV range and you will
get almost no fancy features. but that's OK because the Truck is
CHEAPER than any equivalent competitive vehicle.

Get less = Pay less. Also, EVs are fundamentally less complex than
their ICE equivalent vehicles. Yet it hardly seems the case in
terms of average reliability of the current crop of EVs on the
market vs the best in class Honda and Toyota hybrid and ICE vehicles.

Slate has the right philosophy here as well. They are trying to
remove as much complexity as possible for a modern vehicle meeting
safety standards. They are reducing part count as much as possible
and are embracing modularity and replaceability as their core
tenets. The idea is that you should be able to swap parts and
features in as easily as possible.

I absolutely adore this idea.

I am genuinely rooting for the success of Slate truck but before
you call me a fanboy, the reality is that I think they are more
likely to fail than succeed.

firstly, their product is just pretty niche in the US. It is a 2
door compact pick-up truck. That market really died in the early
2000s with the death of the original compact Ford Ranger as well
as competing trucks like the Nissan Hardbody/Frontier and Chevy
S10. Americans just want big ole' pickup trucks...sadly.

The other issue is that car buyers are just not rational when it
comes to "get less = pay less." Car buyers always want more and
dealers know this. That's why Americans are in such auto loan debt.
Americans are complete suckers to being upsold on features and
always want more gadgets and gizmos and they get rolled into HUGE
auto loans on hugely premium trim cars.  For those unaware, it is
frankly a crisis in this country and is the reason that the AVERAGE
new car purchase price in America is $50,000 USD!

To sell the concept of buying a barebones truck where you can a la
carte add all the features you want for yourself is just not mass
market. It's like they want to sell a truck to the automotive
equivalent of Linux users who build their own computers.

I just don't think the market is that large. I can only pray they
can be profitable with that segment of people because the philosophy
of purposefully trying to minimize complexity and maximizing
modularity is such a compelling one to me...but then again, I'm a
Linux user that has built many of my own computers ;-P

Anyways, I am honestly really looking forward to the Slate truck
and I genuinely hope it finds its market and can become profitable...but
I'm not holding my breath.