I just looked at the new Slate electric truck — funded, in part, by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — and I had a chance to chat with the new company’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper. Here’s everything I learned about the engineering behind this truck.
At the Slate event yesterday I had the chance to slide underneath a few prototype trucks to look at some hardware, so we’re going to have to start with the hardware and then circle back to my chat with Mr. Keipper. Let’s start broad and go into detail thereafter.
The Slate truck is built on a bespoke chassis the company refers to as the “Slateboard.” I was told this is sort of a hybrid between a unibody and a body-on-frame vehicle (more on that in my interview below), which makes me think of the Jeep Cherokee XJ and its “uniframe” construction consisting of two U-shaped unibody “rails” to which the floorboards are all welded; it also reminds me of the Rivian R1T, which also has a body welded to a pseudo-frame. I don’t have any great underbody photos of the body-in-white, but Slate did show a side image of this in its introductory video:
The body is made of steel (overall vehicle curb weight it 3,602 pounds), with colors in the CAD below presumably denoting different materials/material grades:
It’s an interesting design; you can see that there’s really limited space to package the battery (which, per Wired, uses nickel-manganese-cobalt chemistry from Korean company SK-On), as the wheelbase is quite short and that solid rear axle (more on that soon) pretty much takes up the whole back section of the truck.
Check out how pronounced that battery pack area is on the side of the truck, at least on the beta prototypes:
Speaking of the back section of the truck, look at the CAD image above and you can imagine that trying to keep that section nice and rigid probably isn’t exactly trivial, as that bed — which has no permanent top to help resist forces being imparted on it — probably wants to bend and twist.
You can bet that the joint between the bed and cab is a highly-engineered part of the truck, just as it was on the second-gen Honda Ridgeline (which required quite an interesting adhesive/bolted joint in order to delete the original’s “sail panels”). For fun, here’s that second-gen Ridgeline; you can see some of the same general shapes in the bedside:
As for the roll bar that’s bolted on by the customer when they convert the Slate from a truck into an SUV, it’s a stamped steel, with fasteners on the B-pillar, bedside, and bed floor (note, there will be trim covering this on production models):
It’s worth pointing out that, per whisperings at the media event, installing the roll bar and rear seats also involves the user plugging in airbags, which seems like a bad idea, except apparently there are system-checks in place to make it foolproof. I’ll have to ask Slate a bit more about this.
Speaking of airbags, Slate showed some fun crash test simulation imagery, though this is the best shot I got:
And here’s a photo of some real-world testing:
Slate says the truck is “Designed to achieve the highest safety ratings” and comes standard with Active Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, and up to eight airbags.
Oh, and before we move on from the body, here’s a photo of the tailgate structure behind the skin:
The suspension is a MacPherson strut up front and a five-link DeDion tube in the back.
Here’s a look at the front suspension hardware under the prototype trucks, starting with this strut nestled nicely inside a plastic wheel-liner:
This shot shows the sway bar and outer tie-rod-end going to the cast aluminum rack-and-pinion steering:
Speaking of, you can get a decent look at that rack here:
Disc brakes stop each front wheel; the lower control arm appears to be stamped steel, and it appears to mount to a stamped steel subframe on the inboard end and a cast iron knuckle outboard (note; the sway bar link appears to be disconnected from this vehicle):
Here’s a look at the front suspension from a different angle (looking forward from just under the passenger’s door). No, I’m not entirely sure what’s up with that stainless steel brake hose, but remember these are prototype vehicles:
And here are a few blurry shots showing the front suspension from behind the front axle pointing towards the front of the vehicle:
Let’s move on to the rear suspension, which is more interesting than a MacPherson strut that you’re all used to seeing on pretty much all economy cars — back here we have a DeDion tube axle!
A DeDion tube is a great rear suspension for the Slate, as it allows for the use of a rigid axle (which is cheap, easy, and strong) without having to bolt the differential to the actual axle (which would yield lots of extra unsprung mass).
Here you can see how the 150 kW (201 hp) electric drive unit/transmission/differential is mounted to the chassis just ahead of the DeDion Tube (the architecture package-protects for a front-motor should an AWD be offered later), which itself features a track bar going laterally, two trailing arms, and two upper control arms:
Here you get a great shot of those stamped steel trailing arms and of the disc brakes and coil springs:
Here are a few more angles:
That’s about all I could get hardware-wise from the press event. I do want to point a few other fun things out; see the opening for the rear window? Well, that glass can pop up!
And it’s the very same glass that gets re-installed onto either fiberglass SUV “topper”:
I’d also like to point out that it appears that Slate has been using modified Mahindra Roxors as test-vehicles:
Anyway, let’s get to my interview with Head of Engineering Eric Keipper, who used to work at Fiat Chrysler back when I was there. This will be a bit of a “live blog-style” interview for time-reasons.
Quick Interview With The Head Of Engineering
I chatted with Slate’s Head of Engineering Eric Keipper, “Employee No. 3,” to learn how the company got started, and what the directive was when things started in late 2022.
Amazon Influence, And The Goal Of Building An Affordable Vehicle
“We want to build an affordable vehicle,” Keipper told me about what the initial brief was when he hired on 2.5 years ago.
When I asked about functional objectives, he said those were up to the team to develop. “So right out of the box we had literally a whiteboard and nothing,” Keipper told me. “We started with a a narrative that kind of outlined the vision of the vehicle. Through that narrative and that vision, we started to develop the bill of materials, costs, the architecture, the content that we wanted in it, and then started to figure out like what kind of suspension do we want…what kind of horsepower do we think this thing’s got to have, where’s the battery gonna go?”
“We really started to piece together what the vehicle would then become and did really a multitude of studies to start to narrow the scope.”
I asked where that narrative came from, and Slate’s comm’s representative chimed in: “People at Re:Build Manufacturing offered us some seed money to get started.”
“Our founders put us in place with a little bit of seed money and the vision of the vehicle, so [the narrative] came from our founders, and that, so we use the the Amazon Working Backwards principles,” Keipper continued. This is interesting because I knew Slate’s main investors were included Bezos Expeditions and General Catalyst, but I wasn’t sure just how “Amazon” the organization actually is. Apparently Slate is using some Amazon processes, including “Working Backwards,” which Amazon describes thusly:
Most of Amazon’s major products and initiatives since 2004 have one very Amazonian thing in common—they were created through a process called Working Backwards. It is so central to the company’s success that we used it as the title for our book. Working Backwards is a systematic way to vet ideas and create new products. Its key tenet is to start by defining the customer experience, then iteratively work backwards from that point until the team achieves clarity of thought around what to build. Its principal tool is a second form of written narrative called the PR/FAQ, short for press release/frequently asked questions.
We both witnessed its birth. [Former Amazon employee] Colin [Bryar] was in his tenure as Jeff’s shadow when the Working Backwards process was launched and he participated in every Working Backwards review presented to Jeff in the twelve months thereafter. And Bill’s experience was forged by applying and refining the Working Backwards concept in the early stages of the process that led to the development of every digital media product.
“With this PRFAQ you actually take the product vision and put it in the marketplace out in time and then work backwards to basically where you are today and figure out how to work up that ladder…we had nothing, so having that vision in place…of the product and what it would look like at launch…it gives us a little bit of a feel for the type of brand we wanted to become, the type of product we wanted to have.”
“Yeah, yeah, so the vision itself was actually pretty narrow. It was a back to basics, only the essentials, truck, and the, the narrative did outline like low-cost solutions for suspensions and, you know, minimal sized battery that gets 150 miles of range, and to the point that…the things that are in the truck are only there as required to propel the vehicle and and offer it as transportation, but then, you know, we will offer an accessories portfolio around the vehicle such the customers can add those over time.”
“The vision even included composite exteriors so that we don’t have to spin up a paint job…that was right there up front.”
As for the 150-mile range, that wasn’t exactly specified in the beginning. “We ended up putting that range figure together, but the vision of a minimal sized battery that allows us to optimize for the customer’s commuting needs [was there at the beginning].”
Slate Looked At Suspensions In Cars From The 1960s and 70s, Considered an eAxle
“I think in the original it has slightly different suspension characteristics to it, but we over studies put a McPherson’s struck in place and up front and then we put a DeDion rear axle in the rear that ended up being the best solutions for the truck for us.”
“So, essentially looking at what a low-cost solution would be back to…some of the ideas in the original PRFAQ were: Take us back to basics, only the essentials from vehicles like those in the, say the ’60s and 70s, so if you can imagine any of the like beam axles or others… it’s taking us back to a time where there was infotainment where there was no, you know, crazy gadgets and advanced driving, etc.”
“We did actually search the market for a beam axle that is, an E-beam, such that, you know, it would allow us to have the motor on a beam axle. In our class of vehicle, it just wasn’t available at the time. So, the next evolution that we went through was looking at, you know, independent rear suspension versus, you know, something like like the Dion, axle where we would be able to source a motor and attach it…Having the DeDion axle just made the most sense from a capabilities perspective, but then also, you know, having that low cost solution that will allow our ride handling requirements to be there as well as the towing requirements, etc. So, so that’s really we we did a full deep dive and full decision matrix work as you would expect out of engineers that are doing architectural development.”
The Unibody(ish) ‘Slate Board’
“We named it the Slate Board because, when you look at a body in white, it’s, we started with a frame, architecture, and because it was gonna be a truck, we said it’s gotta have a frame, but then we started looking at efficient design and it really morphs itself into a proper body in white that wraps itself around the battery such that you have the battery below the floor and, and so that that frame ended up morphing itself into a unibody, but it’s it’s closer to a unibody, but we know that there’s nothing in the market that a single body allows for both the truck and the SUV without a single component being changed, so we have the ability to take the backlash and the partition out of the truck. That back gets reuse, bring the SUV components to the truck, and you can upfit to a 5 passenger two door SUV from the same exact body-in-white that you had at the truck that you purchased from the assembly plant.”
“Being able to then also have multiple battery packs that could end up underneath it where we’ve got the extended range and the standard range battery pack, so between the truck, the SUV, and different battery packs, all with the same Slate Board, that really is, you know, one of the unique things that we’re excited for customers to, to take and make their own.”
“If you were to look at it with even the trained eye, you’re gonna say it’s a unibody…as the rails in the front head towards the front of dash then they dive around the vehicle to be essentially the sill on the outside of the on the outside of the battery…we studied obviously where to put the rails up front for to achieve our targeted US NCAP 5 star, as well as our targeted IIHS top safety pick…that really, that really guided us with where to put the rails and then, from a side impact perspective, it tells us where to, where to put the rails on the outboard side of the battery and what the what the thickness has to be, what the material has to be, and we took the right material in the right place approach, and so we, we’ve done multiple rounds of optimization, making sure that we’re optimizing the body structure to meet, you know, the body bending and torsion requirements, but also protecting the occupants, protecting the battery and making sure that we meet, you know, the right handling targets, the durability targets, the, and of course the safety targets.”
The Slate Was Only Ever An EV
When I asked if there was ever a Slate Concept that incorporated any other powertrain,” Keipper replied: “Literally the first drawing that I put on the the whiteboard was how we were going to configure the battery. So this has always been a battery electric. “That…. in and of itself was not a directive, but it’s something that, you know, if you’re going to bring a new car to market today,…, it’s gonna be electric. They’re more efficient, there’s more torque, the performance is better, it’s just, it’s the right solution…charging is now, you know, infinitely easy. You can charge overnight, even on a 110 outlet.”
“To meet your commuting needs, chargers are very available, you know, in and around town as well as the ability to put one at your house… I think the learning curve that people have had to go up regarding charging is, is at that inflection point, and I think folks are starting to get an understanding of it, and we don’t see that as a detriment anymore.”
I asked about range extenders, and Keipper told me: “Yeah, it’s, it’s not a consideration for us at this time and so we’re not studying it.”
Reductive Design: Making Many Parts One Part
I asked Keipper about ways the company saved money beyond the obvious ones like the lack of paint. “We literally questioned everything. And the things that did make it into the vehicle, we think need to be there for good means of transportation, a good customer experience, and a safe, reliable vehicle…So things like remote keyless entry…cruise control, those are there because we really think they’re key attributes that the customers really want.”
“We spent an enormous amount of time talking about reductive design and basically how can we take, you know, five parts and make it to two or how can we take three parts and make it into one. So our entire dashboard, you know, the first concept that we had, I think it had like 40 components or something, and we, we literally cut it in half.”
“Our interior team and our interior design team, you know, worked hand in hand and figured out how do we through reductive design, minimize the overall cost and complexity such that we can put it together easily, but it still meets the customer’s needs. It’s gorgeous, but really focused on minimizing the number of parts. We did the same with the door panels. We’re doing the same with the body in white. We did the same with the front rails. We’ve done that continuously throughout. So the idea of reductive design is something that the culture in the company has really grabbed hold of and is allowing us to be successful.”
What’s The Next Slate Going To Look Like?
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“One of the, great question, one of the things that we do think that is different about Slate and the reason that we’re gonna be successful is our, our very specific focus on getting this one thing right. And so the entire organization, the entire company is focused on getting the truck and the accessory of the SUV in a rear wheel drive, you know, standard and extended range, Situation in in those configurations to launch, right? So we are, we are uniquely focused on getting that, not to say that we haven’t had some product planning meetings of, OK, what is next and working on how we, how we steer the company at that point in time when we’re ready to do so, but the, the company really right now is focused 100% on, on making sure that we get to launch with the truck and the SUV.”
It’s A Fascinating Machine
In short, Keipper said the directive from day one was to make a “reliable, durable, low-cost transportation [for] the masses,” and I think Slate has done it. It’s clear based on my quick look at the truck’s engineering that it will be, without question, one of the least mechanically complex high-volume vehicle offered in the US in a century. And as a diehard wrencher who enjoys likes maintaining suspensions and driveline bits but hates having to fix powertrains, the whole concept is music to my ears.
This is going to be fascinating to watch. On paper it’s a terrible idea:
Will they sell any of these after the dozens (dozens!) of Autopians who claim to want exactly this buy theirs? I’m extremely skeptical.
Sounds like there’s some interesting engineering that happened here, but much like the Cybertruck I’m not sure the end goal (or should it be own goal?) was right in the first place. All the engineering in the world can’t save a bad idea.
I remember hearing an anecdote about the CTS-V Manual Wagon where a journalist asked them why they were building it, commenting that they would probably sell like 12 of the damn things. The designer immediately lit up saying something along the lines of “You think we can sell 12?! Hey Fred! We need to double production now!” I know that is not really relevant here, and that Caddy can afford to make a low volume model whereas a new start up cannot, but I hope like hell that they make it. I freaking love this idea and there’s a very high probability that I will buy my first ever new car here.
Yeah, a low-volume halo car makes sense if you sell a bunch of other stuff that could get more popular by association. When the halo car (and I’m not even sure this qualifies, but let’s go with it) is your first model you’ve done something out of order. 🙂
Agreed, but it did work for Tesla.
I think they’ll sell out the first couple of years production to ebike commuters and surfer types in southern california alone. Folks replacing a twenty year old two seater tacoma.
That felt very personal and I would demand an apology, but I live in Texas. And it’s a 10yo Frontier. With a Talaria in the bed.
This is only a single cab pickup if you don’t buy the second row and topper. As long as those two things are only a few grand, this stays price competitive (with assumed 7500 EV rebate). There goes your single cab issue.
I think they’re going to sell these to people as a second vehicle. Take me – family of 5. We have a minivan for long trips. I need a second vehicle to take me or a few kids around town. There goes your range anxiety issue.
Lastly, do you know how little of the US still gets bad winters? I’ve commented before, but up here in Michigan, our winters went from November to April and having to dig out your mailbox when I was a kid, to being able to count on two hands the number of times you need a snowblower a year. If you really can’t drive in the white stuff, get some good all-seasons or winter tires. But for most people in most places that can drive worth a darn, just throw some sand bags in the back and you’ll be a-OK. There goes your RWD issue.
I think this thing will live or die on price – both of the base model and of the major accessories like the second row seats and SUV top. If this comes out priced close to a Maverick, it’s dead. If it undercuts it by 5k, it has a real chance.
And yeah, I’m definitely planning on getting one.
On the plus side for us weirdos who want exactly this thing, as long as there’s enough hype to get them going and produce at least enough to get out to us, I’m frankly not that worried about long term support.
From the sounds of it the major powertrain components are off-the-shelf and there’s no giant screen running “full-self-driving” or whatever that runs a high risk of bricking the car if there’s no OTA updates. Even with the required software handshakes to get it “started” and driving, this thing is way simpler than something like a Fisker Ocean, and the people who buy the first ones will be the types of people to figure out how to jail break everything and create a little community to keep them running if the company goes under.
Add in all the modularity and it should be a pretty repairable little car. And in the end taking a bath on a $20k car is a way better proposition than a Fisker or VinFast.
As long as you grab an SUV kit I bet most of the “customizations” can be done with a 3D printer/some basic fab tools or in the aftermarket, so it’s not even like you lose the customizability if they go under.
I was a vehicle structure durability and reliability engineer for a few years at Honda, and #1 this is excellent reporting but #2 it raises some questions for me.
That whitebody strikes me as incredibly sparse, especially at the bedsides. Part of the appeal of this for me is the safety rating, since I dig old, simple cars but I am wary of putting my kids in anything without modern crash structures.
So the question is, did they crash test this as an SUV or just as a pickup? Since they’ll never sell a “complete” SUV and instead leave it to the customer to buy and build the kit, are they sidestepping crash requirements?
Great question that I definitely would be interested to see the answers for. Do they usually crash test with dummies in the rear anyway? I would imagine that with that roll bar on there it would actually do better as the SUV than the truck, but I know very little about stuff like that.
I’m thinking mainly of side impact here and they do test with rear-seat dummies:
https://www.iihs.org/media/ebc9bd1f-2ca4-4fb9-b96e-f4165f331943/Jil-Xg/Ratings/Protocols/current/test_protocol_side.pdf
But actually it looks like rear seat dummies in front overlap are a recent addition:
https://www.iihs.org/media/ebc9bd1f-2ca4-4fb9-b96e-f4165f331943/Jil-Xg/Ratings/Protocols/current/test_protocol_side.pdf
I’m sure the roll bar increases crashworthiness, but bolted connections aren’t as strong as the type of overlapping welded structure you’d see in a CUV or even something like the Bronco.
Are stamped steel D pillars normal in typical vehicles, or is a more robust solution used? Also, do 3-row vehicles have stronger rear pillars to help protect passengers that are close to the back window?
I think by “stamped steel” you’re referring to the simple channel-like sections on the bed sides? But yes, stamped sheet is pretty much what makes up the entire whitebody structure of most cars these days. It’s just that there’s more of it with more specific surfacing to give the required rigidity and crumple in a controlled way during a crash. See for example the 2016 pilot structure:
https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-automobiles/releases/release-b0f36605f68547a4a7fa95b054e507ca/photos/156
The thing that has me wondering here is that truck beds are super hard to make rigid, because the bedsides aren’t connected to each other at the top. It’s kind of like a hard taco shell. The tailgate helps when it’s closed, but it’s still tough to get it all rigid.
I know the SUV kit roll bar adds some strength here, but I’m still a bit skeptical how much. If you look at the Pilot vs the Slate near the rear wheel wells, you can see how much better the 3rd row occupants in the Pilot are protected vs the Slate. There’s almost no structure above/just behind the Slate rear wheels – right where the passenger seat will be.
I was referring to “As for the roll bar that’s bolted on … convert the Slate from a truck into an SUV, it’s a stamped steel, with fasteners on the B-pillar…”, so basically the bolt-on SUV roof. I’m used to automakers talking about how they used “high-strength steel” or “Boron steel” when talking about how they reinforced the chassis for crash protection, probably more for the front/A-pillar. I think I’m mistaken in thinking that ‘stamped steel’ is mutually exclusive with ‘high-strength steel’.
I was mostly thinking about the lack of rollover safety from flimsily attached pillars for the rear passengers, though like you mentioned the side impact and rear-end safety seems questionable as well.
Yeah, “high strength steel” or really any steel in automotive unibody applications is basically always going to be some form of stamped sheet steel. That’s not a bad thing, as stamped structures are basically always going to be lighter, cheaper, and perform better than something like a steel bar or box section when properly engineered and made at scale, but other than box sections for body-on-frame trucks (which even that is moving toward welded up stampings), modern cars start out as a bunch of flat sheet, rolled up in coils.
I think David points it out here because it is different than say a tube roll bar, which is what you might find in an old CJ or something. Both the modern Wrangler and Bronco roll structures are made of stamped steel just like this, but they are permanently fixed and integrated into the rest of the body instead of being bolted on.
I like the modularity of it, I just want to understand if I’d be putting my kids in a modern, tested crash structure or if this is more along the lines of the BRAT rear seating…
If we take out the opinions of the comments section of The Autopian, where lots of people claim that they want a regular cab truck (calm down, I do believe you do actually want them) and we use the “lets see what the data says” approach from a market study perspective…. is there really enough people to buy this over a base maverick?
I think Slate is a cool company, I love the modular approach too, but it feels like this should have been an extended cab as the base. My reason is because in a past role I spoke with a lot of fleets that operate 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton trucks, and they all are moving towards either extended or crew cabs. They want to keep their drivers happy, and the fleet drivers want a cab to put their gear, work boots, and other shit that is not the bed of the truck.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like they did a little too much cost cutting to do regular cab only in “pickup mode”. Yes yes, I see the SUV kits, but then you don’t have the pickup bed when you do that.
I think a lot of the work-truck use of an extended cab (out of elements storage basically) can be handled by the frunk. Now whether or not that’s an intuitive thing for people to use as a comparison, who knows?
Good point, but I also heard that fleet drivers also don’t want a regular cab for perceived safety reasons (glass right behind your head) and the ability to recline seats when needed for breaks or maybe to fit certain very large people (?). I’m not saying it’s correct or not, just from talking with large fleets.
I have zero interest in the Mav, and placed a reservation for this within 30 minutes of reading the first article. The adaptability is just incredibly fun, and the easily removed body panels and everything, this looks like it was designed with repairs in mind, and holy crap I miss the days in which you could actually option a car how you want instead of having to add stupid packages. Why do I have to get a sunroof to have more than 4 speakers?! The fact that this ships as the base and then you add to it as you go and want to is amazing to me. I’ll get it with the SUV kit, but leave the top at home most of the time. I don’t often need a truck, but it will be nice the few times I do to not have to use the van for it.
Hey I agree with you on all of that, my concern is mostly with the decision of a regular cab, really. Give me an AWD version of this with an extended cab of some kind, and I’m in.
“Give me an AWD version of this with an extended cab of some kind, and I’m in.”
It’s called the Ford Maverick, and you can buy one today!
If it had an extended cab as a base, I wouldn’t want it. Now the bed is smaller or the truck is bigger, and the SUV versions wouldn’t work as well, if at all.
I have an extended cab truck, but there are almost never people back there, just stuff. This has a frunk, like A Man from Florida mentioned, and that’s where I would be putting that stuff. I’d also be opting for the SUV kit, so I would still have the extra seats for more humans on the rare chance I did need to carry around more people.
I think it’s hard to comprehend the 24 or so million people that live in Southern California.
I see this as more or less a strictly Southern California play at least for the first few years.
Yep, I use my Mazda B2600i for short trips only, and in that mode the gas mileage is truly terrible. It doesn’t cost me much in the grand scheme of things but I could totally see replacing it with one of these for my use cases. I’ve used the 4WD in mine precisely once. (I do take it on some gravel to keep the transfer case some exercise but it’s 100% just to keep it working for when I sell it.)
Great article, very interesting to see the engineering on this truck.
Im really digging this, and have a reservation in now. Be a great around town/commuter.
Theres things i wonder that I hope come out soon. It has collision assist/alerts apparently- so will the cruise be adaptive? Is there abs? Will there be a couple mods of traction control, or just on/off? And most important, how long/easily can it convert from an open air k5 thing to a truck and back again?
ABS is require by law since ~2013 I think. The collision alert/avoidance should use a mmWave radar, and theoretically should be able to support ACC; either they’re using too low a spec of radar (somewhat unlikely imo), or it would require too much CPU power and/or development time, and it would also degrade the ‘no frills’ proposition a bit.
“They’re more efficient, there’s more torque, the performance is better, it’s just, it’s the right solution…charging is now, you know, infinitely easy. You can charge overnight, even on a 110 outlet.”
It’s almost as if the designers considered the objections DT has to this being an EV (other than up-front costs – which are covered over time with lower operational expenses) and handled them.
Incidentally – There’s an active (and rather glitchy) configurator which shows the options for bodywork, radio, wheels, interiors, etc, etc.
https://www.slate.auto/en/personalization
They didn’t “handle” them, but they think they’re worthy tradeoffs that will work for the mass market.
You can’t charge overnight on a 120V outlet.
120V x 12A = 1440W.
52000 Wh/1440W = 36 hours.
You can charge overnight.
You just can’t charge Zero to 100% overnight.
which kills your operational flexibility. Either draw up a car that only needs a 20kWh battery pack, or acknowledge that everyone needs 240V x 30A charging both at home and at work and we need to start installing 300,000,000 J1772 chargers.
My commute is 30 miles a day, I would get plenty of juice from an overnight 120v to make this work for me. It wouldn’t be an only car and I wouldn’t take it far so I have no issues there. Yes, a 240 would be nice, but until I get there this would work great.
I commuted for a few years in a Clarity PHEV which claimed 47 miles of electric range on a 17 kwh battery. Realistically it had more like 35-38 miles range and I had a 40 mile commute so the last couple miles home almost everyday were gas powered. I plugged it in to my standard exterior outlet and unless I was out late it was fully charged in the morning. The gas tank was only about 7 gallons but I would go months at a time, several times almost 2000 miles, between fill-ups.
The Slate might never get fully charged during the work week but could easily catch up on a day without a commute when it can charge 20+hrs instead of 12hrs. They have basically said in the brief this isn’t a road trip car – its a tool for getting from A to B and taking a bit of cargo or a few passengers with you and for that I think the 150 mile range is basically perfect.
From 0 to 100%, sure, you definitely can’t. But if you need to use the full 150 miles of range every day, and have no source of charging other than 120v, this probably isn’t the vehicle for that person.
If we’re a little more generous/realistic:
80mi/150mi * 52kWh = 27.7kWh
30mi/150mi * 52kWh = 10.4kWh
28kWh/1.4kW = 20 hours
10.4/1.4kW = 7.5 hours
I think the 150mi/52kWh = 2.88mi/kWh (underestimate b/c gross not usable kWh) is quite optimistic given the terrible aero; it’s only 16% worse than the best-in-class Escape PHEV’s EPA converted MPGe rating of ~3.3mi/kWh, or 37mi/10.3kWh (usable) = 3.6mi/kWh.
L2 charging is definitely required for any daily driving with significant miles at high speed, but I think L1 could suffice for short distance or non-daily users.
At 400 Wh/mile and a 30 mile round trip commute, you need 12 kWh of recharging. At 1.4 kW that’s 9 hours. That’s only 7500 miles of driving per year, though. I think the benefits of an electric car are more visible if you drive more; the average driver goes about 15000 and I expect that a lot of that’s in short intercity or city-to-country-and-back trips. I know I use the full range of my Model 3 frequently.
120V x 15A? I realize there’s some loss and that I may be missing something, but 3 amps?
Less about losses and more about only wanting to run circuits at 80% of capacity continuously.
Thank you for the answer. I suspected as much.
I’ve learned since that It’s somewhat confusing because L1 includes both NEMA 5-15 and 5-20 type plugs. So if it’s a type 5-15 it should be limited to 12 amps and if it’s a 5-20 plug, 16 amps.
So technically it is incorrect to assign a hard limit of 12 amps, but I bet there aren’t many L1 5-20 plug type chargers out there, so yeah, the reality may effectively be 12 amps.
I have proper 20 amps outlets all over my garage, but only one item in my house has a NEMA 5-20 plug. That amuses me for some reason.
A 15A breaker is rated 80%. All breakers, in fact, are rated 80% continuous. In some special industrial applications you can have breakers rated 100%. You could use a 20A breaker with 12ga wire and have 16A continuous, but the plugs are the same so the assumption is a 15A breaker and 12A continuous. Figure about 0.35 ohms resistance on a 15A outlet with 14ga wire (75 feet of wire from the main), and at 12A you lose 4.2V. So you 120V becomes 115.8V. This is why you lights dim when you turn on your vacuum cleaner.
Using a 20A breaker / 12ga combo with 15A outlets is very much a no-no. I’m sure you know that, but I don’t anyone else to misunderstand. The plugs are not the same and there should be no assuming.
Again, 20 amp circuits require NEMA 5-20 outlets.
And that would be at 100% efficiency. The truth is probably closer to 90%, at best, so more like 40 hours.
As someone who has messed with airbags more than once, this pearl clutching about “Customer installed airbags” is a bit overwroght and overblown. As long as the circuit is dead its no riskier than chaging a headlight bulb; and if it’s been designed from the start for this, I’m certain they will have appropriate isolation of the ciruit until AFTER the isntall is complete.
I’d bet that they’ll use a connector like is used in HV battery connections that has a continuity loop pins that needs to be engaged before contactors close for the main electrical connection, just in case someone tries to plug them in without disconnecting the battery first. Or there might be even simpler/cheaper ways to idiot-proof the connection process. As long as you add “must be safe to be installed by non-trained personnel” to the requirements document the engineers will figure out a way to do it.
Precisely.
After the hype for the New Beetle, what eventually became the ID7, the neon, yadda, yadda, I’m not going to hold breath, but,
if a fairly simple cheap vehicle comes out of this, I’ll sell the Roadster & buy my first new car
The difference here is that they are not unveiling a concept that will be several years, they are dropping the prototype that is already mostly developed. This is supposedly going on sale next year, so there really isn’t much time for them to change a lot even if they did want to without significant delays, and while I know it’s very de rigueur to delay delay delay with EVs, this one has the backing and was developed enough before the unveiling that it might actually happen.
Is that Sandy Munro’s reflection I see in the photo of the flip-up back window? Makes sense that he would be there.
https://youtu.be/TuFe_zilimw?si=rF1TUwZbDtGHvZ_L
During COVID times, I watched all of Sandy Munro business videos (mostly teardowns) from the couch, and tolerated his umms, ahhs, and general poor communicate style. Things became much worse after Cory Steuben, then president of Munro & Associates, left. Steuben landed at Lucid. Other staff were much better communicators.
Rarely watch Munro videos now due to his overt political views and fawning over famous asshats – talking about things unrelated to EV teardown. He might have a lot of knowledge about practical engineering, Lean Design, etc. and I’ll find that info somewhere else without his pointed cheerleading. Saddened by his YouTube’s channel change in focus.
Honestly I can’t knock the design in any way other than it lacking a 6ft bed.
That being said if it had a 6ft bed I’d get it with the camper top then I’d put a twin memory foam Mattress with sheets, blankets and pillows in it, which kinda defeats the purpose of a pickup, but it sure would be comfy.
It looks like there is some sort of pass through to allow the SUV variant to work, so maybe I can pull the passenger seat and make a platform for one 6ft tall person to be able to sleep on.
Also, de Dion tube?! Of French invention and Italian fame by way of Alfa!?! Yes please!
You’re a way better car person than I am. My immediate thought upon mention of a deDion tube is to imagine more lines when Homer was designing a car:
“How could you ask for it? You don’t even know what it is. You just called it a ‘Celine Dion tube top’ and ‘McPerson shuts'”
“I want you to say the exact opposite of what you just said.” “Hey kids, want to hear how your dad is doing?”
Back when I turned 16 my parents bought a super-basic Mazda truck (only $6995!) so I wouldn’t be driving their cars. Plus my dad thought a small truck would be super handy, which of course it was. This seems like the perfect modern version of that. The only place the comparison falls apart is two years later when I started driving the truck to college – 6 hours away.
This would be a replacement for my Mazda B2600i, so I agree. A Mazda truck was my first car (though that one turned to iron oxide two decades ago) and while I like having one now, it’s not my primary car anymore and so 150-200 range is fine by me.
Thinking the exact same. Small and our basic trucks are so handy. I drove a single cab 5 speed 300/6 F150 in high school. It was a 96, so safe ish with fuel injection for reliability, but really just a tough old school truck underneath. Tought me how to drive stock and how to appreciate what really matters in a vehicle.
Reserved (ordered?) (requested?) mine. Square back with open air SUV. Really hoping it becomes a reality! Currently have a 3ish to 4 car household with 2ish drivers. Oldest child will be a driver is 6 or so years. This would give me time to have my fun with a cheap commuter, that looks like it would be a great/cool first vehicle for a kid as a 2nd life! Loving the concept. Fingers crossed!!
I dig the lowering kit as an option. Off-roading with a pure EV seems suboptimal to me for various reasons, but using it as suburban runabout that I can put dirty stuff in is appealing to me.
Also I LOVE being able to flip up and/or remove the rear window. Here in Orange County, CA, I can get away without running A/C a lot of the time as long as the flow-through ventilation is solid. Plus it gets you one step closer to the feeling of a convertible.
This is exactly what I wanted out of the new Scout. It’s a lot closer to what International offered back in the day. I really want to know more about the SUV conversion, the idea of converting it from SUV mode to pickup mode when you need it is what I’ve advocated for since the end of the OBS Bronco.
This isn’t the vehicle that I need at this point in my life (I’m in the market for a minivan), but I love that this exists. I definitely would have bought one before I had kids and can also see it as a great teenager vehicle. I can see a lot of fun father/kids projects with it. Maybe in a few years I’ll have to pick one up.
DeDion tube makes total sense for an e-pickup, I’d been idly musing on using one for a conversion using a Tesla drive unit with existing leaf springs. I dig torsion bars on the front but MacPherson struts are common and leave room for crash structure and battery below.
Good point about using that DeDion tube for future conversions!
They were always my plan if I converted one of the vans to electric. However I was just going to leave them on leaf springs. As seen below, I was confused as how they would work with control arms.
Yeah, I’m very fuzzy on all of it, it’s more of a “win the lottery” kind of engineering project and currently I’m just thinking of the typical swap a LEAF motor for the engine/clutch and leave alone everything from the manual transmission back.
However… I just noticed that the Tesla Model 3 has the same bolt pattern and GVWR as most Toyota compact pickups, and the modules are long and skinny so they might fit between the frame rails under the bed so…
This thing just makes sense. Hope they don’t bloat it. Like the Maverick making sense under $30k but less over that.
Also…is there a DIN/DoubleDIN blank in the dash for adding tunes, wire chases into the doors, or anything like that? Grown ups don’t want to drive around with a jbl speaker in the cupholder. Send one to Crutchfield for this GenXer
Add an amplifier with a Bluetooth or wired input from the phone or tablet. I’d rather that then a regular car stereo, but then I don’t really listen to terrestrial radio. I’d think there’s probably a way to input AM/FM to a phone but I’ve never looked.
I’d bet a DIN mount could go where the Bluetooth speaker mount goes, and it is set up for wired speakers already.
Lots of radio stations have streams online that would work fine through a cell-phone only setup.
Yes, but only if you have cell service. This is why I still pay for SiriusXM, I spend a fair amount of time traveling where cell signal is spotty at best – usually good enough to get a text through, but not good enough to stream music. North of Santa Barbara and south of Monterey in CA there’s quite a few spots where I can’t stream music.
That brings up a good question – I thought AM radio reception was a legal requirement for a car due to disaster notifications? Maybe there is verbiage that waives the requirement if the car is sold with no radio at all, and no one had thought about that section of the law in 50 years… (That would make a good trivia question – what was the last year a car with ‘radio delete’ option was available to buy in the US?)
Yeah I’d have to think that only applies if a radio is equipped. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like the Chevy/GMC vans still mace a radio delete option.
They offer their own speakers that go in the dash. No word on the compatibility though.
I have so many questions… Can I put a lift on it? Are there attachment points for a skid plate over that motor? How big of a lift can I put on it? Who’s going to buy this thing? Will it fit 33s? How can I buy this thing? Will the culture around this vehicle regress to angry eyes and ducks on the dash? HOW BIG OF A LIFT CAN I PUT ON IT? HOW CAN I BUY THIS THING? WHY WON’T YOU TAKE MY MONEY?
33s and a lift on this will reduce its range markedly. And it’s rear-wheel drive, so it might be a bit pointless.
But if you’re fine with a 90mi-range commuter that looks badass, I can dig that, too.
For a jeep-ish thing, what do you think of a motor/DeDion setup at both ends vs. traditional solid axle with transfer case?
I love it!
I WFH and am close enough to the charge-points in the mountains, so 90 miles of range is plenty. I’d like 4/AWD, but it’s not a deal breaker for now at this price point. Really I just love the idea of a dead-simple cheap ride with enough clearance to get past an obstacle or two with the kids in tow.
Factory Lift and Lowering Kits on the configurer
Was just about to say that. Neither look more than like an inch though and I’m sure you would need more than that to get 33s in there. I want the 17″ wheels and lowered personally though.
Maybe lifted with old school skinny jeep tires for me.
Yeah… I’m happy. 32″ is close enough for what I’m going to do with it. As soon as there’s an 4WD option, I’m in. I wonder if the 4WD Slate can outrun an LM002…
Almost certainly.
This is cool. They should also consider making a delivery van on the same platform. Perhaps it could even be the SUV back but with no windows (or they could even keep the windows but not install the back seats…)
I’d bet you could get just the long roof without seats and a roll bar. You could probably leave the front of the bed divider in place to keep heavy loads out of the passenger compartment, too, and it wouldn’t be hard to see a full height bulkhead accessory made available.
Old school rural route mail jeep?
We need more of this sort of thing in the marketplace, people who understand that sometimes the best engineering is elegant simplification, not excessively complex Rube Goldberg contraptions. I’ve been thinking for a while that the only chance at having a simplified EV is likely converting an older vehicle and trying to deal with the compromises, but now there’s hope that there could be new vehicle options as well that is properly designed from the start.
This is exactly why I threw the $50 at them. I have lots of daydreams of turning old cars into BEV conversions, but not enough time or money to make it happen. And even in the best case, a conversion won’t have a warranty or modern crash and safety features. And it will probably still cost me $20k, time not included.
Wow, we sure are getting a slate of Slate today.
Hopefully it doesn’t start to get Stale
It’s slated to run the news cycle till end of day.
Not a lot of slaty cleavage though.
I don’t know about you, but my thirst for all things Slate is not yet slaked.
Great, so almost none of this is reusable when they go to build a people’s CAR.
Whole new front suspension needed because the cowl line is too high with that strut.
Whole new rear suspension needed because it won’t fit under a low hatch or trunk floor.
Whole new battery pack because it’ll stick out the sides of the car unless you build it as a two-row six-seater.
And it’s almost two tons so the whole crash structure gets redesigned for a 2700 lb car!
The market in America is trucks and SUVs. Compromising for a smaller seller is probably not the move.
I’m a potato. I see four links – axle tube, trailing arms x2, and track bar. Where is the fifth link?
Four links and a track bar! (Sometimes people don’t count the track bar).
The axle tube isn’t a link, it’s what all the links are connecting to. The upper control arms are basically impossible to see in the picture, but they’re there.
Now that’s interesting. Why would a Dion tube with trailing arms need UCAs?
I may be mistaking a Dion tube + trailing arms for a twist-beam style rear axle. If these components are separate and meet only at ball joints/bushings, then okay yeah
It’s basically very short travel trophy truck rear suspension. A rear axle swings in an arc. The upper control arms keep the centerline of the axle vertical through its travel.
I personally look forward to every article about an EV company now being referred to solely with reference to one of their investors.
“The engineering behind the Saudi Wealth Fund’s Lucid Air”
“The engineering behind VW’s Rivian R1T”
“The engineering behind the CCP’s [every Chinese EV]”
I’ll be honest: Nobody’s gonna click “Slate” without his name ahead of it. I’ll admit it’s weird.
Have more faith in your readers!
It doesn’t hurt the headline, and helps the non-car-folks orient themselves on what Slate is.
But your point is valid.
Slate is also the name of a relatively popular, and VERY long running news and opinion website, so it presents a SEO issue in that regard too.
That’s the biggest issue^. Thanks Joe L.
Honestly, the online media landscape has been so hollowed out (as you well know) that Besos might as well buy the Slate website to resolve this issue – it couldn’t possibly cost that much, and he already owns the Washington Post.
Yes – Which is why it took me a while to find the manufacturer’s site and configurator, as the first searches were leading me to the news site.
https://www.slate.auto/en
Yeah and, at least when I looked this morning, Googling “slate truck” produced a bunch of articles about this vehicle, but not Slate Auto’s website itself. I assume that will get fixed at some point.
Same. It took me probably 10 minutes to find the site this morning which is unfortunate for them. A unique name would have helped load in this regard.
Amusingly enough, founded with the money of another tech billionaire: Bill Gates.
We are the daily readers. But a lot of the audience also comes from SEO, social, etc. who might not frequent automotive websites. With Bezo attached, there’s a possibility the audience for this is even broader than normal.
Its interesting because it helps your website get views and helps Bezos’ new investment get more buzz, so I’m sure he likes the headline as well!
To clarify, I am (was?) an occasional contributor for The Autopian. I now have a new job somewhere else, but the comments here are a lot livelier. Plus, I was a reader long before I was a writer, and I will support this crew until the heat (and/or rust) death of the universe.
I’ve cut as much Amazon out of my life as possible (AWS is unavoidable). There are a few weirdos like me who are turned off by the Bezos connection, as tenuous as it might be.
If I had Jeffy B’s billions, I’d keep my name off of this project.
I think it’s his coolest investment, tbh.
I agree. I love this thing, sent in my $50 an hour ago. But I do confess to being disappointed that it’s a Bezos thing. That gets me to wondering, given the infamous working conditions in Amazon warehouses, what are conditions like for the people working to build these Slates? I hope they have good solid union jobs, but given this price point for a domestic factory, that might be impossible. Do you have any insight into this? I’d like to think that the truck’s simplicity allows it to be viable at this price without bottoming out labor compensation, but I honestly have no idea.
I think it’s just his money, not his working conditions. I think.
Hope so. I am given to understand that he’s just an investor, not actually running the company, so maybe his attachment isn’t necessarily cause for that much concern.
Yeah, if the billionaires are going to have an EV pissing match, I guess I’m at least glad one of them decided to fund a cool one I can totally get behind.
Remember when Bezos was all into “Ginger”, Dean Kamen’s top-secret buzz-crazy project that ended up as the Segway?
This is so much better.
That seems like a pretty damning indictment of their branding.
I think it’s totally fine for the introduction of a new car company early on.
Now if two years from now his name is in every headline, yeah I could see that being unnecessary. But in this case his name in the headline implies that this is a project you can take seriously, if only because his money is involved. Especially for some folks clicking from social media or new comp pages, his name gives it enough juice (good or bad) to tell you that you’re not reading about the next Elio.