Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that new cars are too expensive. In the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that situation isn’t looking to get better soon, especially for anyone wanting something battery-powered. Changing that overly spendy status quo is going to take something radical, and it’s hard to get more radical than what Slate Auto has planned.
Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point.
But this is more than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY purpose, an attempt to not just go cheap but to create a new category of vehicle with a huge focus on personalization. That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?
I found the specs a bit interesting. 52.7 kWh battery and a curb weight of 3,600 lbs is nearly identical to the Chevy Bolt, but this only has a range of 150 miles instead of 240. Is it really that much less efficient? The only thing I can think of is the aerodynamics, but that’s a 40% difference.
Also, the “(after federal incentives)” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The basic option for the 2023 Bolt comes out to about $20K after federal incentives, but you get way more range and a bunch of those “luxury” features this is missing. Considering how cheap low-end smart phones are, I have a hard time imagining that infotainment systems actually add more than 1-2% of the cost of the vehicle. Feels more like a type of virtue signal than a real cost-saving measure.
Your vehicle not being yet another surveillance vector can be a selling point.
I mean, I guess, but that’s only a selling point to the small number of people without smartphones, which isn’t a large enough group to make it a sound business strategy.
As I understand it, the aerodynamics can be no joke on EVs. The acceleration is very efficient, there’s very efficient regenerative braking, and an object in motion just continues in motion until there’s a force. That means drag is pretty much where your whole battery charge goes. (I’m not sure how much tire flexing accounts for exactly)
For an example off the top of my head, the Arrow concept car manages 500km by not having side mirrors. Compare that to an ICE engine which wastes most of the fuel energy as heat, but to a widely varying degree depending on design and implemented energy recovery features.
This is generally in line with ice, the drivetrain efficiencies anymore are in the high 90%s (applies to ev too), so from engine out you are losing basically everything to drag.
This is one thing I don’t get for the complaints about EV’s: Drag and towing. You have the same losses in ICE, just that the ICE powerplant is so much worse ‘before’ the drive
Yeah, friction losses scale with angular velocity and not torque, and moving a ton of metal takes torque. Don’t forget the braking losses, though, unless it’s a hybrid of some kind. There’s no turning movement back into fuel the way you can turn it back into electricity.
The point is if you’re looking good range, there’s several dials that can be adjusted on an ICE car, related to the prime mover. On an EV, drag is the start and finish of the considerations (unless you’re going to move it onto rails, maybe). And of course range is a huge deal, because a liter of secondary cell can’t come close to the energy density of a liter of petrol and 38 liters of ambient air.