Slate Truck is a $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen
Slate Truck is a $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen
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.
Instead of steel or aluminum, the Slate Truck’s body panels are molded of plastic. Or, as Slate calls them, “injection molded polypropylene composite material.” The theory is that this makes them more durable and scratch-resistant, if only because the lack of paint means they’re one color all the way through.
By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint shop, Slate’s manufacturing process is massively simplified. So, too, the lack of metal body parts. “We have no paint shop, we have no stamping,”
Plastic with no paint is not going to do well in places like the Southwest. But I’m sure that getting it painted or wrapped won’t be a huge deal.
Many vehicles have some sort of MIC paneling these days. It does fine in the SW.
You can paint it if you’d like.
It does fine for a few years, but eventually starts sun bleaching and looking terrible. Seen a lot of hacks to make it look better, but the plastic still gets brittle and dry. A coat of paint or spray on bed liner does wonders to fight that.
I can't make 150 mile range work. That completely kills this one for me, personally.
Also, if it's 150 mile range, that means it's 100 miles with using the truck bed for light truck stuff, and probably a 75 mile range if it's cold out while doing truck stuff. Be great for a lot of people, but I have to get a 250 range for my viability.
They have a larger battery available.
That's about good enough for my travels right there. They also going to sell a diy wrap kit for $500, but it seems they're not advertising the cost of the battery upgrade.
Someone posted link to Telo trucks,
350 mile range according to the website, footprint is same as a minicooper
Can fit 8' sheets of plywlood or seating for 8 people depending on configuration of the midsection
Model is MT1 that states it.
If this thing is legit its a beast in a small package
Be legit right there. Ima go check it out.
*Edit: Holy shit that's an ugly looking truck. Lol
Still kinda bad ass, but the cool one will cost about $40,000
Seems like half the article is talking about paint.
