No touch screens, no telemetry, no cellular modems, no wifi, no apps, no subscriptions, no infotainment.
The Smart ForTwo EV was just what you asked for. It did have a cellular modem. But you could just unplug it very easily.
Honda-san I beg of you, revist your classic designs and drop an electric motor in to them. You will become more rich
Bonus points if you can make it so that all the aftermarket suspension parts that already exist for those classic designs still fit. Ultra-bonus points if the body is externally identical so aero and body mods still fit.
And make it small on the outside and as big as possible on the inside, with the back seats level with the trunk when folded down
My first car was a 2003 Suzuki Ignis and the way the rear seats folded down was the absolute best. It made it act like a small van!
One of the most appealing things about Slate motors is that they seem to lack all the telemetry bullshit.
The least appealing thing about them is that Jeff Bezos is a primary investor.
I’m skeptical they’ll actually come with no telemetry or other forms of anti-features. The investors, like Bezos, will likely push for it. They have a new CEO, who comes from Amazon. There is a federal mandate for all US vehicles to come with driver monitoring technology starting in 2027.
Yeah, I am skeptical about it too. We will have to wait and see I guess.
I’m also wondering how they are going to deal with the requirement for all new cars after 2018 to have a backup camera/screen. Maybe it will just go through the tiny little screen behind the steering wheel?
Edit: I just looked it up. Seems the backup camera will go through the instrument panel screen.
Slate EV
Gas, you say? Are you sure?
How do they generate electricity where you come from?
Mostly coal in the US
Is that where they come from? Because anyone with a wrinkly organ in their skull knows that EV is just gas with extra st3ps
The amount of electricity generated by renewables an ICE car can use is always 0%. That is not true for EVs.
But like a lot more efficient to burn it in a power plant than millions/billions car engines that don’t capture the energy well anyways. And then at least renewables can be used in the power grid as well.
Ok. How well does that work with aging electrical infrastructure in places like Boston or Milan?
I mean, like, I totally get you vibing.
Unfortunately infrastructure was built when the world was new. What we all got is what we get, now and forever.
You improve the infrastructure? And while we’re at it, build more infrastructure for walking, cycling and public transport instead of inducing further demand for cars
So tear it all down?
no telemetry
In 2026?
I’d settle for Android/Apple Auto and no cellular
Steering. You also want steering.
Heated seats are a must if you drive anywhere that gets cold. Saves you a lot of miles. Backup cams are mandated on cars in the US now, and if you’re gonna have a screen, you should probably include some navigation so the car can pre-condition the battery before you get to a charger.
Well, if you’re gonna do those (pretty necessary IMHO) QoL concessions, you might as well give the user the option to integrate it with their phone, so they don’t have to wonder if the car got enough charge, or if some asshole yanked out the plug. If you’re reporting that info to the phone, you can include some controls to start/stop charging or set certian charging targets for certain charging stations. If you’re including controls, you might as well piggyback some basic lock, unlock, pop trunk features to the phone, and if you’re already letting the phone unlock the car, you can pretty easily include proximity unlocking. Since you’ve got a data connection to the phone, you can stream music and data from the car to the phone and vis-versa. You could put in another screen and physical controls for managing the music, but you already have one in the car for the rear cameras anyway, so why not just integrate the whole damn thing and now we’re at most modern features of EVs, minus the goofy handles and driver automation.
I could forgo heated seats before I could a heated steeringwheel
You derived modern EVs by adding a bunch of features I wouldn’t want.
Yes. And steering.
No one uses steering anymore. Too busy watching tiktok on my phone while trying to do my makeup during my morning drive.
So, things you can do on a train or similar transport
Gas?
Accelerator!
From my point of view the steering wheel and brake pedal are accelerators as well.
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct.
Only in combination with a previous third type of accelerator.
Acceleratrix!
Don’t forget honk honk punch, Gas gas gas.
Hitting the gas in an EV is like filming with a digital camera.
My phone has a system app known as a “dialer” despite not having a round dial.
Yeah. Gas [pedal] is used here in the same way the “save” icon is still a floppy disk.
It’s a skeuomorph!
What a fucked up word
it’s easy and convenient?
Fully open hardware and software would be nice. I don’t plan to tinker with it. But it would give peace of mind to know that it can’t be enshittified and that discontinuation of the model will not leave me out of luck for spare parts.
For about $8k you can convert a VW beetle to electric.
On a broader note, this is a failure of capitalism in which products can never be perfected.
There are sooo many technologies that we fully figured out years ago but they can’t just make it optimal and move on.
This is why we have washing machines using internet for whatever reason.
The flip side is the kind of stagnation where you get a soviet-era hunk of junk that’s still in operation, but horribly inefficient.
Associating the soviet union, which before china was the fastest country to ever industrialize, modernize, and innovate past its competition, with stagnation is kinda wild.
They won the space race with 1/10th the budget and more efficient rocket motors. If they saw computers for what the actual potential was like Chile did with project cybersyn, the wall wouldn’t have fallen and a lot of countries would be speaking Russian right now.
I wouldn’t really take the soviet union as example for the flip side tbh
I just meant, “60-year-old rust bucket held together by duct tape and prayers,” but soviet-era was shorter.
Backed by amazon? LOL if you think it won’t still have a cellular radio and full tracking suite installed.
Slate has stated that they will not have a cellular or other type of connection. It does need some type of connection to do software updates, and that will be from your phone using their app to the truck via USB.
They’ve also stated they won’t track your driving data. You can opt in to share data about the truck’s health through the app for servicing purposes, but that’s all. They’ve also promised not to sell any kind of data to third parties.
That could always change, but I’m on the wait list for one and there are people on the slate forums who are serious about privacy and are watching this and seem pretty happy for now.
Slate is the 2nd best choice rn.
First best is buying an older car for cheap and spending some money to repair/upgrade
Not exactly a choice, they don’t actually exist yet.
Software updates via the phone app 😒
That’s better than ICE cars having to go to the dealer to update their software, which is the current industry standard.
I don’t recall the last time my Saturn Ion needed a software update
Given they stopped making them before smart phones were a thing I imagine not, but that’s also why your SiriusXM no longer works if you’re not a brokie and got a level 3 trim.
There’s a reason I said ‘current industry standard,’ things from almost the last century barely qualify as vehicles by modern standards, and your car couldn’t pass a safety inspect for sale in almost any country today.
Think I’d be driving a car that’s old enough to smoke if I wasn’t a brokie?
I was more poking fun at the idea of a car needing software updates in general. It’s like a toaster or a television needing an update. It’s a machine that should be able to perform its functions entirely offline
I’m quite excited for the Slate to be released. Electric truck, optional SUV conversion, decent price, minimum frills, customize it yourself if that’s your thing. That sounds so much better than wheeled tank with built-in privacy concerns.
I just wish there was a version with a full size bed. Not that any of the other light truck options are any better in that regard.
Yeah, I’ve been watching that. It is supposed to start fulfilling orders this year (last I read anyway), but it’ll be at least next year before I can probably look into one. And even then, I’d want to let some other/braver people test them out for reliability and repair-ability.
And it’s only
$20,000…$25000…$30000. soon I’ll have one parked next to my Aptera, and Tesla Roadster.This exactly. Slate sounds nice until you realize they’re asking $30K for a vehicle with manual locks/windows, no fucking radio, and 150 miles of range.
Cars also need to be smaller for the sustainable transition. We need to disconnect ego from car. Consider it’s spending about 95% of its life parked.
Smaller cars or busses. Or trains. Or trams. Or electric bikes. Or push bikes.
Basically there’s lots of options that don’t make it look like you’re going to war.
I don’t like the idea of not having a decent screen for Carplay but I think the upside of this one compared to many other vehicles is that it won’t depreciate as badly. No infotainment to go out of date, etc.
