| ▲ | coldpie 13 hours ago |
| Good criticism. It looks like the car's EV tech is average at best; definitely not outstanding. That's probably why they don't advertise it strongly, and also probably a big factor in why it's so cheap. They list some details on the Specs page[1]. They quote 200 miles of range, which is not great especially for a small car. They list a 20-80 charge time of 30 minutes so it's probably a 400V architecture, which is becoming outdated as 800V architectures and chargers exist now. Seems like a fine about-town car, but probably not a great one for road trips. I think that probably aligns with the NVH[2] expectations you should have for a car of this price. [1] https://www.slate.auto/en/specs [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise,_vibration,_and_harshnes... |
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| ▲ | WarmWash 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's a fine anything-other-than-5hr+-road-trip car. Which covers 99% of people's daily driving. And frankly even if this thing was gas, it looks brutal to road trip in. A 200mi range means you can comfortably commute an hour to work each day, and then get back and "drive around town" in the evening without any worry. |
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| ▲ | bluGill 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | People buy their vehicles with the 1% use like the 5 hour road trip in mind. The cost of renting a car is high enough that it is cheaper just buy the one you need for everything. That is before you realize that sometimes who show up to pick up your rental car and they don't have anything. | | |
| ▲ | radpanda 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yup. My parents bought a Jeep Cherokee back in the day as the family car rather than something like a Ford Taurus just so they could drive on the beach. That probably only happened a few days a year, but they were beloved outings and made the Jeep worthwhile to them. You could say that it would make more sense to drive a more economical car for most of the year and only rent a Jeep for the beach excursions, but how realistic is that? Most rental car places won’t guarantee much in terms of what sort of vehicle you’ll get. And most forbid offroad driving. It makes sense to a lot of people to buy vehicles for the 1% case if that 1% case is something they really value. | | |
| ▲ | scoofy 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | If every couple had one EV truck for heavy lifting and a small ICE hatchback for long distances, we’d reduce our emissions and our gas bills massively. Most people don’t have to pick an everything vehicle. We all benefit when we focus on maximizing our division of labor. | | |
| ▲ | lastofthemojito 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If every couple had one EV truck for heavy lifting and a small ICE hatchback for long distances Maybe it's because I'm a dad but I can't imagine telling the family, "Roadtrip time! Let's all pack into the smaller car!". When we're taking the long family road trip to the beach or whatever, we always end up with the big car full of boogie boards and pool toys and cooler and beach umbrella, etc. Bigger cars with longer wheelbases tend to be more comfortable on the highway as well. The folks I know who do the ICE/EV split household like you've mentioned tend to do the opposite. Dad has a small EV for a cheap and easy commute to work and Mom has an ICE (or hybrid) SUV or minivan that gets used for the long road trips as well as daily errands (but Mom doesn't rack up enough miles for the cost of gas to be much of a worry). There also seems to be less willingness from women (at least in the US) to make the switch to full EVs. | | |
| ▲ | scoofy 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yea, I just think that's a luxury for folks who have plenty of money. When you're basing your use case on 1% of use, then you're buying a luxury car, but pretending it's practical. A practical plan is a diversion of labor that maximizes the best and most frequent use cases. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is how most of the middle class in the US works. Now granted the US middle class is well off by world standards but they don't consider it luxury they consider it normal. | | |
| ▲ | scoofy an hour ago | parent [-] | | Yes, and at the same time they are whinging about the price of automobiles and gasoline. Preferences are driven by culture in the short run and by practicality in the long run. |
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| ▲ | WarmWash 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The weighing though is "and extra hour per 5 hours driven, cost of a rental, savings using an EV (time and money) the other 99% of the time". For example, my boss, who has a 1.5 hour driving commute, refuses to get an EV because he drives a 750mi road trip once a year. In order to avoid spending an extra 3 hours for this road trip, he shoulders all the additional gas costs (and many more than 3 hours spent driving to and sitting at gas stations annually) and then service costs of owning a gas car on top. The guy is trading $2500+ a year and 20 hours a year fueling, to save 3 hrs on a single road trip. Totally illogical. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | It is a reasonable bet that your boss has a "wife" who is also driving a car every day. Which is to say they could have an EV for the closer trips and whoever really is doing the long trip that day can get the gas car. Or a PHEV works well in this situation, my wife has that and it saves more than $200/month in gas since we now only fill 1/month. |
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| ▲ | 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | coldpie 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 100% agreed, yup :) |
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| ▲ | officeplant 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > probably a 400V architecture, which is becoming outdated as 800V architectures and chargers exist now. Good luck getting 800V mode to kick on half of the time if you ask most US drivers of 800V architecture EV's. Most of the networks I see with 800V capabilities are also the most expensive per KW of electricity by 10-20 cents a KW. I'd much rather stick to 400V platforms for the next decade before we get serious expansion of modern charging networks in the US. |
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| ▲ | bryanlarsen 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Many 800V vehicles have a split pack that can charge in parallel at 400V or series at 800V so they don't charge extremely slowly at 400V. Those are fine. |
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| ▲ | tristor 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I pretty much concur with your take. I'm interested in this because I sometimes need a truck, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on an oversized gigantic vehicle I don't really need to have a truck the sometimes I need it. For me, that is mostly to go to the home store and back w/ materials, which is something I expect to do more regularly near the tail end of this summer onward as I ramp up my carpentry hobby. That 200 mile range is fine for me, because the closest home store is just 2.1 miles away from my house. The flip side of that is over the holiday weekend I drove more than 250 miles to go visit my folks for Father's Day, which is just a couple of hours driving each direction. That's not even a long drive, that's a fairly normal weekend mini-roadtrip. It's not unusual for me to sometimes drive to the office in the next city over for meetings, and that's 116 miles from my house, where I work from home hence having significantly shorter typical driving experiences than most Americans. That next city over is a place where quite a lot of folks work and commute daily. 200 miles is definitely on the short side of acceptable range in the US. Maybe it's just a Texas thing, but driving a hundred miles or more in a single direction is a typical behavior for many people under a variety of circumstances when you expect to return on the same day. This state also has the largest market for truck sales in the US. |
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| ▲ | officeplant 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | To be fair texas also has a fairly decent amount of charging stations at this point as well. I road trip my E-Transit from South Louisiana to Austin/Dallas all the time. Does it suck? Yeah kinda, but stopping every 1.5 hours to charge isn't so bad once you get used to it. I hate road tripping in ICE cars now that can go 500 miles on a tank of gas and no one wants to stop to pee and stretch every few hours. | |
| ▲ | coldpie 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | FWIW I just rent a truck from the home center when I need to do that two or three times a year. Small hassle but a lot easier than owning a whole vehicle. | | |
| ▲ | tristor 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's what I do now, but as I spend more time on a hobby that requires trips for materials, it becomes unreasonable to do that. I am not quite at the break point where I think buying a truck makes sense, but I could see that happening by the end of this year. For those wondering, Home Depot rents pickups for $20/day if you are not leaving the immediate area of the store (the metro pretty much). | | |
| ▲ | alamortsubite 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | A 4x8 trailer is also a great option, if you have a place to keep one, and super cheap. I have a Thule that stands on end in the garage. Trailers are a lot easier to load and unload than an American pickup, too. It seems like every time I take mine to the Home Despot I see someone struggling to get materials into their SUV or short-bed pickup, and I'm in and out in a flash. Just don't expect to win any races driving in reverse. |
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| ▲ | rjsw 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| That range is typical for European mass-market EV cars. |
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| ▲ | coldpie 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's cool. This is a US market vehicle. The geography of the US is very, very different from Europe, so I don't think expectations for the European market are terribly useful for a US market vehicle. Have a play around with https://thetruesize.com and https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen . 200mi is definitely acceptable in the US, but it's on the low end of the acceptable spectrum. | | |
| ▲ | vel0city 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah all of us Americans drive 200mi+ each way nine days a week 'cause the average house is on a 2,000 acre ranch. People often really overestimate their driving habits. Some Americans would absolutely be heavily impacted by a vehicle with a vehicle with 200mi range on a good day. A ton of Americans would never really be affected. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That is 200 miles in perfect conditions. Last winter I tried to make a 120 mile trip in my EV and I didn't make it despite having a claimed 220 miles of range when I left. I realized in time to make it to a charger (this was in a very rural area there were few gas stations), but it was a slow level 2 - an hour having lunch someplace other than where I would have chosen and I was able to get home but the car switched to power saving mode for the last mile. 200 miles in perfect conditions is the minimum anyone should accept. Just like in winter I never let my gas tank go below 1/4 tank - in case I get stuck and need to run the engine for heat while waiting for help. You should plan to only run between 20% and 80% battery, which means your 200 mile range is already 120 miles of useful range in perfect conditions. | | |
| ▲ | officeplant 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The Slate got swapped to LFP so you can take it down to 10% without care. I take my E-Transit down to single digits because I gotta make this 130 miles of range work for me. I max out around 80 miles between stops during winter road tripping. The EV life is just getting used to planning ahead of time like the old days again. I always pull up the route on ABRP app, and check its suggestions on plugshare for recent issues if I'm driving somewhere I haven't before. | |
| ▲ | vel0city 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I agree with your take, hence my "on a good day" part of the comment. For a lot of people, 200mi of on a good day range on an EV probably isn't enough. In fact, for a number of people who drive a good bit in very cold climates, I don't think an EV will make sense for them without some pretty radical changes in battery energy density. The fact an ICE throws off so much waste heat is such a feature and not a negative in some climates. Not everyone lives in the rural parts of the North though. In fact, most of the country doesn't. |
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| ▲ | vablings 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Americans specifically overestimate driving habits. There is the odd occasion that a requires a very long drive but that drive once or twice a year shouldn't weigh as heavily as it does for most people. | |
| ▲ | coldpie 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Yeah all of us Americans drive 200mi+ each way nine days a week 'cause the average house is on a 2,000 acre ranch. I never claimed that. > People often really overestimate their driving habits. I agree, and like I said I think 200mi is acceptable. But people do like driving in the US. I used to go up to Brainerd from the Twin Cities regularly; that's 135 miles each way. This is not uncommon, lots of people here like to do short road trips up north on holiday weekends. Sometimes I even did both directions in a single day. My 300mi Ioniq 5 could probably do that whole trip on a single charge, maybe with a short stop to bump it up, which will be fast thanks to the 800V architecture. But the 200mi range would take at least one full charging stop, possibly two, which will also be slower thanks to the slower architecture. Like I keep saying, I don't think 200mi is a deal killer, but it's also definitely a con for the US market. But it keeps the price low, which is definitely the focus here and means it slots nicely into the 2nd family car budget. Nothing's perfect; I still think it's a cool product and will be keeping my eye on it. | | |
| ▲ | vel0city 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I used to go up to Brainerd from the Twin Cities regularly; But you're going to stop somewhere along that path already, right? You're not driving straight there and immediately turning around and leaving right? I've done several road trips between DFW, Houston, and Austin in an EV with ~200mi of range and a 400V pack. The DFW<->Houston trip is nearly 300mi. Compared to my average trip time in my gas cars, its about an extra 15-20 minutes on a four and a half hour drive. I was going to stop for lunch on that four and a half hour drive anyways. Oh no such a massive impact on my life, spending an extra 20 minutes a few times a year. Meanwhile I spend hours a year going to gas stations and pumping gas for my gas cars that get fewer miles. | | |
| ▲ | coldpie 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > But you're going to stop somewhere along that path already, right? Honestly, no, I didn't. It's only 2 hours. Having to stop for a 30+ minute charge in each direction would add a significant amount of time to the trip. I don't really understand why you're being so aggressive about this. We are almost entirely agreeing. 300mi is a selling point for buyers because it means an easier time doing 100+ mile road trips, which are not uncommon in the US. More range is a tick in the "pro" column when comparison shopping, and it could convince someone to buy a car other than this one. That's all I'm saying. | | |
| ▲ | gravatron 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | All this guy has done for 2 days is make bad arguments in car posts. I don't think he is a very happy person. | |
| ▲ | vel0city 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Having to stop for a 30+ minute charge in each direction would add a significant amount of time to the trip. Sure it would, but why would you? It would be more like one 20 minute charge in Brainerd. Maybe a half hour if you want some extra buffer. And that's assuming you're unable to charge wherever you're staying. | | |
| ▲ | coldpie 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well I mean yeah. That's exactly my point, you don't have to do that with the 300mi range. I think 300mi is the "sweet spot" where you're probably going to stop anyway to take a break or whatever, or your trip will be done already, so charging isn't really an issue. 200mi feels on the short side to me, and I think my Brainerd trips are a good example of the difference that 100mi difference makes. | | |
| ▲ | vel0city 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | And my point is people will often overestimate their needs, like suggesting for that few times a year road trip they'll need to stop twice for probably an hour or more on their trip when in reality it'd be more like one twenty minute stop. |
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| ▲ | 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | SoftTalker 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lots of places in the USA outside of major metros don't have much in the way of fast-charging infrastructure yet. I'd have to drive nearly 30 minutes outside my "everyday" travel area to get to the closest one. I don't know about Twin Cities - Brainerd but it sounds like a lot of drives in the USA: 100 miles of corn fields between two somewhat interesting end points. | | |
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| ▲ | dismalaf 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No one buys for their average daily commute. They buy for the longest drive they'll do in a day, which is typically wherever they go for their summer vacation and/or hobbies on the weekend. | | |
| ▲ | vel0city 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've gone on lots of 1,000mi+ road trips. I guess I need to focus on buying cars with 1,000+mi range. | | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | And I'm guessing you bought a vehicle with enough space for all the things you'll take on that road trip right? Odds are you didn't buy a Prius and rent an SUV for your road trip... Range doesn't matter for ICE vehicles because of the speed of refueling and ubiquity of gas stations. And you know this. | | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I've done 2000 mile road trips in an EV. It added 15 minutes to the 3 day trip. Charge overnight or while you're eating or bathrooming. Only once did I actually have to wait for the charger. | |
| ▲ | vel0city 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've never owned a Prius, but I've known several Prius owners. Several of them have gone on some quite long road trips, several >1,000mi. I don't get why an SUV is required to go on a road trip for a couple of adults. People often fly for travel, do you really take significantly more stuff in the car than you do when you fly? Do you normally need a thousand pounds of clothes to go away for a week or two? I've gone on several 1,200mi each way road trips in cars like a Honda Accord and a Ford Focus hatch. A couple of those in that Focus hatch even carried four adults in the car. I just put a little luggage rack on the back. It's not like you need a giant SUV to drive a few hundred miles. I can assure you smaller cars can make that drive as well! Range doesn't really matter past a certain point for a ton of people. Few vehicles even go on massive road trips these days. Traveling with my little kids these days, we end up stopping just about as much in our ICE as we do on in our EV on road trips. As I've mentioned here many times, the amount of time I spend "charging" my ICE dwarfs the amount of time I spend charging my EV, and my EV gets significantly more miles. Even with road trips factored in. More proof people massively overestimate their vehicle needs. Thinking you need an SUV to go on a road trip, that a Prius just can't possibly be enough. | | |
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| ▲ | pc86 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The US is bigger. |
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