The “Great Slate Debate” as I’ve just coined it, has gripped the automotive community, and there’s no way of escaping it, at least, this week. Everywhere you turn, work Slacks and chats, social media, even non-automotive friends are talking about it — or the latter is asking questions, since you are undoubtedly an expert now. And it’s fair. When (and if) Slate Auto’s truck does come to production and a friend’s garage near you, it will be one of the cheapest vehicles on the market, never mind the cheapest EV. It’s sad that a slightly sub $25,000 truck is the cheapest vehicle you can buy without purchasing a shoebox on wheels. Or the Changli. Remember the Changli?
Slate confirmed that the power window upgrade on its cheap truck is dead, leaving the window crank your one and only option. The change has fueled an almost all-morning discussion in our Slack chat concerning the difference of features you can get, or give up on, when you decide to purchase a Slate Truck. Think about it, for only a few extra thousand dollars difference (under $5K) you get a whole lot more with Ford’s Maverick. Is the price difference enough to forgo all of our now “common” luxuries and features to have the bare bone interior that promises a slightly lower car payment with the Slate?
It got me thinking, what features would we be willing to give up to make our modern cars cheaper?
Honestly, all of them
I would give up most all of them. As an elder millennial, I started driving in cars with bench seats and hand crank windows. I remember when you had to manually turn a dial in cars to “scan” radio stations. The only features I pine for in a car are heated seats and working A/C: luxuries, yes, but arguably necessary ones to survive West Michigan’s unpredictable lake effect weather patterns.
The “simplest” new vehicle I’ve come across tech and features-wise was my 2022 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited we purchased some years back. Sure it had leather heated seats, a touchscreen, and bluetooth audio. But the seats were manual. The safety features were limited to blind spot and backup-related. It felt relatively bare-boned compared to the new vehicles I was driving at the time (via Jalopnik), and I was elated. In our newest vehicle, it’s not even an option to turn off some of the most obnoxious safety features.
Why can’t we just have something dynamic and delightful to drive with a little personality sans the distractions? Full stop.
In the spirit of 86-ing features automakers use to lure you into purchasing their technological behemoths on wheels, what would you sacrifice to get a cheaper car on the modern market? Subscription features? Connectivity? Tell me what you’d sacrifice to the car gods in the comments below. Maybe one of these automakers might see it and take some notes. I doubt it, but we can always dream.
