Comment by hylaride

Comment by hylaride 2 days ago

45 replies

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> Yes, definitely. It being a 2 seater is kind of a deal breaker for families.

What you need is not a pickup truck. Catering to families means expensive bells and whistles, like entertainment systems, etc.

> Back in the day, we'd stuff 3 kids between two adults, but these days the Safety People would have a heart attack just thinking about that.

Rightfully so. Back in the day we did so many things we shouldn't have, and survivorship bias makes us default to thinking it was ok. As kids, we used to go barrelling down dirt roads in the back of pickups or played in the backs of station wagons. There's a reason automobile deaths have gone down.

RandomBacon 2 days ago

> Catering to families means expensive bells and whistles, like entertainment systems, etc.

It absolutely does NOT mean those things.

Cars didn't have entertainment systems for nearly a century and families did just fine.

<Get off my lawn>

My entertainment system was the window. Observe the world, not just whatever AI-generated garbage some algorithm pushes to a small screen 8-10 inches away from your eyes.

</Get off my lawn>

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  • ethbr1 2 days ago

    And aside from a window, you know what's better than a car infotainment system?

    A physical holder for a personal pad device.

    The amount of not-invented-here, duplicate functionality that car companies execute poorly, when buyers already have devices that do that well, is ridiculous.

    The biggest benefit of aligning manufacturing costs for profit should be jettisoning the "post-sale" revenue streams that drive complicated built-in tech for current cars.

    And also, you-know, 100% A+ on getting back to "customize your own car, because it's cheap and supported"!

    Owners being afraid of doing what they want with their devices/vehicles has to stop.

    Reply View 5 replies
    • FredPret 2 days ago

      > The amount of not-invented-here, duplicate functionality that car companies execute poorly, when buyers already have devices that do that well, is ridiculous.

      Like when GM invented their own computer to put into their cars instead of just buying one off the shelf decades ago

      Reply View 0 replies
    • looofooo0 2 days ago

      Lol, yes we just throw a phone and a Tablet with headphones to the kids.

      Reply View 3 replies
  • avn2109 2 days ago

    Yes! By far the biggest feature here is "no infotainment" which leads directly to "hard controls for HVAC," that alone is a killer feature! They should double down on that concept and make the truck work perfectly with no apps at all and no OtA updates too.

    Reply View 8 replies
    • palata 2 days ago

      No OTA updates would be a killer.

      What is the need for OTA updates for an EV, once you remove the autopilot and touch screen? Genuinely interested, I would guess there is none, right?

      Reply View 7 replies
      • ryandrake 2 days ago

        Patches and OTA updates just scream "We know ahead of time our product is defective." Arguably OK for software (but I'd argue not), but not even remotely OK for cars.

        Reply View 2 replies
      • seattle_spring 2 days ago

        OTA updates are considered bad? What?

        OTA updates on my truck have vastly improved suspension response and cruise-control/ lane-assist features. My wife's car has had OTA updates that improve her cars charging curve, and have implemented recalls for stuff like brake light response when regen braking.

        Sure one could say these things should have worked perfectly from the factory, but that's not realistic: not with my cars, not with your cars, and not with this new brand either.

        The only alternative I see here is the old fashioned way of having to bring it to a dealership. I would rather have an entire foot of ingrown toenails over dealing with dealership service centers of any brand.

        Reply View 0 replies
      • reaperducer 2 days ago

        What is the need for OTA updates for an EV, once you remove the autopilot and touch screen? Genuinely interested, I would guess there is none, right?

        Yes, and no.

        I've only started following this recently, but a lot of OTA updates aren't just bug fixes, they're additional features.

        My wife's car recently got a free OTA update which upgraded her radio to get HD stations. A previous update allowed her car to start recognizing more types of School Zone and Night Speed signs.

        I've read that every year (February, I think) Tesla pushes out a big update that adds features. However, the last two Tesla pushes included a bunch of features that came standard with my wife's (much cheaper) car years ago.

        You could certainly argue that her car should have come with HD Radio enabled from the start, and ditto for the Tesla features. But to suppose that all OTA car updates are nothing more than more invasive tracking and bug fixes is not strictly correct.

        Reply View 2 replies
  • hylaride 2 days ago

    > It absolutely does NOT mean those things.

    I don't personally disagree with you, but today it pretty much does.

    Anyways, my point is that this is designed as a utilitarian, cheap truck that covers the use case that most pickup trucks are actually utilitarian for, like local farm or light duty construction work. It's got a short range, no entertainment for long drives, etc. The article doesn't even say if it has AC (Slate's site seems to have images that allude to it having it).

    The OP wants something for families, which exists and costs more because most families want more. They want good, cheap, and available when you can only have two. Even with gas/diesel powered trucks, there's a huge difference between the utilitarian ones construction workers and farmers buy and beat up and the expensive "luxury" quad-cabs that families now buy because minivans are too uncool.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • taylodl 2 days ago

      If you consider a fur baby a family! :)

      I want something much more utilitarian than what is being pitched to today's families. If you want a Quad Cab, Infotainment systems, and yadda, yadda, yadda - the market already has options. Lots of them.

      If you want a cheap, light duty truck similar to what a Chevy S10 or a Ford Ranger used to be, then you're pretty much SOL.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • crazygringo 2 days ago

    > My entertainment system was the window. Observe the world...

    The world is pretty freaking boring when it's just pavement and the 5,000th time you've passed the same strip mall, gas station, and McDonald's. The same dirty snowbanks on either side of the same gray asphalt under the interminably gray winter sky.

    Maybe you lived in a place of wonderful natural beauty, or a vibrant urban street culture. A lot of people don't.

    Reply View 10 replies
    • hollerith a day ago

      I concede that the way much of the US looks from car windows might be bad for people's mental health, but I doubt any of the badness is prevented by playing music or listening to podcasts in the car.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • robocat 2 days ago

      Some interesting people find your examples interesting: perhaps native to their personality.

      However I strongly believe we can cultivate fascination with the droll.

      A gray worldview might possibly say more about you.

      Is a gray grain of sand interesting? Blaming a local world for being boring seems overly negative.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • myself248 2 days ago

      Boredom is not fatal. Bring it on.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • crazygringo a day ago

        So you're cool with living in extreme poverty because it's not "fatal"? "Bring it on"?

        Lots of things that aren't fatal are still very undesirable.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • myself248 a day ago

          Boredom is so essential to human mental health, that after we automated it away with the industrial revolution, we had to reinvent it (we call it "meditation" now) to stay sane.

          Being alone with your thoughts for a few minutes is not in the same class as being unable to afford food or medicine. Get out, troll, this isn't Reddit.

          Reply View 0 replies
    • reaperducer 2 days ago

      The world is pretty freaking boring when it's just pavement and the 5,000th time you've passed the same strip mall, gas station, and McDonald's. The same dirty snowbanks on either side of the same gray asphalt under the interminably gray winter sky.

      And yet, somehow the children survived and thrived.

      They learned to make up games, to entertain themselves, and to -- perish the thought -- talk to other human beings in their own family! /shudder/

      Reply View 4 replies
      • crazygringo 2 days ago

        Did they?

        I hate to tell you, but a lot of them didn't thrive. Some of them didn't even survive. Some of them didn't have families that particularly want to talk to them. Or when they were spoken to, it wasn't exactly healthy.

        Just because maybe you had a great childhood, doesn't mean everybody did.

        Reply View 3 replies
  • hermitcrab 2 days ago

    >Cars didn't have entertainment systems for nearly a century and families did just fine.

    ARE WE THERE YET? ... ARE WE THERE YET? ... ARE WE THERE YET?

    Reply View 2 replies
  • kebokyo 2 days ago

    I respect the “old person yelling at clouds” disclaimer lmao.

    Honestly, I got bummed when I found out this was an electric vehicle, I wish there wasn’t a chance for my vehicle to get bricked through an over-the-air update, and I personally would like to have a basic stereo with an aux input just so I can listen to FM stations or Spotify while I haul a bunch of DIY materials around without having to install my own speakers.

    My friend keeps telling me to get a truck for my next vehicle, and while this truck doesn’t make the cut for me, hopefully future trucks made either by Slate Auto or other manufacturers inspired by them will add juuuust the right amount of creature comforts to win me over.

    Reply View 1 reply
  • tekla 2 days ago

    Kids will return to imagining Sonic running along the car

    Reply View 3 replies
    • parpfish 2 days ago

      you mean "finger-man running on the side of the road and jumping over buildings"?

      we would've called it parkour if we had known what parkour was back then

      Reply View 0 replies
    • RandomBacon 2 days ago

      I never heard it quite put that way, but yes, I did something very similar.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • ethbr1 2 days ago

      {insert Sonic ring sound in your head}

      Reply View 0 replies
Beijinger 2 days ago

Is written in the article that it can fit more seats. And if you click through the pics you will see it.

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7speter 2 days ago

Station wagons from the prehistoric era were family cars and had bench seats, and only had a Radio…

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drivingmenuts 2 days ago

> Yes, definitely. It being a 2 seater is kind of a deal breaker for families

I believe I saw there are plans for some sort of SUV conversion.

> Catering to families means expensive bells and whistles, like entertainment systems, etc.

IF it could just get a bluetooth signal from an iDevice or some Android thing, that would probably suffice for a basic option. If the owner needs more than than, let them install (or have installed) some sort of third-party infotainment head of some sort.

Back in the old days, cars sometimes had a single speaker and that was plenty sufficient for listening to music.

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