[Animats]

This seems to fill a useful niche, but may be too downscale. Remember the Tata Nano.[1] Tata built a basic car with a price below 1 lahk, but it didn't sell.

In the US, there's Slate, which claims to be making a small electric pickup truck. "Preorders will start on June 24, 2026. First deliveries are slated for late 2026." [2] Price in the US$20K range, they claim. Claimed range is 150m with the base model battery. A larger battery is available. It's America's answer to the kei car. If it ships and keeps shipping.

Detroit got way too much into the "more car per car" thing. Chevrolet once had the slogan "basic transportation". They lost sight of that market. The giant pickups are just silly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano

[2] https://www.slate.auto/en

[kelseyfrog]

> Claimed range is 150m with the base model battery.

Surely 150km

[Animats]

Sorry, 150 miles. Not km, Slate is a US company.

[timbit42]

The abbreviation for miles is mi.

[1234letshaveatw]

Are we just ignoring data now? Giant pickups have silly sales- silly in the crazy high sense of the word. I love my EV but I have never wished for less range. The Slate is a toy for the wealthy, like kitted up Jeeps that have snorkels

[toast0]

If it shows up in the suggested price range, it's going to one of the least expensive new vehicles on the market.

Yes, it has less utility than many other vehicles in many ways, but the bed length (5 ft) is longer than a lot of trucks I see on the road which enables carrying certain kinds of loads that aren't easy in cars or trucks with very short beds as seems fashionable now.

150 miles isn't a ton of range, but it's 50% more than a first generation Leaf and those sold.

The Slate clearly isn't trying to check all the boxes, but every vehicle doesn't need to try to do everything.

[yellowapple]

Giant pickups have silly sales because pickups in general have silly sales and there are basically zero non-giant options in the US market (thanks, Chicken Tax, very cool).

The Slate would be the absolute perfect truck for me if it had a 4WD option. Being RWD-only is the only thing making me unwilling to replace my Tacoma with it.