• innermachine@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Do u have any better recommendations for EVs available in the USA that don’t have a rich dickhead involved? The slate truck looks very appealing I’m not gonna lie!

      • DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip
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        9 hours ago

        Is the Rivian owner an asshole too? I don’t know enough about him honestly that’s the only one I’m not too familiar with.

        The Nissan leaf is always an option though they seem to be well received. And the bigger model one of the Nissan electric line I can’t remember the name.

  • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Why do EV companies keep trying to make electric trucks, it seems like the least efficient form when it comes to getting long range out of a car, is it that insecure American men won’t buy a ev if it wasn’t in the gender affirming shape of a truck

  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Something about this vehicle not mentioned: Because of the easily replaced plastic panels, insurance should be a lot less expensive.

    But of course, meth heads are going to start stealing panels now.

  • krisevol@lemmus.org
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    1 day ago

    The original price of 24950 included the federal tax rebate. This is why they used cheaper batteries and other cost cutting to try to keep the price the same. The rebates are gone.

      • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        Yeah I don’t have a problem with giving credit to engineers if it’s a good thing like this. It’s when it directly gives evil people like that more wealth and power.

        Jeff Bezos is a very evil man and I don’t want to touch or support anything that benefits him with a million foot pole.

        Imagine if it were Musk or Trump or worse. I have a hard time accepting that, ethically.

        I love trucks, and the electrification of everything, sustainable infrastructure and energy. But it has to serve the wellness and the future of the people, not a fucking evil billionaire who is going to turn around and choke us all to death as slaves while the takes over the world.

        And as much as I really love stuff like this, engineering and sociologically, and would have idolized this as a teenager and bought it blindly could I have afforded it then, I’m an adult now and have a pretty strong sense of social responsibility to my fellow citizens and the future wellness of both people individually and society. And I just… It’s really hard to justify buying or advertising or supporting or even wanting stuff like this if the net outcome is just gonna be the same old, same old.

        Like, I don’t want a Tesla anymore. Not only because their quality has dropped SIGNIFICANTLY, but also because the company refused to drop musk after all of his literally political interference and throwing up multiple sig heils or heil hitlers or whatever the fucking Nazi salute.

        So when I ask “is this Jeff Bezos’s truck?” And the answer is “he’s an investor”, I really don’t think anybody should be promoting it or talking about it irresponsibly without considering the ethical concerns and track records of these far alt right billionaire backed corporations.

        And unfortunately, I still see way too much of it.

        I get that people are sick of horrible shit and life is short and these are nice things… But repeated exceptionalism and social irresponsibility are EXACTLY how we got here in the first place. I’m disgusted, disappointed, frustrated, angry, and sad.

        I need good news. Not head-in-sand and keep-shitting-in-the-house-because-it-feels-good.

        • DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip
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          9 hours ago

          I do understand what you are saying. I do.

          But its impossible to not benefit some greedy dickhead CEO of a corporation in one way or another. Anything you buy will do that. Some companies are better than others but there’s no avoiding having the money go to bad actors in some way shape or form in the end. Its all venture capital companies and billionaire ceos all the way down.

          Its been designed to be this way.

        • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          20 hours ago

          I’m sure Bezos is broadly invested across the entire market. If you’re buying anything from any publicly traded company, you’re giving Bezos some money.

          • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            17 hours ago

            We need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Burn out the cancer. If we can’t plug the leak, it’s time for a new boat.

              • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                15 hours ago

                That’s kind of a shitty argument though. Because I don’t think we should just give up. We have to at least try.

                But also, when society is this fucked, this deeply, by this type of cancer… It’s systemic and we’re heading in a very dark direction. People are going to starve to death no matter what, and compared to full on ww3, I think at some point we need to head it off, identify and cut out the cancer, and try our best to not let corruption back into the power vacuum.

                None of this is easy. Not easy to do, not easy to talk about, not easy to even think about. It’s uncomfortable. And many won’t agree. But until society isn’t ratfucking select parts of itself and enriching evil people, I think there’s some structural improvement to be had. The real question, then, is how far down do we need to go? How deep do these shitty roots with a stranglehold on all of us go?

        • Mountainaire@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I don’t want to touch or support anything that benefits him with a million foot pole.

          I hate to break it to you, but probably over half the websites you go to are powered by AWS, Amazon Web Services.

          • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            17 hours ago

            I know. I wish it weren’t that way, and I think it important we all strive for better alternatives.

        • WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          At that point you might as well consider every possible publicly traded company as benefitting Jeff Bezos.

        • Nouvellalia@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Can you recommend an electric truck for me that doesn’t have the stink of men who have raped the planet, children, or exploited the poor?

    • fisch@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      But those are usually 5-seaters while this looks like a two seater. And it doesn’t have a trunk, just this weird truck bed that does nothing to protect your stuff against the weather. I like the design philosophy of this truck, but I’d argue that you get much more value out of a compact car.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        just this weird truck bed that does nothing to protect your stuff against the weather

        That’s what’s called a pickup truck bed.

        • fisch@lemmy.world
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          Sorry, my European brain cannot fathom how such a pickup truck bed could be useful in daily life.

          • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            20 hours ago

            How could such a bed be useful? They’re incredibly useful!

            They’re useful to load things quickly. Awkward objects can be placed in the beds without having to carefully maneuver around a vehicle interior and all its obstructions. I do a lot of woodworking. Before we got a pickup, I would transport 2x4s and other lumber inside a Toyota Corolla. I’ve discovered it is actually possible to fit several dozen 8 foot long 2x4s inside a Corolla. But the pickup truck is such a better tool for the job. Plus you’re not moving a full sized sheet of plywood in a sedan.

            They’re useful fit to large objects that would never fit inside a vehicle. If properly strapped down, a pickup can transport an object much taller than the roof of the truck.

            They’re useful to move really dirty things you wouldn’t want in your car interior. Imagine you want to fill some garden beds with mulch or compost from a garden supplier. You could get it in small bags, but that would be expensive. It’s cheaper to buy in bulk. You could have them deliver it, but that would be more expensive still. If you need to move soil, compost, rock, or anything else dirty in bulk, a pickup is the way to do it. You can have the garden center fill your truck bed with a back hoe. Just dump it right into the bed. Then shovel it out when you get home. To clean out the bed, all you have to do is hose it off.

            Now, this is pickups in general. We have a mid-2000s Ford Ranger, which is much smaller than the trucks all the big American manufacturers are selling today. A small pickup is a great utility tool. A giant one is a pointless penis extender.

          • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Go to the garden store, buy 20 bags of mulch, sling them on the back, drive home. Or go to the drive-in theater and lay blankets in the back! Or put a kayak in the back and leave the tailgate down.

            That’s my use case anyway.

            • RobotsLeftHand@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Go camping and just throw all the dirty stuff in the back to clean at home. Take all the yard clippings to the mulcher without having to bag them or keep a pile on the curb. I have a hard tonneau cover so sometimes I like keeping my tools under there if I have to park in the city without worrying about people seeing the valuables through a window.

              People like to say truck owners never use their trucks but I use mine constantly. I’m camping at least 12-15 weekends per year, hauling yard equipment, kayaking, helping people move, and all in a midsized truck.

              • almost_genocide@lemmy.world
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                16 hours ago

                I don’t really hear people say that about tacomas or equally sized trucks. Moreso the bigger ones and usually they don’t have a scratch on them.

            • greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo
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              15 hours ago

              So… a fiesta then? How many times a year do you need to haul 20 bags of mulch? Do you not have a trailer hitch?

              Still not seeing the daily need for something so agricultural. I don’t drive a unimog to the grocery store.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              23 hours ago

              Go to the garden store, buy 20 bags of mulch

              I can’t afford a car, but I’ve got a house with a yard that needs that much mulch?

              • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                I’m sorry? We have an acre that we’re converting from all grass to trees, shrubs, herbs, crops, and wildflowers.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  8 hours ago

                  You can get a flatbed pickup for $25k if it’s not brand new. And it does the job just as well as whatever this thing is.

                • greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo
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                  15 hours ago

                  People act like the home depot wont deliver, and that trailers don’t exist and that they have to daily a pickup so that they can move mulch once a year.

                  My brother in christ its a codpiece for insecure people. What you need is a fiesta, rented/borrowed/shared utility trailer and a removable tow ball.

          • greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo
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            15 hours ago

            I love how riled you got them.

            Pickups are big, stupid and wasteful. And not pedestrian-friendly. Just get a van-based tipper truck if you really need to haul mulch or waste.

            The Americans have a pickup-truck based cognitive blind-spot and really cannot see it any other way.

      • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        and the point of the truck is that it’s highly modular, if you want more seats it’s made to add them in

        • fisch@lemmy.world
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          Okay, I won’t pass judgment until I see the actual real-life price of the truck with the modification for an additional row of seats and can compare that to other car models.

  • Jhex@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    As Canadian…

    American company?, nope

    Owned by Bezos?, hell nah

      • Jhex@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Slate raised at least $111 million in Series A financing, including an undisclosed amount from Bezos. Slate then raised $600 million in 2024 from Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and CEO of Guggenheim Partners, Jeff Bezos, and General Catalyst, a venture capital firm.[5] In mid-2026, the company said it had completed a $650m series C investment round, which took its total capital raised to $1.4bn.[6]

        source

        Bezos was seed money AND part of the owner conglomerate that raised all the capital the company started with in 2024. That is enough for me to avoid this like the plague as it will, certain as the sun is hot, be enshitified to the core

        If you do not believe me, here is an article explaining how this is all a big Amazon initiative

        https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/inside-the-ev-startup-secretly-backed-by-jeff-bezos/

        • cenzorrll@piefed.ca
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          2 days ago

          I would truly not be surprised that this would be an attempt to take over there ev truck market, but manufacturers should have been paying attention. There’s a huge market for small ass trucks, no one is catering to it

          While I’m sure they’ll try to enshittify, the downside to that plan is that they need to make sure no one takes their place and they need to have something people want that they can enshittify. The benefit of simplicity is that it makes it simpler for another manufacturer to pick up the slack.

          • njordomir@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I drove a small truck at one point. Think a late 90s Tacoma, Ranger, or something like that. I don’t want an F250. I don’t want a Ram 3500. I just want to be able to haul a bed full of bikes to the MTB trail and help my friends move a washing machine.

            • tychosmoose@piefed.socialOP
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              2 days ago

              Slate has a size comparison widget on their website. You can show it with the silhouette of a current full size pickup and a circa 1985 small pickup. It’s almost exactly the same size as that generation.

              • njordomir@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                That’s cool. 99spokes does that for bicycles and I’ve found it useful in that respect. Would be cool to compare all of the cars I ever had like that.

            • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I really love my hybrid Maverick. It is still bigger than I want, but it works really well and averages about 40mpg. I can also fit it in a normal parking spot, which is nice.

              • 5in1K@lemmy.zip
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                2 days ago

                I wish the Maverick was body on frame and had better tow capacity. It’s almost what I want.

          • Jhex@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            There’s a huge market for small ass trucks, no one is catering to it

            Absolutely correct. The American car makers keep on saying “we only want big trucks” but that is complete BS, there is plenty of demand for smaller trucks which is why they have lobbied the gov to all but ban any possible import

            The benefit of simplicity is that it makes it simpler for another manufacturer to pick up the slack.

            While this is true in theory, in practice it rarely shows up. If these trucks do deliver a good, simple experience at $25K, others would not be able to just copy it and catch up. It would be easier for any of the big guys to just buy the company.

            If the company is not for sale, then they would have the monopoly on small trucks and thus, freedom to enshitify

            • cenzorrll@piefed.ca
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              2 days ago

              While this is true in theory, in practice it rarely shows up. If these trucks do deliver a good, simple experience at $25K, others would not be able to just copy it and catch up. It would be easier for any of the big guys to just buy the company.

              I agree, but without the complications of a combustion engine, it makes it a lot easier. You can buy ev conversion kits for around $15k, so there’s also an “I’ll make my own, with blackjack, and hookers” option.

              • Jhex@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                so there’s also an “I’ll make my own, with blackjack, and hookers” option.

                Always the best option! hahahaha

          • artyom@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            There’s a huge market for small ass trucks, no one is catering to it

            Ford is. The Maverick is selling like hotcakes (not the 60s coupe). And they have an electric small truck coming soon as well. There’s also Tello.

          • village604@adultswim.fan
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            2 days ago

            There’s a huge market for small ass trucks, no one is catering to it

            That’s incorrect. The Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz exist and are very popular.

            Toyota is about to release one to compete with the Maverick, and Dodge has a small and a mid sized truck in the works.

              • village604@adultswim.fan
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                8 hours ago

                I’m guessing you’ve never seen them next to a regular pickup. They’re 20-40in shorter in length than a Ram 1500 (depending on cab configuration).

                My Santa Cruz is shorter than their engine compartment. When I park between two regular trucks mine looks like a hotwheels truck.

                Shit, it’s even smaller than a Toyota Helix.

            • cenzorrll@piefed.ca
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              Those are midsized. I would say Hyundai is the only one with the Santa Cruz, and that’s not really a truck.

              Edit: I stand corrected, I had assumed the maverick was rwd/awd, not fwd/awd. I’m going to amend my statement and say the maverick is also not really a truck. I consider having the drive wheels under the payload to be an important aspect of a truck. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                The Santa Cruz is exactly as much as a truck as the Ford Maverick is (which is to say, they’re both unibody vehicles).

              • village604@adultswim.fan
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                2 days ago

                The Santa Cruz is absolutely a truck. It even has a 3500lb towing capacity. Plus it’s only 4in shorter than the Maverick.

            • Jhex@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              That’s incorrect. The Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz exist and are very popular.

              And they are still inefficient monsters compared to what a real small truck should be:

              Ford Maverick (2022+):

              • Length: Approx. 199.7 inches (5.07 meters) almost 1.7 meters larger, 6 feet or so

              • Width: Approx. 72.6 inches (1.84 meters)

              • Height: Approx. 68.7 inches (1.75 meters)

              • Bed Length: 4.5 feet (approx. 54 inches / 1.37 meters) 45% LESS cargo space than a kei truck

              Typical Kei Truck (e.g., Suzuki Carry):

              • Length: Max legal limit is 3.4 meters (133.9 inches / 11.15 feet).

              • Width: Max legal limit is 1.48 meters (58.3 inches). Often around 1.4 meters.

              • Height: Varies, but typically around 1.9–2.0 meters (75–79 inches) including the cab/bed height, though the cargo bed side walls are very low (often ~1 meter total height from ground).

              • Bed Length: Typically around 2.0 meters (78 inches / 6.5 feet), which is actually longer than the Maverick’s bed in some configurations relative to the vehicle length, though the total footprint is much smaller.

                • Jhex@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  yes. they are small so they can work best in urban areas… nobody wants a kei truqk to work a farmein texas

              • village604@adultswim.fan
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                2 days ago

                You gotta add a normal US truck to your stats.

                The Santa Cruz and Maverick are 2-3.5ft shorter than a Ram 1500.

                I have a Santa Cruz, and it looks like a toy truck next to the normal ones. Especially next to duallies.

                • Jhex@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  oh yes most others are way bigger… but I was comparing the “small” trucks that are actually available in the USA to make the point they are not in the same level the real small trucks are

      • Jhex@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Ew Edison…

        But yes, some other poster also was surprised something like this could not be started up in Canada

        I know our government here is also crappy and has tried to squash related initiatives before but I should look into it more

        • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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          Is your issue with the man or the company? I actually don’t know much about Edison trucks beyond that they exist.

          • Jhex@lemmy.world
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            The man… Edison was last century Jobs, best that can be said is that he had a good eye for business but basically just took other people’s work, milked them and toss them aside making a profit for himself in the process without regards to the harm he was knowingly causing

            • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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              Yes I’m aware of his story. The Canadian company named themselves such because they were stealing Tesla’s (Elon musk’s company) idea for the electric semi namely because they never delivered and the guy really wanted one so figured he may as well make one himself. They seem like a pretty decent company, although very small.

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                22 hours ago

                oh wow, that I did not know (the company’s backstory), thanks for sharing

    • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      It’s never going to be released. Zero prototypes and being pushed by a billionaire.

      • RobotsLeftHand@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        At this point I think there’s a high likelihood that production will start close to their plan of late this year. As the other commenter said, you can go watch multiple videos of test drives. Pre-orders opened yesterday. But what do I know?

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        1 day ago

        They’ve been promoting it recently and have several working prototypes that they’ve been driving influencers around in. There was one video with Marques Brownlee and they even let him drive it himself.

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      For the life of me I don’t know why we don’t develop something like this in Canada. It’s so frustrating, we have the people, the manufacturing space, the materials, we could do this.

      Whenever something about Canada making vehicles gets brought up, all the nay sayers climb on immediately saying how it can’t be done. I’m sick and tired of them. Nothing worth doing comes easy, if left to these naysayers we’d all be still living in squalor.

      We need to move away from the U.S. entanglement, the American public can’t be trusted to elect a proper government.

      Building our own low cost, modest feature vehicles would be an excellent start. How many features of a car do people use for a normal commute to work, or such? I’d love a truck like the Slate, except it has to have 4 wheel drive ability. After having Hondas with all wheel drive, I’ll never go back to an older 2 wheel drive vehicle.

      • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Ive had TWO vehicles that were manufactured in Canada. They were both fine. What weirdos are saying canada cant build cars?

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        2 days ago

        Before the current political chaos, you would have made a mint. A little ingenuity and affordable value, along with the worlds second biggest car market next door would have been huge

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        We don’t do R&D in Canada. All we do is assemble shitty vehicles for export.

        4WD is unnecessary if you use proper winter tires.

    • Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      Same as a European, I do hope it succeeds though and as much as I hate bezos if he’s backing shit like this my opinion of him has increased by about 3.83%.

      • Miaou@jlai.lu
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        2 days ago

        Hmm? We have much better options available in Europe

        • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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          9 hours ago

          With this much modularity and a simple-by-design approach?

    • QuandaleDingle@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I heard that Bezos left the company as an investor. I don’t blame you for disliking anything American, but Slate Auto seems alright so far…

      • Jhex@lemmy.world
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        He was never “in it”; but he put up the seed money, then participated in the main round of fund raising and placed a ton of his people in the company. So even if his is not personally involved, he has all the strings he needs to pull it where he wants it to go (which, IMO, means Slate will be enshitified to the full the moment those little trucks start selling)

        https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/inside-the-ev-startup-secretly-backed-by-jeff-bezos/

        • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          20 hours ago

          If they enshittify in the future, then you can just not buy one of the enshittified trucks. The old ones will still be out there, rolling around fine, without any internet connection that the company could use to remotely sabotage them.

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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          1 day ago

          What I wonder is how exactly are they going to enshittify it? It’s extremely barebones and modular in a way that anyone can design add-ons and accessories for it. I can see them doing subscriptions and the like for various add-ons but you can always just get the base model and get add-ons elsewhere.

          • Jhex@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            They can betray the customer in many different ways… I am not willing to pay $25K to find out

            • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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              9 hours ago

              Generally yes, but with a modular and simple-by-design vehicle… how though?

              • Jhex@lemmy.world
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                8 hours ago

                They could simply stop producing certain parts, sneak a specific custom piece somewhere, provide no diagrams or documentation for third parties to produce repairs. They could simply design parts that fail just after warranty. There is an app that goes with it, right there they have the chance to scan and sell your data, push ads to you, track your driving, etc.

                I don’t know exactly but there are more ways they can enshitify a product than my imagination allows.

                You see, greedy people do not enshitify for sport, they do it for greed as enshitification means more money for them. So unless you are convinced Bezos put money here to help people and not make as much money as possible back, the only logical conclusion is that he wants to milk it as hard as possible, this is what he does.

            • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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              23 hours ago

              I think my desire for a small electric pickup truck might override my caution in this case, we’ll see if I get burned. At the very least I’m not going to preorder and will wait for real critical reviews after it’s released.

    • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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      19 hours ago

      This! I’m probably ready to pay a bit more to NOT be under constant surveillance by a car maker!

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      Never mind the low price, not having that shit built in is the killer feature for me, making it the only new car I would even consider buying. (It’s just too bad they won’t have a 4x4 version for another couple of years.)

      It is kinda good that there’s an optional module available, though, because it means there’s an interface that, in theory, a third-party module running Free Software could hook into.

      • Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        because it means there’s an interface that, in theory, a third-party module running Free Software could hook into

        Absolutely this!

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        1 day ago

        You don’t need 4 wheel drive with an EV truck, the weight is properly distributed between the 4 wheels, not like stupid pickups that put all the weight over the wrong drive wheels.

        • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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          Pickups don’t need 4wd due to poor weight distribution, they need it for traction on loose surfaces.

          • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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            JFC…take a physics class. The drive wheels are in back, the cab and motor are in front. Of course there is no traction, all the weight is at the wrong end and 99% of idiots who buy those trucks drive with empty beds.

            • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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              My point is that 4WD is never used on pavement in pickups. Many pickups don’t even have 4WD and they do just fine, they have plenty of traction on pavement. Trucks don’t have 4WD due to weight distribution, they have it so people can take their trucks off the pavement. If you never intend to go off pavement, like so many pickup owners, you don’t need 4WD regardless of whether you’re in an ICE or EV truck. If you want to go offroad in an ICE or EV truck, you’ll want 4WD.

              I have taken a few physics classes, was required to get some science credits to obtain my CS degree. I’m pretty sure they didn’t cover this concept as, well, duh.

              • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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                There are tons of vehicles vehicles than can drive off road without 4WD. Most of Rally racing has been done with rear wheel drive vehicles, and they’re actually racing, not just casually driving. The reason a truck might not be able to handle it is because trucks are actually not set up well for it, unless they’re loaded. Like the comment above says, the weight distribution is bad for it, until you load the bed. This isn’t true for an EV truck. The weight is further back, so the rear wheels won’t lose traction as easily.

                Anyone who thinks they need 4WD to off-road doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Can it help? Sure. Is it required? Far from it.

                • innermachine@lemmy.world
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                  9 hours ago

                  Lol rally racing is done on dirt roads. It’s not off road untill it isn’t a road, in which case u need 4x4! Also handy for when there’s a foot of snow on the roads, or during mud season around here where u find Subarus bellied out on dirt roads that are now mud pits. Bonus points if you have lockers or limited slips.

                • Joelk111@lemmy.world
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                  Saying 4WD helps offroad is the understatement of the century.

                  I’ve extensively offroaded in vehicles that aren’t really built for going offroad - a Subaru Loyale 4x4 with/without a rear locker, a lifted Crown Vic, and a lifted P2 Volvo XC70. The crown vic was so much less capable than the stock Subaru Loyale or the Volvo, even with the trunk full of weight, due to it being RWD. It was all about speed and momentum to get up hills, whereas the Volvo can just crawl up stuff. The Subaru can’t crawl up stuff, as it’s a manual and doesn’t have the low range gearbox, but as long as you stay in the power band of 1st gear it’s unstoppable in places the crown vic would be totally spinning out. I always called the crown vic the hammer of offroading, since you kinda were just forced to send it up every steep hill.

        • bluGill@fedia.io
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          A pickup is supposed to be used such that the weight is properly loaded. If you don’t have the back full of firewood or something else anyway you are doing it wrong.

          Then again if you don’t have a full 8 foot bed you are doing it wrong, and those are almost impossible to buy.

          • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
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            I have a modern-ish F150 with a single cab and 8ft bed. I feel like I have the only one that isnt a company truck.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          I do if I want to take it on proper off-road trails, mudding and rock-crawling and such.

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      I’m fairly sure some spying is required by law, like the new driver cam legislation. Wonder how they’ll get past that.

      • The_Jit@lemmy.world
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        I was wondering about that 2027 legislation and how this vehicle is affected. I didn’t see anything. Maybe that’s a next year production problem.

  • TheDeadInternet@lemmy.world
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    Hard pass for me for various reasons but I hope this does well enough to make other auto companies want to compete.

    • timeghost@lemmy.world
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      Same. I want to want one. The interior colors are either melt-your-balls black or something else I didn’t like. But the older battery tech kills it for me.

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    2 days ago

    This sounds nice for someone who needs a truck. But I have lots of kids. Why can’t I get an EV minivan for under $50k?

    • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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      9 hours ago

      But I have lots of kids. Why can’t I get an EV minivan for under $50k?

      I think you can get a vasectomy for less than that. Unless you’re murican, in which case, condoms maybe… if they’re legal in your state.

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        The minivan is important. That sliding door means my kids never slam the door open into the next car… Many people get too attached to perfect paint on their car even though they have a history of trading in “that old thing” every 3 years.

    • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Maybe not a minivan but I’m pretty sure you can configure this with a lot more seats for not too much more and that’s until after market parts become a thing.

      • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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        The Chinese government is subsidizing the cost of their EVs. They are smart enough to realize that’s the future and want people hooked on them as the supplier. So, yeah it can be done cheaply if you own the entire supply chain and receive government subsidies.

        • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          20 hours ago

          There is not an auto manufacturer on this Earth that isn’t heavily subsidized by its government. The same industry, skills, and infrastructure that make it possible to build consumer vehicles also allow you to build military vehicles. In wartime, a government can come to an auto manufacturer and tell them, “you’re done making consumer pickups. You’re making army trucks now!” And domestic industry cannot be blockaded or embargoed.

          And that’s not an industry you can just spin up overnight. If your country doesn’t have an auto industry, and you would like one? Even if you have an unlimited budget, it would still take you decades to get to the point of competitiveness. Countries have a lot of incentive to subsidize their domestic auto producers as a means of ensuring the country retains the ability to make its own military vehicles.

        • KatakiY@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I want a people’s van.

          Really tho you’d think that vw would be making an easy to maintain ev version of their Volkswagen van instead of targeting 60k+

          • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            20 hours ago

            Perhaps some sort of people’s station wagon.

            Or just a people’s wagon.

            Or why be so formal, why “people,” instead of the more casual and fun “folks.”

            The folk’s wagon, if you will.

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    2 days ago

    I hate the state of current website reporting.

    so many sites give so much information but absolutely refuses to provide the original website or source. Instead, deciding to send the viewer through ClickHell as they try to navigate their own website sending the user in circles usually via links that go to their own pages to propagate views/clicks. I hate it

    How hard is it to just link to the Slate’s main webpage after reporting on the product that way, the viewer can look at it themselves. Not one of the web pages they link there or any of the pages in said links lead to the actual vehicles site that they are reporting on.