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A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

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1336 points kwindla | 7 comments | 25 Apr 25 15:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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taylodl ◴[25 Apr 25 15:27 UTC] No.43794600[source]▶
I LOVE it! THIS is the kind of truck I'd be looking at to replace my 1998 Ford Ranger.

Here is what could be potential deal-breakers:

- Lack of a mobile app. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues.

- Lack of good charge management and battery conditioning. Either that, or a cheap and easy to replace battery pack. I'd really like both!

- Comparable hauling and towing capacity to the 1998 Ford Ranger. Those numbers aren't exactly impressive, but I do use the truck as a truck, and I occasionally need the hauling capacity (weight).

- Bucket seats. I need a bench seat so I can take my wife and dog. Think weekend glamping trips. Picture 8 shows a bucket seat. It doesn't look like that would work.

If anyone from Slate is reading this, this is how I'm looking at this truck. FYI, I'll be comparing this to the Ford Maverick.

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adamhowell ◴[25 Apr 25 15:49 UTC] No.43794914[source]▶
> Lack of a mobile app…

At the 6 mins and 40 seconds timestamp on this video (https://youtu.be/cq1qEjwSYkw?t=400) he shows the car app that will tell you current range, etc

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1. conradev ◴[25 Apr 25 16:02 UTC] No.43795104[source]▶
I'd recommend folks watch the video – it's fascinating.

The truck gets OTA updates through your phone and not some LTE modem. It doesn't have one. They moved all car management including OBD-like functionality to the phone, too, which I think is awesome.

This is how I want the interior design philosophy of manual controls to be digitized – with digital control. I'd pay $10k more for physical buttons, though.

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2. ryandrake ◴[25 Apr 25 16:06 UTC] No.43795167[source]▶
Ugh. Yuck. Very disappointing. Was really hoping this thing wasn't going to be phone dependent.
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3. instaclay ◴[25 Apr 25 16:19 UTC] No.43795379[source]▶
Oh sweet. Delicious. Very reassuring. Was really hoping this thing was going to be device agnostic.

My 2015 car had 3g "smart" features that no longer work since 3g has been sunset in the US. Awesome to see forward thinking of a smart feature-set that can be updated with a module you'll likley already have an upgrade path for.

4. cornstalks ◴[25 Apr 25 16:20 UTC] No.43795400[source]▶
There's a difference between phone-dependent and phone-augmented. I don't know the details of the truck, but I think a happy medium would be for an app to exist to augment the truck's abilities and allow at-home updates, but to not require the app or phone to just use the truck (even for long periods; i.e. you could go forever without using the app and the truck will just keep working in its current state).
5. Brian_K_White ◴[25 Apr 25 18:21 UTC] No.43796947[source]▶
Only if the phone app is open source, or at least the api, alllll of it, is public so no one needs the default app nor is limited by it.

Alternatively, maybe the overall simplicity will mean that a 3rd party full computer replacement would be feasible even without any official help from the manufacturer.

6. bilsbie ◴[25 Apr 25 18:50 UTC] No.43797267[source]▶
I’d be good with no updates. Ie make it simple enough that there shouldn’t need to be updates.

And if there’s something major maybe you download it onto a thumb drive and plug it in.

I’m tired of my vehicle being changed without my consent.

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7. dummydummy1234 ◴[25 Apr 25 19:38 UTC] No.43797760[source]▶
I mean yes, but also this is a complex new prototype vehicle. I can assume that there may be mistakes/ non ideal things that they only catch post production.

As long as the fixes are a long the lines as bios updates (not required per say, but may fix bugs or edge cases) then that seems reasonable.