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

It has a base range of 150 miles [0], which won't resolve range anxiety worries as the average American travels 42 miles a day [1] and only has 2 seats. I think it will do well for hobbyists and EV enthusiasts, but it would be hard to compete with a slightly pricier Tacoma. When people buy a pickup truck, they often use it as a daily commuter as well.

> Got a road trip planned? These trips are all doable on a single charge of our standard battery. If you want to go even farther, our extended range battery increases the range to a projected 240 miles from a projected 150 miles. [0]

[0] - https://www.slate.auto/en/charging

[1] - https://www.axios.com/2024/03/24/average-commute-distance-us...

Edit: The average pickup truck purchaser's has a household income of around $110,000 and 75% live outside cities [0]. When they are purchasing a pickup, it is meant to be both a daily driver and an errand vehicle.

Spending $20,000 on a 2 seater bench pickup with 150mi range is ludicrous when you can buy a used 5 seater Honda Fit or Toyota Tacoma for $0-7k more.

This is most likely targeted at fleet usecases like a factory or local deliveries, but this won't make a dent in the primary demographic that purchases pickups, and being overly defensive is doing no favors in thinking about HOW to build a true killer app EV for the American market.

The thing about range: it’s always reducing (as the batteries age). And then it also reduces based on factors like temperature. The anxiety is solely from the not knowing.

Yep, and it's something that Slate's marketing doesn't directly address. Before Tesla's brand perception meltdown due to Elon, a major reason why Tesla was much more popular than other brands was because of the Supercharger network, which helped reduce range anxiety worries in the West Coast.

> a major reason why Tesla was much more popular than other brands was because of the Supercharger network, which helped reduce range anxiety worries in the West Coast.

Can't basically every other brand use those now? Between the compatible Tesla chargers and all the other ones through Charge America and charging overnight at home, there is no concern from a daily driving, or even moderately ranged trip, standpoint. The downside to long trips is the 30+ minute wait at each charging stop, not the lack of chargers.