Truck Yeah! Slate Announces Pricing

[00:00:20] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous driving, and much, much more. My name is Bodie and I am your host and today we're going to do something a little bit different. I am going to split the show up into two different shows. Today's episode is going to be a little bit longer. So what I thought I would do is do a little experiment.

[00:00:49] I will do the EV segment as one episode and I will do the Tesla segment as one episode. Now this isn't necessarily going to happen all the time. I'm just trying it out to see how people like it. So in general, you know, if the show is 30 minutes or less, I don't feel a huge need to like split this stuff out. Or it may be the show is 40 minutes, but only three of those minutes.

[00:01:19] Or the EV segment or the EV segment or the Tesla segment. I don't really feel the need to split that out. But if it's pretty even and they're both long, both segments are long. I was thinking that it might be better to split it out. So I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this. And we'll see what everybody thinks.

[00:01:45] If you'd rather just have one long episode, it's actually less work for me. But all in all, I do get that when you typically listen to a podcast, it's under 30 minutes and all of a sudden it's over an hour, which I don't think today's will be over an hour. But even when you combine the two segments, it can feel intimidating and maybe you don't want to listen because you don't feel like you have the time or whatever.

[00:02:11] So by breaking it up, I'm trying to help kind of make it easier for people to listen when they have the time.

[00:02:20] Okay, starting off with our EV news. We now know the cost of Slate Auto's electric pickup truck. It's going to cost $24,950. That gets you a 65 kilowatt hour LFP battery pack, rear wheel drive and a range of 205 miles, which is not a lot when it comes to range, but it's also a $25,000 pickup truck.

[00:02:45] The good news is with LFP batteries, you can charge to 100% more often and you get less battery degradation. So that's good. Also, there may be some room for over the air updates and some fine tuning because a 65 kilowatt hour battery pack on a truck so small should get more than 205 miles of range.

[00:03:12] I mean, it is a pickup truck and it's square, so it's not exactly the epitome of aerodynamic, but also it's just, it seems like for 65 kilowatt hours, you should be getting more than 205 miles of range.

[00:03:29] Seems like. Now, having said all that, I do think that this would be a very compelling vehicle for somebody who didn't need to drive for long distances. Maybe your commute is 50 miles back and forth to work each day, or maybe you're buying this for your kid who's in high school or college and they don't need that much range.

[00:03:56] I think that this would be a good vehicle for that, especially at that price. Initially, when Slate announced, there was still the U.S. federal tax credit. And, you know, it looked like with that tax credit, the truck would sell for under $20,000.

[00:04:15] Well, that federal tax credit has gone away, so the federal, you know, the sub-$20,000 truck isn't necessarily the case unless you live in certain states. Because, depending on which state you live in, they do have incentives that might make this truck even more affordable.

[00:04:38] Now, I'm going to go through each state where you could get some money off of this truck in terms of incentives, but I'm not going to go over all the terms and conditions. A lot of the terms and conditions are based off of income, so not everybody would qualify for this.

[00:04:57] You know, for instance, I wouldn't qualify in a lot of cases for these state incentives, but, you know, I can afford to buy a $25,000 truck if I need to. So, the whole point in these incentives is to help people buy a newer or new reliable EV. And, you know, a lot of that's going to be income-based, just the way it is.

[00:05:23] So, but there are terms and conditions that you would need to investigate if you live in one of these states. That's all I'm trying to get at. But I'm not going to go through every single one because I don't really have time for that. So, starting off with California. If you live in California, you could get up to $12,000 off. It's not guaranteed, but up to $12,000. That would make this truck $13,000, which is ridiculously cheap.

[00:05:53] If you live in Maine, you can get up to $8,000 off. If you live in Oregon, where, you know, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but you're not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon. Don't worry about why I said that. You're just not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon. One person knows why I said that. Anyway, you can get $7,500 off. Massachusetts and Vermont, you can get up to $5,000 off.

[00:06:21] Rhode Island, up to $4,500 off. Connecticut, up to $4,250. New Jersey and Illinois, up to $4,000. Colorado, up to $3,250. Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Maryland, up to $3,000 off. Minnesota, $2,500 off. And New York, up to $2,000 off.

[00:06:49] Again, this all comes with caveats, so do your own research. But, I mean, that's pretty good. If you bought the base model vehicle and you were able to get, you know, $5,000 off, that's a huge amount of the vehicle that you don't have to pay for. So, huge benefit. Now, the starting price is $25,000. That's true.

[00:07:19] But, there are so many ways to customize this truck. And when I say so many ways, I mean, I'm talking a ton of different ways to customize this truck. And I tried to build something that was just ridiculously expensive, right? So, I went into the configurator and I just added a bunch of stuff that I thought would be expensive. I got it to $36,000. You could probably get it more than that.

[00:07:46] But, you know, I tried to do a, I tried to customize it in a way that I would be like, I would be happy to own this truck. I didn't try to customize it in a way to bring up the price as high as possible. But I didn't skimp, you know, if I thought it would be really cool to have the, you know, the SUV version, which I did. I put that in there and I put the bench seats in and blah, blah, blah. And I customized the paint, or not the paint, the wraps that you can put on there.

[00:08:15] And it all came to $36,000. It was just a little bit over $36,000. So, that's not too bad, honestly. I'm looking forward to seeing these trucks on the road. But more than that, I'm looking forward to seeing what people do to customize them. I mean, straight out the gate, these are very basic vehicles. You know, you have manual windows and manual door locks. And, you know, there's not a stereo in it.

[00:08:45] You have to put your own stereo in. But it's also built for an aftermarket. Whether you buy those parts from Slate or you buy them off of Etsy from independent sellers. There's just going to be a ton of different ways. Again, I've used a ton of different ways a ton of times now. But there's just going to be a bunch of different ways that people will be able to make this their own vehicle. And I'm really excited about this.

[00:09:12] In a world where companies are paring down and not offering as much in each trim. Which I do think is important because it can be very expensive if you offer too much and nobody buys it. Then you have all that inventory sitting there. But on the other side of things, if you open this up and make it very easy for third parties to create a business that might not be profitable for a company like Slate. But would be profitable for a person like me.

[00:09:42] You know, I am just 100% all over this truck. I love it so much. So, anyway. I'll stop talking about that. And let's move over into our next story. We have a sneak peek at Lucid's sub $50,000 crossover vehicle. The Cosmos, not the Earth. But Lucid registered the design of the Cosmos with the EU's or European Union's Intellectual Property Office.

[00:10:10] And based on the drawings, it looks like a squinched down smaller Lucid gravity. Which honestly is not a bad thing because I think the gravity looks fantastic. But we'll keep an eye on this as we get closer to an official reveal. Because we don't have an official reveal just yet. Production should start later this year. So, I would imagine we're going to see a reveal soon. I mean, it may not be this summer, but at least in the fall we should see a reveal.

[00:10:39] And then, in addition to that, the other vehicle, right around $50,000 vehicle that Lucid is looking at producing is called the Earth. And we should see that sometime in late 2027. And I have some other Lucid news, which is kind of sad news. Lucid is laying off 18% of its workforce in Casa Grande. At their plant in Casa Grande.

[00:11:07] That's in Arizona, if you're not familiar. This is about 1,500 workers. And the reason why is they're just not selling enough cars. And they're going to have to, you know, shut some production down. I think the third shift is being shut down. So, yeah. Not a great time to shut production down. And hopefully all those people will be able to land on their feet at other companies.

[00:11:37] They do get a severance. There is a severance package that's going to be handed out. So, at least they'll get a little bit of runway to try to find their next job. And we have one more bit of news for Lucid. And it pertains to their RoboTaxi service. You know, Lucid is in a partnership with Uber and Neuro to build RoboTaxis. RoboTaxis. Lucid's providing the cars. Uber's providing the network to, you know, put the RoboTaxis on.

[00:12:05] And Neuro is providing the technology and software that allows the vehicles to drive themselves. Well, they are looking to bring their RoboTaxi service to Houston. So, that's exciting. Right now, they have plans to operate in San Francisco. And then that will happen sometime this year. I don't think it's happening quite yet. Or at least they're probably testing. I don't think they're taking on passengers quite yet. But then sometime after that will be Houston.

[00:12:36] So, let me know if you live in San Francisco or Houston and you see these RoboTaxis running around. Shoot me an email. Bodie, B-O-D-I-E, at 918digital.com. Okie doke. We got two more stories. But before we get to that, I just want to encourage you, if you'd like to support the show, to go to supportkilowatt.com. And you can choose to support the show on Supercast or Patreon. And for as little as a dollar a month.

[00:13:04] Like, I don't know any other places that are offering a dollar a month to start with. And really, what I want to be able to do is pay for this show with the Patreon. But I also want to make sure that it's accessible to people who want to contribute. So, for one dollar, you get rid of all of the ads. If you want to donate more, that's great. If you don't, that's also great. It doesn't bother me one little bit if somebody only donates a dollar.

[00:13:33] So, supportkilowatt.com if you would like to support the show. Okie. So, earlier this week, I think it was on Thursday, I had a meeting with folks at the Sunrise Project. And they do a bunch of things, but they're also working with the folks who put together the Lead the Charge leaderboard. And we were talking about a bunch of different, you know, future interviews and different partnerships. None of it paid, by the way.

[00:14:02] It's just, these are people that I have for the last two years. This will be the third year. Had them on the show to talk about the Lead the Charge and what they're doing. But also, there's other stuff that they're doing as well. And we were just talking about different things that they're doing that would make sense for them to be on this show. Not everything obviously makes sense to be on the show. But, you know, it was a good meeting.

[00:14:31] But one of the things that we were talking about is how automakers are now including information on how clean their supply chains are. And they're doing this by being transparent about their responsible sourcing, like low carbon steel and aluminum. You might hear it called green steel or green aluminum. But the point is, this is something that they're calling out as a way to sell more cars.

[00:15:00] As a way to stand out from other automakers. Because there are certainly automakers who are better at having a clean supply chain than others, for sure. And, you know, as a general rule, it sounds like all the automakers are trying to make improvements. But in general, you know, if you offer a car that's, you know, a spaceship on wheels and has a range of about 300 miles,

[00:15:27] how do you differentiate yourself from other companies that are offering something similar? And one of the ways to do that is to say, hey, look how clean our supply chain is. And again, all of this transparency is good. It's good not only for EVs, but it's good for the automobile industry as a whole. So as, you know, these initial partnerships with EV makers are being made, let's just say for,

[00:15:55] we'll use green steel or low carbon steel as an example. Initially, it stands to reason it's going to be more expensive. And then as these suppliers are able to hit economies of scale, it'll actually end up reducing costs on these cleaner materials like low carbon steel. And then initially, hopefully, that would find its way into other vehicles like ICE cars.

[00:16:23] So just kind of taking it back, when Tesla and companies like BYD, early, early EV automakers, when they first started, a lot of the critical materials and components that they were using for batteries or the motors, the magnets and the motors, that kind of thing, some of that stuff was quite expensive. And it wasn't purpose built for EVs. It might have been built for something else. And they kind of had to modify it and repurpose it to work in EVs.

[00:16:52] Just in the 10 years that I've been doing this show, there have been huge improvements in this regard. And whereas before, maybe Tesla or other companies had to kind of kludge something together to make it work. Now there are companies that were just built up around making purpose built parts for EVs, that kind of thing.

[00:17:13] So it got more, you know, we reached economies of scale and things got more efficient and started to cost less and brought the costs down and, you know, improvements were made. So the point is, is that as these EV makers are using materials like low carbon steel or low carbon aluminum, hopefully that makes its way into the hybrid and ice world.

[00:17:42] And we start cleaning up that side of the auto industry as well. So that was a little bit of a digression. The point for this whole thing is that automakers are using the supply chain to as a way to market and sell their products. To me, this feels like the late 90s, early 2000s, where when you would go to buy a car during that time period,

[00:18:09] they were talking about all the different safety features as a selling point. Not to say that safety wasn't a selling point before that, but I remember buying a Saturn in like 96 or 97 and it had a driver's side airbag. It didn't have a passenger side airbag at that time. But one of the big things that the driver or what the salesman was hyping up was that it had a driver's side airbag.

[00:18:37] And not very long after that, we bought my wife a Ford Escape and it had not only a driver's side airbag, but it had a passenger side airbag. And it might have, I can't remember, had a curtain airbag. I mean, there's just all of these things that are, you know, we take for granted today. But back then that was a huge selling point. And I would imagine that eventually at some point in time, people just assume the supply chain is very clean and that will stop being as big of a selling point.

[00:19:07] Just like, you know, almost nobody mentioned when we bought our van recently that it had airbags. If they mentioned it, I don't remember it. So when somebody chooses to buy an EV, they may, you know, buy it because they want to reduce their carbon footprint or they may buy it because they just want to save money on gas.

[00:19:28] But if you wanted, if you're in the reduce the carbon footprint camp, it stands to reason that you want to ensure that the materials and components and everything that went into that car was mined and processed responsibly. It would make me feel better that the company that built my car really took extra steps to make sure that, you know, human rights were violated, labor rights were violated or labor laws were violated.

[00:19:57] Or if there is a labor law, people weren't taken advantage of. I think you get the point here without me, you know, beating a dead horse. But in general, that kind of stuff is important to me because I don't want to contribute to somebody else's harm. So I want to make sure that everybody is treated fairly. I want to make sure that things are mined and processed responsibly.

[00:20:24] Now, having said that, the Lead the Charge leaderboard evaluated 18 companies and more than half of those companies improved in different areas. And one of the areas that they improved in is battery recycling and repurposing. Companies like Mercedes, Ford and Volkswagen are holding suppliers to higher standards when it comes to responsible mining.

[00:20:51] Mercedes and Volvo are making big deals about how they were able to reduce their pollution footprint with the Mercedes CLA, which is a great looking car, and the Volvo ES90. So this is fantastic. And, you know, Tesla gets a lot of shade. And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about some things that don't put Tesla maybe in the best light. Tesla gets a lot of shade, but they should also get their flowers when they deserve flowers.

[00:21:19] So according to the leaderboard, Tesla has set the industry benchmark, not the industry, a new industry benchmark, by publishing information on emissions from their battery supply chain and what they're doing to make improvements. And obviously that is all fantastic. But we shouldn't ignore the other side of this, where some of these improvements are coming from. And that is from pressure from governments.

[00:21:46] So governmental regulations are also responsible for holding automakers feet to the fire. For example, there are European regulations that require automakers to map out their supply chains. And that requires them to be more responsible when mining their battery minerals and to design their batteries to be more recyclable.

[00:22:11] And honestly, if you're if you are building a car, an EV and you're marketing it as being good for the environment. But behind the scenes, your company is just laying waste to all the places that you sourced your materials from. You're that's not a good look. And it's going to eventually people are going to figure it out. And it's it's just easier to do the right thing.

[00:22:36] It's not more profitable to always do the right thing, but it's just easier to do the right things. Obviously, there's still a lot to improve on, but we're trending in the right direction. And if you're looking to buy an EV and this type of stuff like how clean the supply chain is, if that's important to you, you can more easily make your purchasing decision.

[00:23:03] Not only just by comparing specs, which is great, but you can also look back at their supply chain and make a real determination of how responsible are these automakers when it comes to sourcing, mining and producing these materials. Producing is not the right word. What am I looking for? Processing.

[00:23:31] Man, my brain is moving slow this morning. Anyway, if all this stuff is important to you, you now have a better look into something that used to just kind of be a black box. And we didn't know what how these companies were processing things unless you were in the industry, just the average person. It was just not easy to look up. But now it is. It's not great. I mean, we can still make improvements on this, but it's getting better. So I think that's super important.

[00:24:01] Now, to piggyback off of that and a different article, an MIT-led study shows that EVs beat ICE vehicles on emissions, which this is something that we always kind of knew. But the argument is always, well, EVs are dirtier to produce. EVs are powered by coal, even though both of those things obviously are not true.

[00:24:23] We just talked about they're not necessarily dirtier to produce just a second ago, and they're powered by coal only in some areas. So to add a little bit more context to this, how clean EVs are obviously depends on how everything's sourced. But we're not going to talk about that now because we just talked about that. But also where you live and what your driving habits are.

[00:24:47] So when it comes to emissions, if someone is just powering their vehicle solely off of their solar grid on their house or solar array on their house, then your emissions are really close to zero. Probably not zero, but close to zero.

[00:25:03] But if you are in one of those states where you're getting your power from coal or even other dirty energy sources, which would be like EVs at their worst, right? It would be their least efficient version of themselves. It's still producing 18% less emissions than an ICE car.

[00:25:29] So just keep that in mind. So if you're driving your, let's say, Honda CR-V around and you have a Tesla Model Y and you're in the same place and you are getting your power from coal,

[00:25:49] your Model Y is still roughly producing 18% less emissions than your CR-V, provided that's not a hybrid and all that stuff. But anyway, I just use that as two cars that are roughly the same size. Anyway, location does matter. But EVs typically can save between 40% to 80% when it comes to emissions compared to their ICE counterparts.

[00:26:17] If you live in the following locations, then you're going to get the best emissions savings, according to this MIT study. And this was in North America. It was not throughout the world, so you'll have to forgive me. But places like California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Idaho has a lot of hydro, and British Columbia, you get the best emissions savings in those places.

[00:26:45] And this is especially true if you live in those places and you live in dense urban environments. You know, EVs don't idle at traffic lengths, whereas gas-powered cars do. So being able to work your way through city driving in those places, you are even improving your efficiency even more because you're just not letting the car run. Now, in a lot of cases, newer vehicles, if you pull up to a stoplight, the engine will turn off,

[00:27:14] and then it will start again and turn off and start again. But so, you know, maybe not an apples-to-apples comparison, but just in general, you know, EVs are better in that regard. So, all right. That is all I had for this particular episode, but that's not all I had necessarily for today. Just a reminder, there is a Tesla episode.

[00:27:39] I split these two segments into two different episodes just as an experiment to see if, one, if I liked doing it as two different episodes, and two, to see what everybody else thinks. Again, if these are, if I have a normal 20 to 30-minute episode, I will not be, I'm not going to split them into two 10-minute episodes. Maybe when I retire, I can do something like that.

[00:28:05] But this is more like those longer 25 to 30 minutes for each segment, and that's what we have today. So, that way, this episode stays under 30 minutes. Right now, we're at 28 minutes and 20 seconds, according to my recording. So, yeah. If you would like to email me, you can do so. It's bodie, B-O-D-I-E, at 918digital.com. You can follow me on LinkedIn at 918digital.

[00:28:37] And, yeah, I'm on X at 918digital, but I don't post very often, if at all. So, you can follow me there if you want, but I'm not a very fun follow over there. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening, and hopefully you go check out the Tesla episode, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.