For over a century, the automobile has represented freedom, power, and the thrill of mechanical mastery. The connection between driver, machine, and road defined what it meant to own and love a car. But in today’s digital era, a different trend is unfolding. Cars are no longer just machines designed to take us from point A to point B. Increasingly, they resemble something else entirely: smartphones on wheels.
The sad thing is ‘smartphone on wheels’ is a slur.
Smartphones don’t have to be soulless and uniform and enshittified and subscription based and completely inaccessible and straight up anti-consumer/designed to fail, but here we are.
I really hope Slate takes off though (and they make a nimble hatchback for their next chassis). It feels like the antithesis of all this.
The simplicity of the Slate interior is fantastic. They developed a screenless touch screen that you can rotate without even looking at them. I wish I were in the market for this type of vehicle.
Interior photo
Yeah, that is so perfect.
Imagine a sedan or hatchback. It would be light as a feather (in terms of curb weight) and still feel spacious being so ‘clean’ inside.
Kind of disappointing Bezos is involved though.
Backed, not owned though, and not alone:
https://slaterides.com/slate-auto-investors/
I view it as a net positive if Amazon wants them for EV delivery. A substantial guaranteed commercial customer is huge, and Slate isn’t exactly into dystopian tracking electronics or anything.
Some of these comments are the most elitist, contrarian bullshit I’ve ever heard.
This article is about the positives and negatives of car connectivity, not how cool you are because you choose to ride a bike. You’re so cool because instead of choosing to not connect your phone to your car, you bought a rusty 07 Camry?
I’m not the biggest fan of the choices these companies are making either, but if your 1997 Mazda 929 is a personality trait, it’s not much different from the ding dong who bought the Ram 3500 to showcase his peanut balls.
Personally I think it is cool to not give money to anti-consumer companies, which I assume all car companies have become by now if they all have computers. Certainly they cannot forever resist the temptation to use the power they have over users when they control the software running on our hardware.
I don’t disagree with either of your points. However, I’m not edgy because I refuse to shop at Target. I’m saying these comments are a bit smug.
Hello, I’m here for my check-in so that you can tell me whether or not I’m allowed to like something. Let me know when you’re ready to start.
Neither I nor anyone else cares what you like, but don’t act like what you like makes you better than anyone else.
Turtles are awesome.
Whatever you say, bud. I’m really just here to get my certification from the board.
Thanks.Seeking approval seems to be your forte.
You’re so cool because instead of choosing to not connect your phone to your car, you bought a rusty 07 Camry?
Yes.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I drive old cars because they don’t spy on me and they’re inexpensive to own. I have an 07 hybrid and an 06 minivan. They’re only an expression of my personality to the extent that I don’t care about my car and need something to get from A-B. I don’t flaunt it, and I’ll probably replace it with an older EV because refilling gas is annoying for my dedicated commuter (the hybrid).
I’d rather ride my bike, but my work is too far away (2 hours on transit, ~1.5 hybrid w/ bike, maybe 1 with a riced ebik, each way), and my reasons for sticking with my employer and not moving are more important than my preference for cycling.
My mode of transportation is about utility, not expression of personality. I’d drive a truck if it made sense, I just haven’t found one that makes more sense than renting one the 2-3 times per year I need to haul something that doesn’t fit in my minivan.
When I need to upgrade my car, I’ll find something sensible and maybe remove the parts I don’t like. It’s not a big deal.
Agreed. Minivans are legit.
Sadly yes and they’re mainly taking the worst aspects. Normal built in features like heated seats as subscriptions, dropping smartphone integration for their own far inferior dogshit UI and features, and so on.
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No need for data grabbing AA/Carplay shit in my car, stock ui works superior. But give people the option
Volkswagen is so bad at this! They have phone connectivity but they bog down the infotainment with they’re own crap software. The GPS is so bad it slowes down the whole system. I will never use vw maps. Ever. Just stop!
And Chevy just doesn’t have android auto on or apple play on their lower trim levels. But they do compensate by integrating Google maps at least.
Kia is the best though. Minimal proprietary software. Plug your phone in and android auto automatically comes up.
Both fit in the same category of unfortunately necessary and terrible goods…so the merger makes sense to me.
I made sure my last car I bought had no modem in it. This is going to get a lot harder for my next. I will be probably limited to the used vehicles market.
Combining two of the things I most hate. Makes sense.
aand this is why I won’t buy a car made after 2010.
IMO cars peaked around 2015
Interiors looked really nice and you had analog dials etc. Wish some small screens, just enough.
Today it’s just big plastic dashboard with cheap tablets stuck in them
The analog dials were an illusion. That information has been processed digitally for at least the last 25 years.
I don’t really care what’s happening in the backend, I want it to look nice and not cheap
Analog an illusion? Yes.
Tactile effectiveness an illusion? No.
I had a base model around that time frame. Good safety ratings for its time but the car isn’t integrated with the touchscreen so while it’s already a dumb-car, I could make it even more simple by tearing out the radio and installing one without a screen. Makes me happy to know I’m not obligated to fix it if the radio breaks because I drive maybe 30-40 miles a week and would rather keep my money than shell out for all the gimmicks.
This is why I ordered a Slate.
I hope you get your money back when they fold.
What money? The $50 deposit?
Yes.
My 2014 Crosstrek is fine. Doesn’t even have eyesight.
My 2020 Crosstrek with a manual is pretty good. The only things on the little touchscreen is the radio, backup camera, and android or apple for navigation. Also it isn’t integrated into the whole car so it can be replaced with an aftermarket unit. It has none of the blind spot monitoring, lane assist etc. It’s a lot of fun to drive on back roads, although it could use just a little more power.
Eh, my early 9th gen civic is nice, though I think they ruined it only like coupla years later with cell radios.
Cars after 2010 are fine. It’s the recent years that are the issue. My 2020 Forester is just a regular car with a small regular display just for radio or plugging in my phone for the map.
2016 is still a good year as most of the connected tech isn’t supported anymore as it’s on the 3g network.
good to know!!
I’m gonna be honest, I want my car to be an iPad on wheels. 120fps, buttery smooth animations, 3000nit brightness 19” vertical panel with CarPlay Ultra.
However, I’d be totally satisfied with the Slate truck model that has an app on a tablet that hooks directly into the truck. That’d be honestly more ideal.
My car is basically an accessory that turns my phone into a car, yes.
It’s nothing less than a war against property rights.
They are pushing software into cars because they see copyright, and more specifically the DMCA anti-circumvention clause, as an excuse to retain their control over your property after they sell it to you. Rentiership is 100% of their goal, and providing useful functionality is nothing but an afterthought at best.
“Subscriptions” to hardware you already own is entirely FRAUD and executives of companies that engage in it deserve long prison sentences.
John Deere cough cough
we always flip off the John Deere plant as we drive by. Family tradition.
I drive a Kia EV6, and love it. Kia pushes like 2 OTAs per year for updates and small bug fixes, but hasn’t rolled out any new features. They have a premium connectivity package, but nothing but remote bells and whistles are behind it.
I use my phone for the infotainment via CarPlay.
My phone acts like a phone, and my car acts like a car.
Now, the reason I have an EV6? I was a happy Chevy Bolt owner looking for a newer vehicle and was eyeing the Equinox EV. I noped out as soon as they announced the Google partnership and decided to remove CarPlay and BYOD as a feature.
The two things that will turn me off from a future purchase is lack of CarPlay, or paywalled “hardware” upgrades, like performance tweaks or locking out something installed like heated seats. Nope.
They’ve been. Demand your privacy back
It’ll be interesting to see how Slate does, if it makes it to production.
It’s DoA. At 20, they kinda make sense. At 27 without the EV credit you could be buying a maverick.
Except the Maverick isn’t an EV. It’s a hybrid, at best.
And? It comes with everything you’d expect from a ‘normal’ vehicle before you load up on your slate for several thousand dollars. You also get towing up to 8500lbs.
What’s the value proposition here? I only see this being successful in area where you MUST own an EV and even then it’s a hard sell without the tax credits.
For most people in general, the value proposition is that an EV is a Hell of a lot cheaper and simpler to operate and maintain in the long run (I say as the owner of a mid-1990s small pickup truck, among other vehicles). Your emphasis on towing capacity and purchase price is subjective preference, not objective superiority.
For my subjective preference in particular, it may well be the first modern EV (“modern” meaning not some NiMH fleet sales only compliance car from the '90s) that I can actually stand to own, because “everything you’d expect from a ‘normal’ vehicle” includes spyware that makes it a deal-breaker for me. Having it stripped down is a feature that makes it worth more to me, not less!
I don’t think a $1000 delta in maintenance costs over the first 5 years is a big a driver for the general public as you think it is. You’re not the target audience very few purchasing decisions are based on privacy.
It was a decent idea when the EV credit applied. But I’d be happy to betb a few hundred dollars the average new car buyer with that purchasing power and who is actually shopping for a vehicle will see the value. Especially not in the US where it’s sold. Gas is cheap.
As an owner of one (PHEV) I’m saving nearly $200/month in fuel. That is much more bigger than maintenance. I hope this lasts as long as the last one but the transmission isn’t known to be good (the “better” transmission on the last one was failing) Only time will tell, but so long as I need to drive I the question is how much I spend in a lifetime and electric has proven it to me.
I love PHEVs, but not for saving money.
If you’re spending that much in gas at 30 mpg at $3.16 then you’re driving 22,000 miles a year. Almost double the national average.
You’ve also likely spent at least $6k on an engine, but typically it’ll be at least 10k more expensive than the base model. For most people, in most cases, you buy the PHEVs because you get a great around town experience, without the charging fears, and usually better power overall.
Maybe there is a specific model you’re thinking of where the economics are better but you really need to be driving a lot of miles and own the vehicle a long time before you are saving money. If you’re doing 40 miles a day 300 days a year you’re talking a 6 year payoff in a highly charitable situation where the PHEV is 7k more than the base, and the base is only 30mpg. I’m not even sure that exists in the US.
I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the slate. Is there a 27k comparable PHEV truck?
The eyebrow raiser in the Slate’s base configuration is that it doesn’t come with any audio systems: no radio antenna/tuner, no speakers. It remains to be seen how upgradeable the base configuration is for audio, how involved of a task it will be to install speakers in the dash or doors, installing antennas (especially for AM, which are tricky for interference from EV systems), etc.
I’d imagine that most people would choose to spend few thousand on that audio upgrade up to the bare minimum expectations one would have for a new vehicle, so that cuts into the affordability of the package.
Or the fully electric small truck Ford is working on.
As proof of concept, Slate is cool. Up against a vehicle from an actual truck manufacturer, it’s probably a hard sell.
Their headquarters is down the road from me. I will let you know when the sign no longer lights up. Should be a few days.
It won’t do well. Wrong country.
the thrill of mechanical mastery
I remember people in the 80s/90s complaining that those pieces of shit were broken all the time. Not anymore IMHO. There was only thrill for a few car enthusiasts.
Yes, and car manufacturers are becoming SaaS vendors
Shit as a Subscription
Thank you
