Have you seen the video Jay Leno just published in which he does an interview with two Slate people and tests out a prototype of the little truck/SUV Slate says it will be bringing to market in about a year?

Here’s the video in case you haven’t seen it:

The underlying idea is compelling – but the elaboration of it is skewed in the wrong direction.

Slate wants to make a minimalist and thus affordable truck that can be ordered as an SUV or converted into an SUV by its owner anytime he likes. The body panels can be easily removed via exposed fasteners and replaced by anyone with basic hand tools and the desire to use them. It does not have a huge LCD touchscreen or 22 inch “rims.” It does have manual/roll-up windows – a feature that used to be standard because power windows were once seen as a luxury option that people who could afford could buy if they wanted to pay more could opt to buy, but which could be skipped by those who wanted to pay less.

So good, so far.

But then you get to the flaw in the plan – the hair in the soup – which is that the Slate is an EV. More finely, that it has a battery and by now, even Jay Leno ought to know what that means.

First of all, it means this little truck/SUV is not going to be inexpensive. Not unless you consider around $30k – the bruited-about base price – “inexpensive.” Perhaps in relation to the current average $50,000 vehicle, it is. But you can still almost buy a current mid-sized truck such as a Ford Ranger for the sum and you can definitely buy the slightly smaller Maverick, which srickers for $28,145 and goes a lot farther (579 miles in city driving) than the Slate’s standard 150 mile range on a fully charged battery.

More range – 230 miles – will be available optionally. That is to say, you will pay more to get it. If the general pattern holds, the additional range (and more powerful battery) will add a few thousands to the Slate’s price.

It’s an example of the abusive times we live in, isn’t it?

You are expected to pay extra for enough driving range to make the vehicle viable for more than very short hops and low speeds – because the faster you go, the sooner you’ll have to stop. An EV with 150 miles of range is realistically a vehicle with a 50 mile driving range, there and back. In winter, that’s not much of a margin given the real-world range might be 30 miles, there and back.

It is beyond effronterous. Imagine the manufacturer of a non-EV producing vehicles that came standard with tiny gas tanks; if you wanted to be able to drive the thing farther, you’d have to pay extra for a bigger tank. It’s really not far from expecting people to pay extra for more than just a driver’s seat.

The battery is the defining problem with EVs.  They are why even this minimalist truck/SUV is expected to cost close to $30k. Were it not for the battery, a truck like this could be made and sold for $15k or even less than that – as Toyota proved. The HiLux Champ stickers for less than that and while it’s true you don’t get much – in the way of amenities – you do get a useful little truck that isn’t limited to just 150 miles of best-case driving range.

Speaking of which.

Like all EVs, the Slate has a thermal management system to keep its battery from getting too hot or too cold, which is bad for EV batteries. The thermal management system constantly burns electricity, which burns range – unless you keep the thing plugged in to equalize the loss. AC is also standard – which is interesting given the Slate’s putative minimalist design ethos. It is also a liability – in terms of range – because using AC also burns electricity, significantly.

The Champ will never need a new battery that will cost you half as much as you paid for the truck before you’ve paid-off the truck.

This is the hidden cost that comes along for the ride with every EV purchase and there is no avoiding paying it, because even if the battery’s charge capacity hasn’t wilted noticeably by the time you decide to sell or trade it, everyone knows it will and that is why EV’s depreciate much more severely than non-EVs. If you buy a Slate, you can expect to lose 30 percent more of its original purchase price by the time it is six years old than the purchaser of a non-EV come trade-in time.

That amounts to thousands of dollars in additional ownership costs.

You could probably drive a HiLux Champ for 20-25 years before a major component such as the engine or transmission needed to be replaced and that is why it will hold its value better for longer, because a ten-year-old HilLux probably has at least another ten years of reliable life left.

A ten year old EV battery pack doesn’t.

Maybe a better idea would be for Slate to sell just the truck/SUV shell without the battery (and the electric motor). Then people could afford it. Then they could afford to add a basic – ideally, modular – four cylinder engine paired up with a basic five speed manual transmission. Slate could build the rolling chassis/body to be ready to accept the drivetrain, purchased separately.

The best part about this idea is that Slate could probably “get away” with selling it as a kit car (well, kit truck/SUV) and thus exempt from federal saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety and “emissions” requirements. People could put the thing together on their own and the whole thing done for less than $15k.

Of course, then it wouldn’t be a $30k EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee.

. . .

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