cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/electricvehicles/p/2162853/usa-slate-s-new-electric-truck-will-cost-slightly-more-than-24950
Range is said to be 205 mi (330 km), higher than the original estimate. This price is for the basic truck. The SUV configuration is expected to be $5000 more.
I heard that Bezos left the company as an investor. I don’t blame you for disliking anything American, but Slate Auto seems alright so far…
He was never “in it”; but he put up the seed money, then participated in the main round of fund raising and placed a ton of his people in the company. So even if his is not personally involved, he has all the strings he needs to pull it where he wants it to go (which, IMO, means Slate will be enshitified to the full the moment those little trucks start selling)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/inside-the-ev-startup-secretly-backed-by-jeff-bezos/
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If they enshittify in the future, then you can just not buy one of the enshittified trucks. The old ones will still be out there, rolling around fine, without any internet connection that the company could use to remotely sabotage them.
What I wonder is how exactly are they going to enshittify it? It’s extremely barebones and modular in a way that anyone can design add-ons and accessories for it. I can see them doing subscriptions and the like for various add-ons but you can always just get the base model and get add-ons elsewhere.
They can betray the customer in many different ways… I am not willing to pay $25K to find out
Generally yes, but with a modular and simple-by-design vehicle… how though?
They could simply stop producing certain parts, sneak a specific custom piece somewhere, provide no diagrams or documentation for third parties to produce repairs. They could simply design parts that fail just after warranty. There is an app that goes with it, right there they have the chance to scan and sell your data, push ads to you, track your driving, etc.
I don’t know exactly but there are more ways they can enshitify a product than my imagination allows.
You see, greedy people do not enshitify for sport, they do it for greed as enshitification means more money for them. So unless you are convinced Bezos put money here to help people and not make as much money as possible back, the only logical conclusion is that he wants to milk it as hard as possible, this is what he does.
I think my desire for a small electric pickup truck might override my caution in this case, we’ll see if I get burned. At the very least I’m not going to preorder and will wait for real critical reviews after it’s released.
that’s honestly a good approach… I’d do the same