I mentioned Kei trucks above. Those things all have 6’ beds or a few inches more.
It’s quite possible there’s just not a particularly big market for basic trucks in this country.
I think you’re right. Once upon a time only basic pickups were available. You could add in some options. When a small space behind the front seat became available the competition for more space, and seats, and doors began. Now pickups aren’t simply trucks, they have all the amenities of a full size car along with a bed.
Heck, the most spacious backseats I’ve ever been in are in pickups.
The spec sheet for that says it does 25 or 35mph (the copy up top differs from the specs section). Seems to be filling a pretty different niche. The Slate is a road vehicle you can put cargo in, the Cushman is a small hauler you can take on the road in a limited capacity if you need to.
Ehh, I think the main reason this transformation happened is that trucks aren’t under the same regulations as cars, so you can still build a land yacht out of one. Hence, the proliferation of giant pickups that will never carry anything but a few sacks of groceries in the bed.You can’t profitably build the “personal luxury car” of the '70s anymore (think a '75 Thunderbird or Coupe DeVille. But you can easily build a truck or SUV that’s just as big, luxurious and silly.
OTOH, the Maverick can’t be had for anything near its sticker price because it’s pretty damn popular. So there’s at least some market for smaller, more affordable trucks. It’s just not the market that most modern trucks are aimed at. Even the imports from Asia aren’t really small, utilitarian trucks these days.
My post was directed to @susan, who said she wanted a small pickup for hauling. My point is, if all you want is something to drive five miles to the feed store in town and bring a few bags of feed home, or take a few weeks worth of garbage to the local dump (a la Alice’s Restaurant) there are less expensive alternatives already on the market. Conversely, if you want any kind of creature comforts at all, the Slate will run into @ThisOneGuy 's pithy observation.
TL;DR the niche for a Slate is pretty narrow.
'Zactly.
The general American public wants land yachts. Big luxo passenger cabins with room for four 250-300 lb people. And cupholders. And thick cushy seats, a smooth ride, a fancy stereo, etc. …
The law makes it illegal to make and sell one of those cushy oversized passenger cabins unless you tack a pickup truck bed onto the back. Put a trunk there instead and your vehicle is illegal to sell. It really is as simple as that.
As a general matter I’m all for well-designed regulations on whatever topic to nudge the public and commerce in the “right” = pro-social direction. This regulation is not well-designed and instead has nudged both rather firmly in the anti-social direction. A direction Americans in general are already highly disposed towards.
They can sell them, and Americans can choose to buy them. There’s nothing illegal about it.
The actual issue is the current regs mandate minimum fleet-wide fuel economy standards. Light trucks get counted differently. Land yachts are called gas guzzlers for a reason.
But even there, fuel economy standards even for light trucks have gradually been going up with the decades as well. Too fast or too slow, depending on your political affiliation, but they have been going up. It’s one of the reasons car companies have not been totally against a transition to electrification and some have even embraced it - it helps satisfy those standards, here and abroad.
Similar thing as light bulbs. Incandescent light bulbs aren’t illegal, no matter what some people say. But any new light bulbs (with the exception of some bulbs used in specialty cases) have to satisfy energy efficiency standards, and the old fashioned bulbs just don’t.
I think the recent legislation regarding an electric vehicle tax/registration fee/etc. designed to “compensate” for damages caused to roads and bridges that isn’t baked into our gasoline taxes would be much better served by a much higher tariff on 3/4 or one ton pickups, most of which in my experience are indeed suburban toys never used for heavy work or towing.
I don’t say all, because I know a few people who do real work out of them (a family member in trades) or use them to tow Travel Trailers (which is a different sort of semi-conspicuous expense, but…).
Still, while I support this vehicle and any other effort to create a lower-cost BEV option for the American market, I agree that @ThisOneGuy and @Kent_Clark are correct - too many different definitions of what is a deal-breaker on that ONE missing feature.
A second issue, and one we had come up in several threads for edge-case needs for a pickup, is that if you only need to haul XYZ a limited number of times a year (say less 6 times a year) it makes sense to just rent a van/pickup from Uhaul for that couple of days a year you need it, and drive something more suited to your needs/comfortable/cheaper the rest of the time!
I think the slated (snerk) pickup is a great idea lacking in a market. Going with the SUV format by default would probably have worked better, but not been able to reach the emotionally satisfactory price point as a default. Just IMHO of course, but I’d still bet that if the product is successful, the majority of the sales will be that market rather than the pickup.
We used to call them floating living rooms. That was in the 60s. Sad (to me) to think that so little has changed.
On another note, I asked the folks at Slate if it would be possible to turn the truck into an SUV but without the rear seats (all the promo materials at this point show it with rear seats). They responded today, and the answer is yes. They called it the Cargo Kit option, which does not yet show up as a configuration option, but will soon. That’s one in the plus column on my pros and cons list.
Generic Americans now are only larger, lazier, and less fit than they were the 1960s. And on average are richer too.
Why would anyone expect them to want less of a living room?
I am definitely larger than I was in the 60’s, & while I may have more total fat, by weight, than I did then it is definitely a lesser percentage of my weight since I lost all of that baby fat. Does that make me generic or do I have a name? 
I’ll go with “Smarty Pants” for you today, good Sir. 
Nope, no kids. The last time I went to lunch with coworkers, they squeezed in my Porsche 928 okay. And I’ve never had a dog in any car, and in fact that’s one of my old curmudgeonly issues. Growing up we never took Wolf anywhere by vehicle his entire life; where are people going with their bull mastiff in the back of their Yaris?
[rant ON]
Since they’ve never left the dog alone since the day they got it, the answer to
is “Everywhere”.
[rant OFF]
Meet the TELO MT1, the all-electric mini truck; spotted this morning in downtown San Carlos CA!
More pics here; I took a total of 10 pics:
You need a 2.5l dual turbo for a small truck to work but multiply the track by the wheelbase by the x factor and that’s not allowed whist the equation favors big trucks.
The slates got off-road tyres but it’s so low I can’t see many SUV owners buying one.
I wonder if the range is with no load, halve that for a full load and your not getting far.
Bernie went everywhere in the car (at that time, a minivan with the rear seat removed). To visit friends. To the vet. To PetSmart to shop for toys and food. To the country cottage for a week. In fact he was so used to the car that when I got a new one (but still had the old one sitting in the driveway) he refused to get in it, took the leash in his mouth, and led me over to the old one to indicate his preferred vehicle. I tried explaining to him that the battery was shot and it would have to be jump-started, but he wouldn’t listen. 
I’m not thrilled about the styling but it actually makes sense. The 4-door extended cab design is sensible, and there’s no need for a “frunk” in a pickup truck, especially one with rear seats.
However, the TELO MT1 has a starting price of around $42,000, minus any government rebate that may apply.
I had a look at the Telo website, and then watched the cool video below. It’s not an advertising video per se, just some automotive guy going over the Telo MT1 with the CEO of the company. Quite informative.
I like this thing. It packs incredible utility, performance, and range into a remarkably small package. Interesting company, too – founded by three young engineers just a few years ago. But for that reason, I’d worry about long-term support and also reliability for such a new product. From something I was reading recently, the Rivian R1T made somebody’s list of the 10 least reliable vehicles. Just because it’s electric doesn’t mean you won’t have problems.
Neat. I kind of like the silly styling. The bed seems very short to me but maybe I’m underselling it since it’s empty and I don’t have much context. I wouldn’t be unhappy to own one but, in reality, I’m really more of a “Rent a pick-up from Home Depot for $35 twice a year” use case.