@cars Bring back mini trucks! My 1990 ford ranger is everything a commuter should be. People do not need fast cars they need something reliable, fast enough to get you from point A to B, and a perfect sized bed to haul almost anything in your home. Driving is still a blast BECAUSE IT IS SLOW! If you have not driven a vehicle with less than 100hp then treat yourself to the joys of your nearest shitbox.
I used to have a 1988 Mitsubishi Mighty Max. Little truck, 90 horsepower. No power windows, no infotainment system. Just seats and a steering wheel. Mine was super fancy because it had an automatic transmission.
I enjoy “slow” small cars. I daily a Mirage. I also have this old 4wd I tinker with, a Suzuki Samurai. It’s like 1/4 the size of an F150 but it will go anywhere you point it.
The most entertaining thing for me with small/slow cars are guys driving big trucks that see the little 3-cylinder car and they MUST get in front of it before their balls jump off their body and run away into the night. They’re easily triggered and you can make them go by a speed trap while showing you that their truck is faster.
I miss my Geo Tracker and the antics like:
- squeezing between bollards
- parking on the sidewalk
- leaving through the roof
- grabbing the rear fender from the driver seat
- poking the spare tire when reclined
- getting gassed by the exhaust pulling right back into most soft top configurations
- climbing logs with low 4x4
- getting fresh air intake through the floorboards
- still having 3 out of 8 body mounts intact
- getting fresh air through the rear wheel wells
- wondering what exactly was supporting my seat
- watching the door frames pop out of the roof line on bumps
I wish I was the one that could have saved it, but it wasn’t in the cards.
Oh yes, the joy of not needing power windows or locks because your arm is long enough. I’d love to find a tracker/sidekick, they’re nicer to drive on paved roads with other traffic when compared to my solid-axle, leaf spring equipped samurai. I’ve never met anyone who actually owned a tracker who didn’t like it.
slate.auto
And Telo
came here to say this. the only thing shitty about it that i’ve found is it’s bezo’s money behind it.
jay leno’s garage did an ok video about it last week. it was only ok because leno wouldn’t stfu. the truck seems pretty cool. i just wish someone would make a full bed ev truck. i’m not in it for the style, i need a vehicle to move full sheet goods with the gate closed.
@turdburglar @mortalic Ah man not another start promising startup ruined by big corpo. At least my local machine shop will make good money honing and decking the block and head.
Starting a car company requires an insane amount of funding. You’ll never find one that’s not working with shady billionaires.
I believe the slate is an ev if you’re talking about an internal combustion engine
@Cris_Color Slate is indeed an EV. I would still consider it if they keep all the extra unwanted technology away from it. Which is their selling point anyway. Just a bare bones simple electric vehicle with nothing special going for it. Expect forward reverse. Hopefully.
@mortalic I am so excited to see them succeed! I have high hopes for them.
Indeed, their q/a where they said they would be releasing .STL files for people to customize and repair is pretty great. Its going to have a repair manual!
Eh. It’s the Frontier Airlines of Trucks. They’d charge extra for seatbelts and airbags if they could. By the time you’ve got a barebones usable vehicle from them you’re looking at $35k and you can get a lot more for that kind of money.
Every new vehicle other than the Slate is disqualified from potential purchase because of built-in spyware/telemetry. Doesn’t matter what sort of “value” they are, when they are categorically not fit for purpose.
Jeff.Bezos
Don’t lock into an ecosystem run by Amazon and expect things to work out…
You know, I mostly agree. However, this truck is the only new car coming out that isn’t connected to anything. There is no modem. Hell you have to use your phone for even shuttling firmware to it. But honestly, what billionaire would be acceptable? I can’t think of any.
However, this truck is the only new car coming out that isn’t connected to anything. There is no modem.
Again:
Don’t lock into an ecosystem run by Amazon and expect things to work out…
You really think Amazon of all corps isn’t going to release a decent product to get people invested in a high cost ecosystem and then get all shitty about stuff?
You’re buying a car where the only parts you can buy is from Bezos, 3 years down the road shit will not be the same as release day. But people will have sunk cost into the base model by then
You’re looking for perfect, I get that, but this is the only vehicle that won’t be connected to the cloud, has a company pushing right to repair laws, is allowing customers to do their own warranty work if they want to, giving you how to guides with a repair manual, providing .stl files for 3d printing parts and still selling the vehicle for under $30k.
Look man, take the progress when it’s here before you end up with tesla robotaxies you can’t even drive, cuz that’s what happens of consumers don’t buy this truck.
I want a K-car from Japan very badly.
My first vehicle back in 1997 was a 1984 Mazda B2000 pickup truck. Four-speed manual. Floor it and… well… the engine gets slightly louder[1]. heh. But I loved it.
As a below-knee amputee, having to drive a stick would be annoying these days, but my Elantras have tiptronic or whateve it is that allows me to manually go up and down gears. I don’t drive using it all the time, but I love driving with it a lot.
We really do need more small vehicles in the US. But even more, we need a massive expansion of charging support, especially in public parking - like apartment complexes, for example. I’d love to have a relatively–short-range vehicle because I travel just a few miles three days per week to dialysis, so I don’t need a whole lot of range[2].
Ford Maverick?
Not for what they are asking. 40k is too much.
Bed is too small as well. It’s almost square.
The owners love the bed because they tend to be people who recognize they want 4 seats way more often than they want 8ft of bed and only make occasional sheet goods/lumber hauls. It has some features and designs that make it work well, mainly the bed notches and secondary tailgate latch. It still carries ugly stuff that’s too gross for an interior, it still carries awkward stuff that doesn’t fit in a trunk. So it’s a ute that doesn’t have to guzzle gas (42mpg city in the hybrid, 33 highway for gas) and is a normal length (200", the realm of a mid-size sedan). An F150 supercrew with 6.5ft bed is ~245".
Yes, I completely understand some people need the 6.5 or 8ft beds. I’m in no way saying their needs are imaginary. But the daily needs can clearly be met with the Maverick for a majority of the backpack hauls I see in the suburbs. A little extra struggle with sheet goods 6x a year comes with not penalizing you daily in fuel and parking space. I mean, I know compact and I know what’s too small for my needs. I drove a Geo Tracker for 2 years. Recently. I built a trailer for my lumber runs. That thing was only 145" long. It was fun but having neither a back seat (unsafe, deleted) nor a bed (“trunk” was only like 30dx42w after seat delete) was a little over the line. Currently in an older reg cab, 6ft bed pickup and I’d rather more seating/interior space. Spouse+groceries is a creative puzzle, so I keep a bin in my covered bed.
But, if unplugging the cell antenna bricks the Maverick, fuck it to hell.
Its a shame you can’t get a standard cab version or 48" between the wheelhouses. Its also $30K minimum out the door (with dealers conveniently pushing the nearly $50k trim levels). But I do applaud Ford for trying to make a cheap, modern mini truck.
