I need to be clear that I’m excited for the brand new, $20,000-after-incentive electrical pickup from Slate Auto.
We’re in an affordability disaster in America proper now, and an affordable, sensible electrical automobile is an efficient factor. I additionally like Slate’s novel strategy—promote one thing fundamental at a low margin, and make revenue on an enormous catalog of equipment. Equipment that may flip the Slate Truck into an SUV. I’m additionally fascinated by the type of pondering that goes into making an reasonably priced folks’s automotive (or truck) like this. Low cost automobiles have lengthy been nice paragons of engineering, and this continues that lineage.
I simply have a nasty style in my mouth, and I’m questioning if I ought to.
The broader world turned conscious of Slate because of the wonderful reporting of Sean O’Kane at TechCrunch, who revealed that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is an investor within the undertaking. We don’t know what Bezos contributed, however we do know he was a part of an at the very least $111 million Collection A funding spherical in 2023. It’s honest to imagine that he kicked them greater than a pair bucks. In any case, Forbes stories that in 2023, Bezos was value about $114 billion, down from $171 billion in 2022.
Slate’s pitch is that its truck is an antidote to the affordability disaster. “The definition of what’s reasonably priced is damaged,” stated Slate CEO Chris Barman breathlessly in a press launch. “Slate exists to place the facility again within the arms of shoppers who’ve been ignored by the auto business
Barman is just not flawed. In a world the place the common new-car value hovers close to $50,000 and the median family earnings within the US is round $80,000—per the newest Census Bureau knowledge—any new sub-$20,000 automotive is an efficient factor. And in a world the place we have to scale back our carbon footprint, a sub-$20,000 electrical automotive is an excellent factor.
However does it should be funded by the man who’s inflicting these issues? Wealth inequality is at a staggeringly excessive stage within the US, and on the time of writing, Forbes says Jeff Bezos is the second wealthiest particular person on the earth.
Photograph by: Slate
In 2023, the Federal Commerce Fee and 17 state attorneys generals sued Amazon for anticompetitive practices saying Amazon’s “actions permit it to cease rivals and sellers from reducing costs, degrade high quality for buyers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and stop rivals from pretty competing towards Amazon.” After which there’s Amazon’s anti-worker practices. Simply final yr, the Nationwide Labor Relations Board stated that the corporate was breaking the regulation in its makes an attempt to discourage a New York Metropolis warehouse from unionizing.
Whereas not the CEO of Amazon, Bezos continues to revenue massively from the very type of prospects on the lookout for extra reasonably priced autos. The kinds of shoppers Slate desires to purchase its automobiles. If Slate’s pickup is profitable, it is going to be a boon for these on the flawed facet of the wealth inequality spectrum; It should additionally assist enrich one of many wealthiest folks on earth.
One wonders if Slate wished to obscure its wealthiest backer, who per a 2024 ballot from the Tech Oversight Undertaking, was considered unfavorably by 59% of voters surveyed. One additionally wonders if Jeff Bezos imagines the parking numerous Amazon warehouses crammed with Slate pickups, or big fleets of pickups with Amazon branding on the facet. Or maybe each.
Photograph by: Slate
Photograph by: Slate
This isn’t to say that Slate is dangerous and all different automakers are good. BMW is owned by a household that profited off its Nazi ties throughout World Conflict II; Henry Ford was a virulent antisemite; Lucid Motors is funded largely by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a rustic infamous for its many human-rights violations; the checklist goes on. And whereas most automotive firm executives aren’t as comically rich as Jeff Bezos, the CEO to common employee pay ratio at Ford is 312:1, and at GM, it’s 303:1.
And! Slate, if it could actually pull it off, is providing one thing that so many need, that so many want! No matter who’s paying for it, the Slate Truck is an EV pickup with a focused base value lower than half that of the common new automotive.
It’s additionally not like I can declare a ton of ethical superiority right here. I attempt to restrict my Amazon procuring, however generally, it’s merely the best choice. And I’d be naive to assume any client product offered by a for-profit enterprise would (or may) ever handle the causes of our issues, and never simply the signs. It’s a Band-Assist, however generally, you merely want a Band-Assist.
Photograph by: Slate
And what a neat Band-Assist. I can’t assist however not love cool engineering and funky machines. I don’t just like the army industrial advanced, however fighter jets rip. The Slate Truck is not any fighter jet, clearly, nevertheless it conjures up comparable cognitive dissonance in me.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote “the take a look at of a first-rate intelligence is the power to carry two opposed concepts within the thoughts on the similar time, and nonetheless retain the power to perform.” Twisting that round a bit, I’d be good to get on board with the Slate Truck, lest anybody assume my intelligence isn’t first fee. (The horror!)
Kidding apart, a lot in our fashionable world requires the same strategy. On your personal sake, it’s greatest to not assume too deeply about these tensions. I simply want I didn’t should.
