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Agreed. I did my 1PD experiment with our Leaf yesterday and it went better than I expected; I think I could transition to it full time with no worries. But my wife disagrees, and fears that having different cars with different driving characteristics would be a safety issue. For her it's still...

It is, because there are energy losses from regeneration. Whenever you convert from one form of energy to another there are losses, small in this case but nonzero. Even charging the car up from the wall there are losses. Some of the energy (less than 10%) is converted into heat. Regen is...

I get the desire to put your kid in something with modern safety features. I grew up on hand-me-downs and cheap rustbuckets too, and they were death traps. If cost is not a constraint, a Slate is a great option for many reasons, not least being when you need something hauled you can have them...

I don't agree. The way to maximize range is to regenerate only when necessary (when stopping, or when slowing quickly) and to coast as much as possible. This is because regeneration, while more efficient than traditional braking, is less efficient than coasting. Think of how hypermilers...

This article sums up a lot about what I love about the Slate.

After thinking more, I agree with the opinions about incremental upgrades like AWD and battery. But the more I think about it, the more I think a Slate 2 would be a full size truck that can do full size truck things while taking advantage of everything the Slate 1 teaches them: 4 door option...

Maybe he could cut a hole in the hood, like the various AI pictures of a dog bubble. The "my Slate is happy to see you" jokes write themselves.

That Tesla Robovan looks pretty sharp. If that had been the Cybertruck, well, it would have been better for Tesla at least. I realized yesterday that my belief that a van requires sliding doors is wrong, and a two-door van is possible. Though I am not sure if "no rear seats" is good enough to...

Eternal September continues!

As far as Tacomas go that does sound pretty awesome. But another consideration is that we are currently at the peak of your Tacoma's resale value. I would personally rather have a Slate. But I'm not the one making your decision!

Happy 4th to those who celebrate, and to those who don't, die in a fire I hope you have a happy day too!

It would be great from the perspective of a renter. I rented an EV on Turo once because I wanted to see what it was like (it was great). From the perspective of the owner, idunno. Seems like a bad experience would not be a matter of if, but when. If someone is already an experienced Turo...

The foot garage needs a removable concealed cover in order to resemble the smuggling compartments in the Millennium Falcon.

90 mph is plenty for me. I grew up in the 55 era and the highways near me top out at 70. I'm happy to set the cruise at 75 and let everyone pass me. At one point in my life I had a 90 minute commute and setting the cruise near the speed limit dramatically reduced my driving stress.

My wife's Leaf is similar. I have to watch the speedometer because the car is so quiet and smooth that it messes with my intuition about how fast I'm going.

90% of my driving is with 1 or 2 people, but the remaining 10% is with 3, and I would be totally up for an aftermarket bench seat, if it could be done reasonably safely / legally. I'm not positive it could; from a federal law perspective I would be allowed to retrofit in my own bench seat (as...

Telling the boy to graduate from college in 3 years instead of 5.

Me too. However: when I lived in a rear-plate-only state, the local university prohibited pull-through parking, so that the university police could drive down each row of cars and have their license plate scanners work! In my current state, a proposal to save millions of dollars by going to...

If you're going to do the engineering to extend the bed to 6', may as well also do 8' at the same time. Another two feet of battery could mean sodium-ion is viable. Or 50% more range. Or more towing capacity.

When we speculate about additional Slate variants, 5 years down the line, a longer bed seems like a relatively straightforward thing to engineer. Slightly more complicated, but no doubt in the Slate-survives-and-thrives future, is a quad cab.