Portland Ride Along: Customer service great Email follow-up: "Re: How was your first Slate ride?"

[CEW]

Terrific out-reach from SLATE Customer Service. (of course! They just keep topping themselves). I believe ALL of us RSVP attendees should have received an email by now?

Re: How was your first Slate ride?

from Katelyn Fitzgerald (to my 3 part responses with Questions) - particularly informative on reasoning for delays in seeing more from SLATE UNIVERSITY right now - towards end of her response to me:

Hi Cathy,

What a thorough recap! Thank you for taking the time to share all of this across three emails, and for making the trip up from Olympia. A 2-2.5 hour drive each way says a lot.

So glad Stephan, Yolanda, Katie, and the rest of the
team made the experience worthwhile. We'll pass along the kind words to the crew.

On the Moon Duster and Cali Sunset confusion, that's completely understandable and I'm sorry for the disappointment. Those names are part of our Starter Packs on the website and weren't meant to signal that the fastback or open air models would be at the event. We can see how that created a real expectation, and it's helpful feedback on how we communicate event details going forward.

On your accessory questions, the running board options and audio speaker storage are great things to flag for our team, and I'll make sure your feedback on wanting more in-depth accessory content gets to the right people.

On Slate University, we hear you and it's coming. We're planning to release videos later this year as we get closer to first deliveries. The reason we've held off is intentional: we want the content to be based on production models, not preproduction versions, so that what you see in those videos is actually representative of what will be in your driveway. Worth the wait, we promise.

Thanks again for being such an engaged part of the community. It genuinely means a lot!

KATELYN FITZGERALD
SR. SLATE AGENT | SLATE AUTO
833.HI.SLATE
Studio West

 

[Harley Earl]

Thank you @CEW for posting this. Received the same "How was your first Slate ride?" email from Katelyn @ SLATE on 08282026 @ 1543, responded on 08282026 @ 1844 and received a personal response from Katelyn on 08302026 @ 1140. Katelyn addressed my feedback succinctly. The SLATE Customer Support Team exceeds expectations thus far.

 

[coregrind]

If I may add this here, below is also from Katelyn, on Sunday the 30th, in response to my ride-along feedback:

Here's a bit more on the broader timeline: production is set to begin in the next several weeks, with first deliveries happening at the end of this year. Full specs will be shared as deliveries begin. Demo drives on production vehicles are something we're anticipating for next year once the first trucks are in customer hands. And when your delivery window gets closer, you'll go through an accessory selection process about a month out, with everything shipped directly to your home.

 

[VigilKnotEagle14]

Y'all are rockstars for sharing, and the Slate team is crushing it for being open to feedback and giving us the why in addition to answers. Helps a lot and definitely is keeping with their want for transparency.

 

[KevinRS]

If I may add this here, below is also from Katelyn, on Sunday the 30th, in response to my ride-along feedback:

Here's a bit more on the broader timeline: production is set to begin in the next several weeks, with first deliveries happening at the end of this year. Full specs will be shared as deliveries begin. Demo drives on production vehicles are something we're anticipating for next year once the first trucks are in customer hands. And when your delivery window gets closer, you'll go through an accessory selection process about a month out, with everything shipped directly to your home.

So basically means they aren't reserving first production vehicles after testing for demos, instead they will start shipping to customers asap.
I am hoping I can get my delivery before my car fails, had somewhat of a scare with a check engine light that gave a transmission code, but it turns out that code often is a problem with a bad connection in the tail lights, apparently they have a ground line from the ECUs go to the backup lights, and corrosion or an otherwise bad connection or bad bulb can give a code P0705 which reads as a fault with Transmission Range Sensor A Circuit (PRNDL Input)

Then it turns out getting to those lights is a lot harder than it should be, even though it looks easy. Luckily I haven't had a bad bulb in 11 years.