Articles and Videos of Interest That Don't Merit Their Own Threads

[AZFox]

I feel like giving a Slate that's not a production unit will be a disservice to Slate and his audience. Considering Doug wants to "review" and not "preview" it. He's already got a hard on for bashing Slate.
Wouldn't mind him getting a final version and bash it then, if that means getting one of the first that roll off an it's available in June/July or end of year, that's fine with me.

In retrospect Slate should have have thought that through a little better.

Either have a plan to offer a pre-production car, when they're available, or maybe skip that Q&A question entirely because DeMuro indeed doesn't seem to be onboard with the Slate concept.

 

[motorolas]

In retrospect Slate should have have thought that through a little better.

Either have a plan to offer a pre-production car, when they're available, or maybe skip that Q&A question entirely because DeMuro indeed doesn't seem to be onboard with the Slate concept.

Yes! They didn’t have to answer that question. It boggles my mind, especially if they had Jay Leno already lined up.
I don’t really see Demuro propping up prototypes and prefer his takes on newly released and old vehicles.

 

[Luxrage]

Doug DeMuro is a little bit nervous about the Slate situation.

Honestly out of any higher follower YouTubers out there, Aging Wheels should be on their list to get a review vehicle too. His whole follower base is based around small-affordable EVs, both good and bad.

 

[cadblu]

According to this Motor Trend Article, the power windows option in the Slate Maker will NOT be available at launch. In fact, it may be considerably delayed. The reason given, per Motor Trend, is Slate is purposely holding back on the accessory because they see crank windows part of Slate’s DNA and calling card.

I guess this means everyone will be “cranking” in most of the first year of ownership. Not a huge deal breaker since it should be plug and play probably in late 2027.

 

[bloo]

Cynic in me thinks the current tariffs made the option prohibitively expensive.

 

[motorolas]

From The Drive
Dodge CEO Asks ‘Do You Need a Radio’ in ‘Back-to-Basics’ Quest for Entry-Level Cars

https://www.thedrive.com/news/dodge...-in-back-to-basics-quest-for-entry-level-cars

Dodge CEO Matt McAlear -
“I think the biggest thing that we need to start doing is challenging the industry on what the expectations are from an entry-level base vehicle,” McAlear told The Drive’s Joel Feder on the floor of the 2026 New York Auto Show. “And I don’t mean that from the word cheap or less—I mean that from that of ‘back-to-the-basics.’ Analog gauges. Do you need a radio? Do you just have speakers that you Bluetooth to?”

“We need to push forward and maybe make people uncomfortable, but give them something they don’t realize that they want,” the chief executive continued. “And I think that’s an industry-wide thing, that it’s time to always—you have to be evolutionary in so many of your mainstream segments, but you take brands like Dodge, you take something like that. We’re a brand that can absolutely turn a segment on its head and bring something to market that no one saw coming. We’ve done it before over the years. We did it with the first Viper.””

 

[cadblu]

Interesting set of coincidences. Sounds like Dodge is copying pages from Slate‘s playbook. And didn’t Chris Barman work on the Viper project?

 

[KevinRS]

According to this Motor Trend Article, the power windows option in the Slate Maker will NOT be available at launch. In fact, it may be considerably delayed. The reason given, per Motor Trend, is Slate is purposely holding back on the accessory because they see crank windows part of Slate’s DNA and calling card.

I guess this means everyone will be “cranking” in most of the first year of ownership. Not a huge deal breaker since it should be plug and play probably in late 2027.

That's not what I'm reading in the article.
The quote from Head of interior design Aaron Gould is “We’re looking at it as an accessory,” Gould said. “We’re still focused on the crank for the production, but yeah, we’re looking at different ways to do that.”
So it seems if we take that as the current state of things, they don't even have a power window option lined up. I always thought the cube put on the door in place of the crank for power windows seemed odd, maybe it was always a placeholder. Didn't seem large enough for a motor or that there was any accommodation for power. If those are going to be inside the door, a flat plug should do for what's visible.

 

[cadblu]

From my perspective, Gould’s recent comments raised a huge red flag on production readiness for power windows.

“we’re looking at it as an accessory… for now, the crank window is the only window mechanism we’ll get. But an electric window option could happen in the future.”

At this stage of the game? Not what we were expecting.

 

[IanNubbit]

Power windows are cool, but totally unnecessary, the benefit of being able ti adjust them with the vehicle off or the door opens is so nice too. Especially with the door off thing being seemingly a feature not a bug. Have them in our nee Jeeps, people think it’s weird, but it’s something that takes 2 seconds to move. I Have yet to see a broken one, and I have performed 100s of repairs on electric window systems on the same vehicle, from wire breakage, connector failure, motor failure, cables unwinding, and so many switch failures or breakage.

 

[KevinRS]

Someone probably needs to ask Slate about power windows, and point out this quote, and that we've been told it will be available. There are probably many who would consider not even having the option to convert to power windows to be a dealbreaker.