Future front motor option possibility

[knickers]

Someone in another thread asked if there was room in the front suspension for a FWD system, so I started rewatching Slate coverage videos. This factory tour from Sandy Munro has a great closeup of the front suspension inner workings, starting at 23:20. It definitely looks like there's space.



In this Rich Rebuilds interview, he asks the AWD question to the head of engineering at 34:30.



The response:

We are one hundred percent focused on making sure we get [the Blank Slate] to market, and of course over time we're looking at what the additional portfolio could look like. So we will have a Slate portfolio of vehicles with additional features that may or may not fit underneath the frunk.

So I'm choosing to hope there's a possibility, that after they design a future slate model that contains a front motor, they will sell that front motor as a retrofit kit for existing vehicles 😅

 

[slateya]

I am also hoping for clarity on this. It seems fairly clear that physical space was left in the architecture for a front drive unit. The question I have is if the architecture was put into the electrical and controller to make a future all-wheel-drive unit plug-in play with the first generation models.

 

[kvermeer]

I'm hoping for this in the distant future, not hoping for this in the first year or even clarity on whether it might be available for first-year trucks.

The good news is that the Slate motor is a simple, all-in-one drive unit that contains the inverter, motor, reduction gearbox, even the parking lock in a neatly packaged unit:

https://en.jjeglobal.com/product/68.html

Quick connector for the water cooling circuit, high-power cable, and otherwise drive-by-wire. I see no reason why they wouldn't use the same style for the front motor in an AWD unit, it will probably look a lot like this install of a Tesla drive unit under an antique Jaguar:



No guarantees that the subframe matches without some fabrication, and it seems likely you'll end up swapping the central controller (with AWD logic) and some of the high-voltage distribution systems plus the front axle from a newer 4WD Slate into an older RWD Slate, but that controller isn't currently doing much more than processing and connecting.