Info & discussions from Slate/Reddit AMA

[hempev]

Jeremy at Slate who sat comfortably in the seat with decent space behind? 😅

Ah.. so not British (or huge).

 

[AZFox]

Ah.. so not British (or huge).

And he spoke in class today according to these guys:

 

[Susan]

Apparently shifting/selecting is the one thing that all automakers have always kept open to creativity.

I'm glad then that the Slate is going to be my only car

 

[LevelHeaded]

Personally, I would prefer to have an option to disable 1PD

Same. I maintain that 1PD is great when it's all you drive.

But I don't trust a subset of the population to handle routinely swapping between 1PD cars and traditional-pedal cars reliably; I've been run into by people who don't understand the brake and accelerator pedals after having driven ones that behave the exact same their entire lives...

Also, I just think choice is good. I think being dogmatic about whether or not people "should" like changing the way something behaves after being used to it behaving another way for 100 years, and that functionality being safety-critical (for both them and others), is an ass move.

 

[sodamo]

Hopefully these details will be released soon. You'll need hardware to connect the Squareback exterior shell to the truck. I would expect to pay more than the difference between these items.

Maybe, maybe not. I would expect to panels will fasten to the cab, the window unit will fasten at end, possibly sides attach to bed.

 

[E90400K]

Same. I maintain that 1PD is great when it's all you drive.

But I don't trust a subset of the population to handle routinely swapping between 1PD cars and traditional-pedal cars reliably; I've been run into by people who don't understand the brake and accelerator pedals after having driven ones that behave the exact same their entire lives...

Also, I just think choice is good. I think being dogmatic about whether or not people "should" like changing the way something behaves after being used to it behaving another way for 100 years, and that functionality being safety-critical (for both them and others), is an ass move.

But the Slate has Federally mandated crash warning and emergency brake assist to help those under-skilled drivers.

 

[tubes]

How short is Jeremy? 😂

I'd say about 5' 10".
Taller than Trisha Johnson, maybe slightly shorter than Jay Leno (who the internet says is 5' 11").

Jay is up in age and slouches a bit while driving:

 

[SparkYellow]

I'd say about 5' 10".
Taller than Trisha Johnson, maybe slightly shorter than Jay Leno (who the internet says is 5' 11").

Jay is up in age and slouches a bit while driving:

Thank you so much! There will be plenty of room behind my seats!! 🤩😄

 

[E90400K]

Here you go. I took this shot in my secret spy Crayola uniform.

I'm hoping the three upper left icons mean the auto-highbeam function can be disabled as well. I hate auto highbeams.

 

[tubes]

I'm hoping the three upper left icons mean the auto-highbeam function can be disabled as well. I hate auto highbeams.

I'm with you. If there are such settings, I'm going to guess those will be set via the tethered app? I find the 1PD icon fascinating because even though it isn't going to be configurable at first release, one has to assume they have plans for the future.

 

[TPL]

Same. I maintain that 1PD is great when it's all you drive.

But I don't trust a subset of the population to handle routinely swapping between 1PD cars and traditional-pedal cars reliably; I've been run into by people who don't understand the brake and accelerator pedals after having driven ones that behave the exact same their entire lives...

Also, I just think choice is good. I think being dogmatic about whether or not people "should" like changing the way something behaves after being used to it behaving another way for 100 years, and that functionality being safety-critical (for both them and others), is an ass move.

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 a showstopper.

I wonder if it would work if they rebranded it as "automatic hill assist" or something.

Maybe if I could get her a test drive in a Slate she'd see that it isn't all that different.

I guess this means I'm likely in the year 2 or 3 crew instead of an early adopter.

 

[E90400K]

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 a showstopper.

I wonder if it would work if they rebranded it as "automatic hill assist" or something.

Maybe if I could get her a test drive in a Slate she'd see that it isn't all that different.

I guess this means I'm likely in the year 2 or 3 crew instead of an early adopter.

Not dissing your wife, but I have four (4) cars, all different, three are manual transmissions and one an automatic, I think she is overexaggerating the situation. All three manuals have different levels of engine braking (somewhat analogous to 1PD) and the automatic has a completely different engine braking profile than the manuals. She should just give it a chance to have two different cars in the fleet with different driving characteristics.

 

[E90400K]

Thank you so much! There will have plenty of room behind my seats!! 🤩😄

Yeah, it's called the "truck bed"...

 

[E90400K]

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 superior to no regen because most of the time coasting is not sufficient to stop the car. You absolutely want regen whenever you have to stop or whenever you need to slow the car down faster than coasting allows (for example if you're going 55, coming up to a 25 mph sign, and you see a cop at the last second.)

But in that scenario, if you were familiar with the route and there wasn't someone behind you, and you just coasted from 55 down to 25, that would be more energy efficient. The energy spent to keep the car at 55 for a longer period minus the energy reclaimed from regeneration would be greater than the energy to coast down to 25 (which is zero).

Well, we'd have to see the math to understand the losses and gains. But in real world driving, especially in traffic, extensive coast down is really not an option. It is more efficient to convert and absorb the kinetic energy back into the battery vs. losing the kinetic energy to heat via the friction brakes. Range is a function of the efficiency of converting the stored electrical energy in the battery to motion and battery size, not strictly just efficiency (i.e. watts-per-mile). Regen allows for more range with a smaller battery. A smaller battery means a lower MSRP to hit a target range. This point keeps getting missed.

 

[danielt1263]

If there are such settings, I'm going to guess those will be set via the tethered app?

There is a menu system on the car itself. When stopped, you can bring up a menu on the screen that you control with the cruse control dpad.

I expect there will also be settings in the app, but considering that I have seen the menu system, but not the app, I can't be as sure.