Motor Trend: Slate Talks about the Truck’s Style, Safety, and a Front End You Can Design

[cadblu]

New interview with Slate’s head of design, Tisha Johnson, head of brand and marketing, Ben Whitla, and head of PR and communications, Jeff Jablansky.

Slate says it’s on schedule to hit its first customer deliveries toward the end of 2026, with mass production expected in 2027.

Motor Trend interview 14-Oct

 

[E90400K]

"The first thing we did was to get head lamps that are easy to swap out and don’t require an expensive lighting internal program to create them that we’d have to spend a lot of dollars to make."

Again, I ask, then why not just go with $15 Wagner H6006 glass headlamps. Fits perfect with the 1960's manual rollup windows meme.

 

[GaRailroader]

"The first thing we did was to get head lamps that are easy to swap out and don’t require an expensive lighting internal program to create them that we’d have to spend a lot of dollars to make."

Again, I ask, then why not just go with $15 Wagner H6006 glass headlamps. Fits perfect with the 1960's manual rollup windows meme.

The vehicle is already inefficient enough I hope they are going with LEDs and not H6006 halogens.

 

[E90400K]

The vehicle is already inefficient enough I hope they are going with LEDs and not H6006 halogens.

I'm thinking the LED lights Slate is using are going to get packed with wet snow, halogen might be better with their recessed design.

And there are glass globe alternatives with LED in the H6006 form factor. Still less expensive than a custom plastic lense/housing design. That will go opaque in 8 years...

 

[SichuanHot]

The vehicle is already inefficient enough I hope they are going with LEDs and not H6006 halogens.

Even HIDs would be good too. As long as the projector lens can support both styles of light emission patterns it should be good.

 

[E90400K]

Even HIDs would be good too. As long as the projector lens can support both styles of light emission patterns it should be good.

Usually HID lamps use a shutter to change from low beam to high beam, and they also need a ballast to light the bulb. Both of which make such headlight units very expensive. 120 watts for 10 hours is 1200 watts, which is 2 miles of energy at 2.4kW per mile. Not a big range hit to use halogen bulbs.

 

[GaRailroader]

Usually HID lamps use a shutter to change from low beam to high beam, and they also need a ballast to light the bulb. Both of which make such headlight units very expensive. 120 watts for 10 hours is 1200 watts, which is 2 miles of energy at 2.4kW per mile. Not a big range hit to use halogen bulbs.

2.4kW per mile? At that rate the 55 kWh battery would last 23 miles. 2.8-3.2 miles/kWh is the rate depending on whether you use max or usable battery size. 1.2 kWh would be 3.6 mile range hit using your scenario. Also, aren’t DRL required now so they are going to have to address DRL, low beam and high beam.

 

[KevinRS]

"The first thing we did was to get head lamps that are easy to swap out and don’t require an expensive lighting internal program to create them that we’d have to spend a lot of dollars to make."

Again, I ask, then why not just go with $15 Wagner H6006 glass headlamps. Fits perfect with the 1960's manual rollup windows meme.

Searching for that bulb, I'm finding 6v offroad use bulbs.
Unless that is wrong, and it's a different wagner H6006 you are talking about, the voltage is a problem, and not being certified for on road use is a problem.

 

[AZFox]

What they're using for headlights appear to have LEDs for the light source. In the recent video I can't tell of these are Daytime Running Lights or if the headlights are turned on. I'm guessing the latter because the amber lights are lit.