It's not more of a valid concern than on any other vehicle though. A slate fender is exactly as stealable as any other fender. No cats to steal though!
It's not though. Catalytic converters contain valuable metals like rhodium, palladium and platinum. Slate panels are just hunks of plastic.
It seems like that has slowed, but fasteners were never the issue. They use a rechargeable cutting tool to destructively remove the valuable converter to recycle, often in under a minute.
Ehh that's not exactly true. The fenders on most cars require you to open the hood and remove the interior insulation in the trunk to gain access to the nuts and/or bolts and press rivets that hold them in from the inside. If they were that easy to remove, I'd be removing them to clean out all the dust and road grime in my old cars.
People will steal anything and simply commit wanton destruction of property in certain areas. Cats are one end of the spectrum of vandalism and theft. The point is it's not the perceived value, but the ease of access the theft can happen. Battery powered tools make stealing cats easy, so using them to steal some panels will be even easier. That said complex injection molded plastic components aren't cheap either. Ever seen how much a new, OEM plastic bumper for a car costs?
They can use those battery operated tools to steal panels even faster. About a week ago, one of my friends told me his whole neighborhood had their cats stolen, including his car. It still happens.
But if they are going to do that, the fasteners are not even a part of it. That theoretical thief is just cutting the panel off?
Even if these panels were an attractive thing to steal, Slate has said a number of times that there are screws on each panel that are inaccessible without a key to open the door/frunk/bed. So one of the power tools your thieving hooligans bring better be a Sawzall before heading off to the plastic recycler/incinerator to cash them in for the lucrative scrap value!
You would need quite alot of plastic scrap to turn a profit and i belive the ceo said the panels with be a glass filled composite right so basically fiber glass plastic panels making them overall a worthless item to steal
That would render the panels damaged and unsellable, but could work for other projects like selling to people who want to kit out their side by sides.
We could wait to worry about these things until they start production & sales and see what the final version actually looks like...
You mean exactly like Slate has publicly stated, and been discussed here previously, must be done to remove them on Slate too? Just because you can see fasteners, doesn't mean you can see ALL the fasteners.
Ok, you can turn a catalytic converter into cash. what is the value of a used Slate panel? Please, I REALLY want to know because I can figure it out.
As literally everyone else including Slate has mentioned here and across several other threads... THIS IS ALSO THE CASE FOR SLATE FENDERS
