If they actually follow through on making the Slate as privacy friendly as they claim in this article, and it doesn’t have any major flaws, I’m gonna go ahead and say this is perhaps one of the best options for someone in need of a mini-truck/SUV hybrid.
It’s not purely a demand side thing. It’s also a regulatory change. The CAFE standards were updated in 2010 to require a sliding scale of fuel economy standards where larger vehicles were permitted to have less efficient fuel economy ratings. Small trucks sat in an unviable zone of too small to be allowed to be fuel inefficient, and too big to actually be fuel efficient, so they were phased out right around 2010.
Now, fully recognizing that small trucks are in demand, and that EVs don’t have worry about fuel economy standards, several manufacturers have made plans to occupy that niche with EVs.
And how many people are buying EVs in general? It’s a very small amount % wise. And with the tax credits disappearing it seems the EV market is just about being abandoned entirely. Ford made an electric version of the best-selling vehicle in America, and it was fantastic, and almost no one bought it, and they discontinued it a couple years later. Same story for Tesla’s and GM’s trucks. Americans don’t want EVs in general, much less pickup truck EVs, and much less than that, tiny 2-door electric trucks.
Again, I very much hope I’m wrong, but that’s the impression I get from my observations of the market.