I also love this design and I'm happy that someone is doing it. I think it's unlike anything else on the market.
But, they won't necessarily be competing against other new things on the market. My wife also rides horses and we got a $5000 20 year old F250 which is very basic but has been bulletproof, and it can tow. I imagine old, basic trucks, either cheap domestic ones or kei trucks will be what this thing competes against.
I hope it does well. This is the kind of design thinking that the auto industry needs.
Also I'm increasingly convinced that the Honda fit is what peak performance looks like. But when it dies you do have options - maybe a Ford Transit Connect or a Metris.
All micro cargo van providers have stopped building them. The Transit Connect, Metris, Promaster City and NV200 are all now discontinued. The VW Caddy isn't sent to the states.
There are rumors that they will make a cargo van based on the Maverick but they make them in Mexico, and with the tariff situation I'm not sure if they will be going through with that anymore.
All of the perfect compacts and hatchbacks are slowly disappearing, and solid work trucks have been replaced with $60k+ fake trucks that will melt their gaskets with crappy turbos and can't even fit a piece of 2x4 in the back. There is an enormous category of consumers that just want an auto that's simple, affordable, safe, fuel efficient and reasonably sized. Almost nobody is serving them right now.
> All micro cargo van providers have stopped building them. The Transit Connect, Metris, Promaster City and NV200 are all now discontinued.
This is an entirely american problem, because the small van is largely dead in the US. They're doing fine elsewhere.
The Metris is still manufactured (as the Vito, or V260 in China), and is not the smallest model which is the Citan (based on the Kangoo, with its second gen based on kangoo III in 2021).
The Promaster City (Fiat Doblo) still exists, as a rebadged Berlingo since 2022.
The NV 200 was replaced by the NV 250 (a rebadged Kangoo II) in 2019, which was then replaced by the Townstar (a rebadged Kangoo III) in late 2021. There's also the Docker / Express below that (which descends from the Logan MCV / Van).
And the Transit Connect was replaced by the Caddy (rebadged), but Ford dropped its original plans of a US release.
> There is an enormous category of consumers that just want an auto that's simple, affordable, safe, fuel efficient and reasonably sized.
Apparently not sufficiently so (or with a consistent enough need) that they can be catered to. Or at least not so that you couldn't make more money selling them pavement princesses.
Ford have an even smaller van than the Transit Connect, the Transit Courier, I am considering an electric one for my next car.
Maybe Slate could offer a van version as well as the SUV.
To give credit where credit is due, the ~$25k Ford Maverick was a decent step towards "enough" vehicle for many people, while minimizing cost.
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a64351746/2025-ford-mav...
And definitely went the other way from the industry.
Yeah, except dealers ruined it. I wanted to buy one but every single dealership had them at $10k over MSRP.
Too bad the "ecoboost" engines in them are total garbage.
The 2.0 doesn't have the problems that the 2.3 Ecoboost has. The '25 model has port injection added to deal with carbonization.
If you’re not knowledgeable about cars, getting a 20 year-old truck is probably just not an option. Sometimes it’s totally fine, sometimes it craps out and needs a whole engine replaced!
My sister got a 2003 subaru last year for about $3,000. The oil leaked out while she was driving, and the whole engine sorta melted together and just totally died.
So I’d say for non car people, this Slate truck isn’t competing with old cars, if only on the basis of potential hidden catastrophes.
To be fair, a lot of farms need a big-ass pickup truck because they are always towing horses to go to shows or trailheads. We have 70 beautiful acres and a network of trails my wife built that were inspired by Het Vondelpark in Amsterdam. [1] If everything goes right we trailer in a horse once and never have to trailer it out although some horses don't fit in or have to go to the vet.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vondelpark
The Fit, however, is really genius. It's got the utility of an SUV in the body of a compact. I can't believe Honda's excuse that it wasn't selling -- in my area it is a running gag that if you have a blue Fit somebody will park another blue Fit next to you at the supermarket or that it makes a great getaway car, if somebody catches you doing donuts in their lawn you can say it musta been somebody elese.
If the grocery store parking lot is any indication, farming is the number one profession in America. All farmers can have their big trucks and still regulate out the other 99% of the 22-foot monsters used to commute to offices.
Comments like these are rooted in selection bias (willful or otherwise).
You're never gonna see trucks being used at the grocery store because people who are in the process of using said truck for truck stuff aren't usually stopping at the grocery store as they do it, and this is before you adjust for what kind of grocery stores HN shops at vs the kind that people who use the crap out of their trucks shop at. If you live the median "suburb to office and back" life you'll never see trucks doing anything. You need to be on the road and not in a cube during hours when "things" get done to see that. And the people who do things with their trucks mostly don't live and cross paths with the people who don't.
I could use the exact same faulty logic you're using here with slightly different parameters and come up with the conclusion that cars don't need a second row of seating.
And before anyone projects anything stupid at me, I own a minivan.
> You're never gonna see trucks being used at the grocery store because people who are in the process of using said truck for truck stuff aren't usually stopping at the grocery store as they do it,
I think you missed the point of the GP post. They were noting the presence of (a lot of) trucks at the grocery store parking lot. Whether they are towing/hauling isn't really the point.
There are trucks and then there are trucks. The Ford Maverick gets 42mpg in the city, 35mpg on the highway and is reasonably priced. If you value economy, ecology, efficiency and such that's right up there with a compact car. The F150 is a L size electric truck, an S size truck will appeal to people.
I've found this to be very regional. There are parts of the country where there are a lot fewer trucks and most appear to actually see a meaningful amount of real-truck use. There are other parts where like 40% of the goddamn cars on the road are pristine, bloated modern trucks that are just used as commuter vehicles.
If you're towing a horse trailer you really want the biggest truck you can get or a GMC Suburban or something like that.
On the other hand in the suburbs of some New England towns that I'm sure are full of white collar workers you see nothing but trucks in the driveway and I laugh when I see a Ford F350 with a lift kit and commercial plates idling and see, a few minutes later, a few pencilneck geeks come out of a frat house and climb into it.
depending on the rurality of that part of new england, they might have a legitimate claim to need the ground clearance and 4wd in the winter.
sometimes backroads aren't plowed well. or they. are plowed well and you need to scale a giant snowbank to get into your driveway.
(although my personal preference would be for the industry to make more rally-inspired high-clearance AWD sedans/wagons to fit this niche)
Something I also only really appreciated after spending more time out plains-west in the US, it's dangerous to drive small vehicles because of the average distances and abundance of larger wildlife.
When you're regularly driving 2+ hours one way to a town and a random pronghorn appears in the middle of the road, at night, when you're doing 85 mph... you want to be in something that can take the impact.
> Also I'm increasingly convinced that the Honda fit is what peak performance looks like
Close. A bit of work on the rear hatch dimensions so that you could get 4'x8' sheet goods in there, as was possible on the 1980s Honda Civic.
Also, just a teensy-weensy bit more power, please. Ours struggles even on moderate hills here on the edge of the Sangres de Cristo (southern Rockies).
Otherwise, all hail the Fit/Jazz, car of the future past.
They're both good in different ways. The advantage of the Fit is largely in cargo height (with the magic seats flipped up), but for some other objects the 80s Civic is better.