For over a century, the automobile has represented freedom, power, and the thrill of mechanical mastery. The connection between driver, machine, and road defined what it meant to own and love a car. But in today’s digital era, a different trend is unfolding. Cars are no longer just machines designed to take us from point A to point B. Increasingly, they resemble something else entirely: smartphones on wheels.
The sad thing is ‘smartphone on wheels’ is a slur.
Smartphones don’t have to be soulless and uniform and enshittified and subscription based and completely inaccessible and straight up anti-consumer/designed to fail, but here we are.
I really hope Slate takes off though (and they make a nimble hatchback for their next chassis). It feels like the antithesis of all this.
Kind of disappointing Bezos is involved though.
Backed, not owned though, and not alone:
https://slaterides.com/slate-auto-investors/
I view it as a net positive if Amazon wants them for EV delivery. A substantial guaranteed commercial customer is huge.
The simplicity of the Slate interior is fantastic. They developed a screenless touch screen that you can rotate without even looking at them. I wish I were in the market for this type of vehicle.
Interior photo
Yeah, that is so perfect.
Imagine a sedan or hatchback. It would be light as a feather (in terms of curb weight) and still feel spacious being so ‘clean’ inside.