Thanks Nicolas thought provoking as ever. As I was reading it, I had a few thoughts:
- Slate feels like the kind of vehicle that Dieter Rams would have designed in terms of how it complies with his 10 rules of good design.
- Philosophically Toyota, VW Group and even GM aren't a million miles away from Slate with the idea of family platforms. It's where they go from there that is the failure. I thought that Slate owes as much to the AR-firearms system in terms of its core approach of modularity. If they took their basic truck to SEMA for the third party and tuner day, allowing their vehicle to be 3D scanned as Toyota does with the Tacoma, Forerunner and Land Cruiser then the third party support for it could explode. Better still post CAD files and specs for the modular connectors on Github to make them accessible.
- I suspect that so many consumers in many western countries have now become acclimated to vehicles as computing platforms that happen to move that there may be friction between the Slate experience and Europeans. I think thats a real shame, but then I grew up driving literal bangers like a Polish made Fiat 126 and a mk II Ford Fiesta van with a transplanted diesel engine in the the front of it. The idea of an automotive equivalent of a Punkt phone appealed a lot.
- I would like to see regulation around ADAS systems pared back to a sweet spot in terms of simplicity and more emphasis put into optimal HCI rather than the current experience of malicious compliance that we have.
All fair points. Under it all I think the thing I find most valuable is how the contrarian nature of the proposition forces you to question current norms. The automotive business need some new ideas but the usual mix of hubris and fear pushes everything down a familiar path. I wonder how things will look when we look back in ten years. Will the Slate pitch seem normal, even banal by contemporary standards? I think it’s possible. I also hope it’s probable because there are gains for consumers and waste reduction that we should want to see.
Thanks Nicolas thought provoking as ever. As I was reading it, I had a few thoughts:
- Slate feels like the kind of vehicle that Dieter Rams would have designed in terms of how it complies with his 10 rules of good design.
- Philosophically Toyota, VW Group and even GM aren't a million miles away from Slate with the idea of family platforms. It's where they go from there that is the failure. I thought that Slate owes as much to the AR-firearms system in terms of its core approach of modularity. If they took their basic truck to SEMA for the third party and tuner day, allowing their vehicle to be 3D scanned as Toyota does with the Tacoma, Forerunner and Land Cruiser then the third party support for it could explode. Better still post CAD files and specs for the modular connectors on Github to make them accessible.
- I found certain parallels with Toyota's Hilux Champ that they have launched in Thailand and the Slate in terms of its back to basics nature. More on that here: https://www.toyota.co.th/en/model/hilux_champ/specification
- I suspect that so many consumers in many western countries have now become acclimated to vehicles as computing platforms that happen to move that there may be friction between the Slate experience and Europeans. I think thats a real shame, but then I grew up driving literal bangers like a Polish made Fiat 126 and a mk II Ford Fiesta van with a transplanted diesel engine in the the front of it. The idea of an automotive equivalent of a Punkt phone appealed a lot.
- I would like to see regulation around ADAS systems pared back to a sweet spot in terms of simplicity and more emphasis put into optimal HCI rather than the current experience of malicious compliance that we have.
All fair points. Under it all I think the thing I find most valuable is how the contrarian nature of the proposition forces you to question current norms. The automotive business need some new ideas but the usual mix of hubris and fear pushes everything down a familiar path. I wonder how things will look when we look back in ten years. Will the Slate pitch seem normal, even banal by contemporary standards? I think it’s possible. I also hope it’s probable because there are gains for consumers and waste reduction that we should want to see.
It's the discipline of saying no and focusing on the essence. I think that's timeless in nature.