By NYA Staff
For decades, the consumer tech industry has operated under the rule that adding more features to a product makes it better. We see it in smartphones that ship with dozens of pre-installed apps you can’t delete, smart refrigerators and washers that require software updates to work, and televisions that spy on our viewing habits to serve us ads.
Somewhere along the way, tech companies stopped building basic products that worked like tools and started building ecosystems designed to lock us in. We are forced to pay for added complexity—sensors, subscriptions, connectivity, alerts, and features that will likely never use.
The automotive industry has followed this same playbook even longer. Screens have multiplied, software features have piled on, and paid subscriptions have been added for whatever the companies could get away with. And try ordering one feature and you’ll often have to take a much larger package of stuff you don’t want or upgrade to a higher model.
The Slate Auto truck was created by a Michigan-based startup founded in 2022 with the goal of stripping away the complexity and rising costs that have made new vehicles increasingly expensive, and offering a simple, affordable electric pickup. It comes with minimal technology and a modular design that allows owners to customize or upgrade it over time. It will get about 200 miles on a charge and cost about $25,000.
The new Slate electric truck represents a refreshing contrast to this approach.
At first glance, the Slate is the definition of minimalism- enough to get on the road and drive safely, but devoid of all the extras. No radio, no digital menus,
no heads-up displays, no parking sensors. It has basic hand-crank windows and physical knobs for other functions.
Instead of forcing us to buy their package of accessories, Slate lets us choose only what you need now and add more things later.
The timing for this could not be better. Across society, we’re witnessing a pushback against feature bloat and excess. We’re streamlining their homes, deleting apps, limiting screen time, and fiercely questioning our subscriptions. Many of us are resisting the industry’s push for new models yearly that has led to the proliferation of electronic junk around the world and plastics infecting our seas.
What’s so brilliant is that it treats the vehicle’s chassis not as a static, closed ecosystem, but as an open hardware platform. Rather than paying a conventional manufacturer for a bundle of factory-installed features, you take what you need and add to it over time.
Buyers can start with the basic two-seat pickup truck and change it when their life or budget demands it. In a way it echoes the early days of personal computing, when users opened the case to upgrade their own memory and sound cards.
In a world tired of artificial complexity, escalating costs, and consumer excesses, Slate is following a classic product design truism: often the best product isn’t the one that does the most, but the one that does exactly what you need, does it simply—and leaves the rest out. In other words, when less is more.