Tim Stevens

And so that might actually help them be more edgy in those designs.

It might help them to create designs that are a little bit more provocative, but make sure that they still work in the real world.

And I hope that that's what we see, that it doesn't result in them having to be conservative anymore.

at every step that they can take those big leaps and basically check them out early and make sure that they work both from a practical standpoint, but also from a design standpoint.

But again, the human beings are still in control.

They're just having their tasks sped up right now.

And I hope that that results in better designs, but we're still going to have to wait a couple of years to find out even at the most accelerated of timelines.

That's fair.

I think so, yeah.

And so the lack of federal funding, no, you know, $3,500 rebate is gone.

That was a really big push for this late truck, a mid $25,000 truck that was going to be really effectively an $18,000, $19,000 truck, which was a hugely attractive proposition.

Right.

And for an $18,000 or $19,000 truck, that makes a lot of sense.

For a mid $20,000 truck, that's a little bit of a harder sell.

The cheapest truck in the market right now is the Ford Maverick XL and starts a little over $28,000.

So Slate is still hoping to undercut that by a fair few thousand dollars.

But on the Maverick, you do get things like power windows, you get a stereo, you get paint.

People do like those things, Chad.

Yes.

Yeah.