You wouldn't cross-shop a Rivian and a Slate. The Rivian is a high-end luxury vehicle with a laundry list of features, including things like self-driving. The Slate is literally the opposite: it has a laundry list of things it doesn't have and, indeed, its lack of features is part of the sales pitch.
Right. Even the cheaper R2 just released is in a different market segment. There will be some cross-shopping of the Slate with the upcoming new platform Ford EV truck, which Ford is hinting will be $30K. Of course, I remember when Ford hinted that the F150 Lightening would initially be a $40K truck, so we'll see.
On your point of self-driving, I was just looking into if this would be compatible with a comma.ai autopilot, and it looks like Slate doesn't even have the default hardware onboard to allow it (and there's no option to add it?). Unfortunate miss.
I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. The Rivian R1T starts at $80k for the dual motor trim and the quad starts at $116k, before options. This is so far outside of the average car that I am comfortable considering it high-end luxury. A Ferrari is unattainable luxury. A custom-built coach should come with an invitation to the guillotine. I forget sometimes that this forum is full of wealthy individuals who insist that they are still just common folk.
Has it at all occurred to you that "luxury" and "attainable" are mutually exclusive, like definitionally? Of course there's more to luxury than it simply being out of your reach, and there are many things which are absolutely not a luxury which are assuredly out of your reach to begin with. A house is not a luxury, for example. Especially not a mass-produced timber framed shitshack made out of particle board and sheetrock in the middle of nowhere. But the system certainly tells you it's a luxury, and you can't afford one anyways, so it must be a luxury, right?
I understand you're probably frustrated because you have been sold a manufactured idea that as an American, luxury is supposed to be attainable to you. That you were promised a high end lifestyle. That the American dream guarantees to lift you out of the filthy squalor of the ancestors. Finally, the common man is to be given nice things! He will live as a king! Or maybe you're just a westerner in general, and you really bought the lie that you are actively wealthy compared to the rest of the world.
That was all a lie.
And your assumption is absolutely faulty, by the way. I just actually know a nice thing when I see it. It's defined by it being a nice thing. An ugly, mass manufactured truck filled with materials that feel bad in the hand is really not that nice in the grand scheme of things. Sorry. You should absolutely be filled with outrage that even something as mundane as this is unattainable though. Projecting that frustration on to me for not letting shitty marketing jargon slide is ridiculous. This doesn't just affect us, either. You should remind the wealthy at all points that their standards are sliding backwards, and their hollow sense of luxury has become a category of complete crap driven by lowered standards and artificial scarcity.
