EV startup Slate has set the base price of the bare-bones Blank Slate electric pickup at $24,995. Get all the latest auto industry news in the Executive Briefing.
Today’s headlines:
+ The China-made Polestar EV brand is leaving the U.S. market due to the connect-car rule that bans foreign-made cars with certain connected software and hardware. More at Car and Driver.
+ According to Cox Automotive, the average transaction price (ATP) for a new vehicle in the U.S. is holding steady at $49,220 as total sales are expected to slip 2.9 percent in 2026. More at Autoweek.
+ An 85 year-old man was arrested by the Lake County, Florida Sheriff’s Office for driving 110 mph in a 45 mph zone in his Nissan Z, but denies he was street racing a Corvette. More at The Drive.
+ Meyer Shank Racing confirmed that Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist will depart the team at the end of the season, accepting a lucrative offer from an unspecified team. More at Racer.
+ According to the JD Power U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS), vehicle quality is improving, giving dealers stronger messaging about quality and reliability to new-car shoppers. More at CBT News.
+ Former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn said calls by some shareholders for his return to the automaker reflected deep anger over years of failed turnaround plans. More at World Auto Forum.
+ Reportedly, Cadillac may revive the discontinued-in-2025 XT6 SUV to fill a current gap in its lineup, with the new model based on the C1 platform with ICE and hybrid drivetrains. More at Autoblog.
+ Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has promoted Nick Keen, general manager of client and brand, as president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars North America, the brand’s largest region. More at Automotive World.
+ EV startup Slate has officially announced the base price of its bare-bones electric pickup, the Blank Slate, at $24,995, but it does not include destination or document fees. More at Road & Track.
+ NASCAR has issued a technical rules change for short tracks intended to make the noses on Cup cars less rigid to discourage bumping and ramming tactics among drivers. More at Motorsport.com.
Photo courtesy of Slate Auto.
Review the previous MCG Executive Briefing from June 22 here.
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Even if that old man were John Force (age 77), I think a Corvette has about a second on him.
I think Ford is set to crush Slate with the Maverick and new smaller EV pickup. But Slate could become one of those “Tik-Tok memes” that the kids are always on about. That would keep them afloat for about two years. The Slate is a great idea in theory but EVs don’t fit into my life.
Slate is perfectly positioned for a lot of fleet customers, like auto parts stores. They expect a 60% take rate on the SUV package but at $5000 extra (which I think doesn’t include installation that you need to arrange yourself or DIY) with the end product being an Uber-ineligible, hard to baby with, 2 door wagon I think they’ll be disappointed on that.
So it begins…
Polestar and Volvo, despite sharing Geely ownership and overlapping vehicle platforms, received opposite regulatory outcomes at the U.S. Dept of Commerce Department to nobody’s surprise. Volvo successfully lobbied for the BIS waiver permitting continued U.S. sales for MY2027, navigating the regulatory process with the appropriate carbon‑culture techno‑babble jargon monoxide loophole language. Polestar evidently did not.
As a result, two similar vehicles with nearly identical technical lineage were treated differently: Volvo is authorized to remain in the U.S. market, while Polestar is required to exit beginning with model year 2027. According to the C&D article, all 32 Polestar dealerships in U.S. will remain open to provide service and sell down leftover inventory…
If we’re naming the fumes that leak in and out of these regulatory agencies, then “jargon monoxide” is just the beginning. Here is an atmospheric profile of stuff pumped into the room whenever a government decision needs to sound technical, inevitable, and definitely not arbitrary- the taxonomy of regulatory emissions:
– Jargon Monoxide — toxic emissions from carbon‑culture techno‑babble used to justify contradictory decisions.
– Compliance Particulates — tiny flakes of process language that accumulate until visibility drops to zero.
– Governance Ozone — formed when legacy‑brand prestige reacts with regulatory sunlight.
– Loophole Vapors — invisible fumes enabling exemptions for nearly identical products.
– Techno‑Compliance Mist — aerosolized rule‑speak that sounds modern while explaining nothing.
– Risk‑Assessment Fog — reduces visibility around why one brand gets a waiver and another doesn’t.
– Security‑Culture Dust — settles on everything, even when the threat model is mostly vibes.
– Bureaucratic Nitrogen — inert filler gas making up most of every federal filing.
– Lobbyist Sulfates — corrosive compounds that etch out exemptions with surgical precision.
– Legacy‑Brand Methane — emitted when a century‑old company insists it is “independent” of its parent.
– Regulatory PM‑2.7 — particles small enough to slip through the Connected Vehicle Rule undetected.
– Carbon‑Culture Halocarbons — released whenever “sustainability” is used as a lobbying tool.
– Procedural Radon — odorless, tasteless, and responsible for most “we followed the process” statements.
– Eco‑Virtue Vapor — released whenever a press release uses “mobility ecosystem” unironically.
– Renewable Buzzword Butter — combusts instantly upon contact with “net‑zero by 2050.”
– Sustainable Optics Steam — generated when a company paints a charging station green.
– Carbon‑Neutral Nitrous — emitted during presentations featuring wind turbines in the background.
– ESG Propellant — boosts shareholder value by 0.0001% while increasing smugness by 400%.
– Greenwashing Freon — keeps the boardroom cool while the planet warms.
– Circular‑Economy Ether — evaporates the moment someone asks for actual recycling data.
– Climate‑Positive Propane — burns cleanly through logic, physics, and basic math.
– Renewable Unicorn Gas — harvested from PowerPoint slides showing exponential adoption curves.
– Ethical Emissions Ethanol — distilled from sustainably sourced corporate apologies.
– Planet‑Forward Fumes — produced when a CEO says “we hear your concerns” into a carbon‑fiber mic.
– Decarbonization Diesel — powers the SUV fleet used to announce the new sustainability initiative.
– Eco‑Compliance Chlorofluorocarbons — banned everywhere except in regulatory filings.
– Zero‑Impact Xenon — glows brightly whenever a company claims its supply chain is “transparent.”
– Green‑Premium Propellant — costs 40% more and does exactly the same thing.
– Renewable Hope Helium — rises rapidly until exposed to quarterly earnings.
– Carbon‑Lite Kerosene — used to fly executives to climate conferences.
– Sustainability Synergy Smoke — emitted when two companies merge to “accelerate green innovation.”
– Eco‑Accountability Argon — inert, odorless, and present in every sustainability report.
– Net‑Positive Nitrogen — fills 78% of every ESG document, just like the atmosphere.
Agreed that regulation is problematic and burdensome, but an unregulated auto industry is more fearsome to contemplate. GM might still be churning out cars with road draft tubes, Rochester 2GC carbs, and pot metal daggers on their hoods. -mcg
Agreed, smog and safety had to be regulated in America because history proved we had to.
But all this AV/EV crap forced on tax cattle including one pedal, blended braking, ADAS levels, opinions and arm waving have no regulation at all. This tidal wave of unregulated loophole liability and data‑fraud blame shifting combines with pathetic American “driver training” and carbon‑culture’s predatory infrastructure to create the perfect storm deliberately designed to dump all legal and financial responsibility on the human driver. It’s the ambulance chaser’s ultimate wet dream, not engineering at all…
ROFL!
Polestar’s petition plunged pandemonic procedural purgatory, poor ’27 plea punted, paralyzed, pulverized, and pre‑emptively pigeonholed, promoting Volvo prancing past, pocketing the prized permission with platinum‑plated predictability. This preposterous, psychedelic policy paradox—Polestar penalized, Volvo privileged—projected pulsing, pyrotechnic procedural pandemonium, a pernicious, perplexing, pseudo‑principled partition propelled by petty, picky parameters, a primordial paperwork pyre pumping pure, punishing procedure pressure.
What if Polestar is surrendering the U.S. market and using the connect-car rule as cover? The brand has 36 dealerships and sold fewer than 6,000 cars here in 2025. Meanwhile, there is now a 27.5 percent tariff on its vehicles. I couldn’t know the final truth, just throwing it out there as a possibility. -mcg
According to mr. internet, Polestar can still trade publicly on the Nasdaq (ticker PSNY) and continue selling their home‑energy systems, smart‑charging software, fleet services, and carbon credits in the U.S.
The only BIS restrictions apply to future connected‑vehicle imports, not any Polestar’s domestic corporate operations or non‑vehicle product lines…
In the U.S.A. all ROAD vehicle manufacturers self‑certify SAFETY compliance- in direct contrast to air, sea and rail where SAFETY self-certification is strictly forbidden, and rigidly enforced.
Self-certification is unique in the world to American road vehicles, the ONLY major U.S.A. transportation mode where the government does NOT test new unregulated tech, and does NOT approve new designs, the human end-user does it all now.
The “Carbon Borg” is the post-modern centralized paperwork compliance machine responsible, created by political carbon‑policy mandates, strengthened immensely by state’s NEPA Assignment MOUs from unelected FHWA and FRA civil servants. The Carbon Borg mandates all domestic AV/EV, data‑center, wind, and solar infrastructure using loopholes, categorical exclusions, synthetic data and boilerplate denials, while bypassing all MUTCD, CFR, FMVSS, and naturally any independent engineering review. The Carbon Borg always protects itself through data manipulation, reheased script responses, with funding‑based lethal force and retaliation if required, leaving American citizens and taxpayer with no functional federal, state or local safety oversight mechanisms. We do not need to go into the lithium and cobalt mining human rights violations (slavery) that Carbon Borg is based on.
Carbocylonic Dēsinentia is the failure mode here:
carbocylonic
= a system behaving like a sealed, self‑protecting, machine‑logic loop
(contradictory, circular, incoherent, immune to correction)
dēsinentia
= Latin for “running down,” “winding to an end,” “dissolution of structure”
Put together: carbocylonic dēsinentia
= a system that collapses into self‑protecting noise as it runs out of functional order.
This is the moment when all oversight collapses, records mysteriously disappear, certifications contradict reality, timelines break, no one is accountable, but the carbon process keeps moving anyway and the public absorbs all the risk.
It covers any deliberate institutional entropy in your “Carbon Borg.”
The Slate is a great concept, a cheap pickup with a full ala carte options list, but it misses the mark by being EV only. Make it a low rpm 4 cylinder turbo diesel (think tractor engine) with a five speed manual OD trans and all wheel drive for snow, then keep the price under $30K, and I’ll get in line. No tech that isnt required by federal law (like ABS). No touch screens for anything, plain smooth vinyl seats and door panels, manual windows and rubber floor mats. Yeah, I’d get in line….
I agree. There’s a bigger market for this truck and the general approach among the ICE crowd than in EVs. -mcg
Even if it fails, they got further along in the process than the Elio. That initially seemed to be the same idea of bare bones transport before it turned into a Ponzi scheme.
I’m amazed that man didn’t go to prison but he used all of the right words at the right time. I was onboard the train for a while but never put down any money.
Diesel and manual are famously things only Internet commenters who plan to buy used actually want. But then, Slate has all their chips riding on a 2-door.
Plus, EV allowed them to sidestep the massive expense of either sourcing or tooling up a combustion engine – the former has the problem of convincing someone to sell to their competitor, the latter is hundreds of millions for just that one component.
Seems to me that the obvious option for Polestar would be to sell non-connected cars for the time being. They’d lose out on all that sweet, sweet juicy data but it’s better than winding down their entire sales and distribution network only to have to rebuild it at some later date.
Perfect solution in theory. New EVs can legally be sold in the U.S. without a modem because no federal rules require connectivity, but every manufacturer includes one because EVs rely on internet telematics for battery monitoring, remote diagnostics, OTA safety defect recalls, charging‑network integration, and an endless compendium of other revenue/liability reasons.
Removing the modem would raise warranty costs, complicate recalls, break expected features, cut off subscription services, lower revenue, and not be cool at all with the carbon customer. Legally it’s allowed; economically and operationally, no OEM will do it…
I think Slate is, to tie the two threads together.
There’s definitely something to the theory that the connectivity rules are a convenient excuse to pull Polestar out of the US market. I still can’t figure out why they needed a separate brand with a separate sales channel when the product, prices and customer profile so closely matched Volvo’s.
I’m reminded of the same ambivalence about the end of Saturn. Part of me was sad to see their sales model go, part of me thought the original SL series should’ve been a Chevy all along.
There is no AV company on Earth that allows a self driving vehicle to independently navigate any active railroad crossing without human operation. Railroad crossings are the hardest and most dangerous environments in all of transportation automation, combining ambiguous geometry, moving hazards, occlusion, timing uncertainty, stalled queues, non‑standard signage, malfunctioning “ghost” gates, unpredictable human behavior and the most extreme life and death safety risks encontered in a vehicle.
No autonomy stack can come close to reliably interpreting all of these hazards and likely never will until year 2100 or beyond, according to Google A.I. and Microsoft Copilot.
Railroad crossings break every assumption AV illusions are built on:
■Lidar: trains are long, reflective, and often occluded
■Radar: trains produce weird multipath reflections
■Cameras: trains blend into backgrounds, especially at night
■Thermal: trains don’t emit predictable heat signatures
■Audio: microphones can’t localize train horns reliably
■And worst of all, a railroad train’s speed and braking distance cannot be inferred from sensor data.
A 15,000′ long 60 mph freight train needs 1–2 miles or more to stop. No AV, ADAS, Robocab or Roborig on Earth can model any of it.
Why does all AV/EV specs, marketing and justifaction avoid SAE units? Because SAE units makes all “carbon abatement” claims collapse:
“50% reduction” becomes “still burns 600 million BTU per trip.”
“Zero‑emission zone” becomes “diesel generator burns 10,000 BTU/min.”
“Green hydrogen” becomes “uses 200,000 BTU to make 51,500 BTU.”
“Electric freight corridor” becomes “needs 20 million BTU of grid power per siglr train.”
SAE units forces you to confront the true absolute energy, not percentages, theories or gobal warming propaganda!
TOP 12 DARK CARBON-IMMUNITY CONCEPTS
12. The Shadow Compliance Doctrine
When an agency follows the appearance of rules while violating the substance of them.
11. The Bureaucratic Necrosis Effect
A slow death of accountability where dead processes remain in place long after they stop serving the public.
10. The Institutional Oblivion Sink
Where reports, warnings, and evidence disappear into a void of “ongoing review.”
9. The Duty Erosion Syndrome
A long-term decay of professional responsibility masked by credentials and procedure.
8. The Compliance Crypt
A sealed chamber where outdated standards, ignored warnings, and buried decisions accumulate untouched.
7. The Administrative Dark Matter Field
Invisible forces that shape outcomes, absorb blame, and cannot be directly observed or held accountable.
6. The Governance Blackout Zone
A region where transparency collapses and public oversight cannot penetrate.
5. The Liability Phantom Layer
Responsibility appears to exist until you reach for it — then it vanishes.
4. The Procedural Abyss
Where complaints, warnings, and safety concerns fall endlessly without ever reaching resolution.
3. The Institutional Eclipse
When the institution’s shadow completely covers individual accountability, leaving the public in the dark.
2. The Ponzi Particle
The atomic unit of structural risk transfer — a tiny, invisible mechanism that moves risk downward to the public
while preserving institutional immunity, allowing negligence to accumulate until it detonates elsewhere.
1. The Madoff Principle
When a credentialed institution is trusted so completely that its internal failures are treated as structural
inevitabilities rather than preventable errors — enabling negligence to compound quietly until the consequences
spill into public view.