Update on the Driving Force team’s first car [TIOT Iss.9]

With the Rivian R2 starting to accept orders today, I think today is a good time to update y'all on the three cars we placed pre-orders on a little over a year ago now because things have changed a lot!

Around the beginning of 2025, we here at Driving Force put deposits down on the Scout Traveler, Afeela 1, and Slate truck in a bid to expand our editorial content from car reviews and rankings to long-term evaluations of new cars and their purchase process. We selected these three cars at the time not just because the companies making them were all new but because these same companies had links back to legacy auto manufacturers or support from people with large sums of money like Jeff Bozo. Things have changed a lot since we last put down a deposit on those vehicles. So let's break down where each one of our reservations is at currently.

Afeela:
When Honda cancelled their EV project, Afeela lost the factory that every Afeela 1 was going to be built at and that a few production vehicles were already made at. Without a factory to build their EV in, they decided to refund all their customers and send us a scale model of the vehicle as a memento, but I might not even get that at this point since it's been over 6 weeks since they said they would send me one.

Slate Motors:
Now that the federal EV incentive doesn't exist anymore, the pricing of the Slate truck has drastically changed from below 20 thousand to a yet-announced price somewhere in the mid-20 thousands. It might not seem like much at first, but percentage-wise, that's a 30% increase to the price. We will talk more about the value of this vehicle in another article, but for now, they should be providing me with a delivery date on the 24th of this month. They are super confident in their ability to manufacture this vehicle at scale, and while I haven't seen a production example of this vehicle yet as we saw with the Afeela 1, that might not mean much. However, receiving a solid delivery date would take Slate farther down the line than any of the other pre-orders we have.

Scout Motors:
After delaying their release date, they are still moving forward with construction of their South Carolina Production Center. They have even built a training center for new Production Center workers and just announced plans for an off-road course to be built next to their factory. With a lot of money still flowing in from VW and with already retrofitting their cars with a gas range extender, I feel much better about their ability to deliver on their promised vehicle than Afeela.

Conclusion:
Stick around to see what cars actually come to production, and if you are interested in learning more about these companies’ unique purchase experience, make sure to continue to follow us.