Werner Herzog’s favorite car could be the new Slate

People smarter than I am are debating the merits of the upcoming Slate Auto electric pickup truck and quasi-SUV. By making the truck as inexpensively as possible, the company hopes to be able to sell its EV in a world without tax credits at a price people can actually afford. Some will argue that normal customers might not want a stripped-down, bare-bones vehicle. We’ll have to wait and see. But one person who likely would appreciate the new Slate would be legendary film director Werner Herzog.

Appearing on today’s episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Herzog talks about his vehicle, which he has as his daily driver. He talks about it at 34:55.

Herzog says he has a 12-year-old Ford Explorer, and when he went to the dealership to purchase it, he asked for a vehicle with the fewest bells and whistles and technology that he could possibly get. The question was more centered around consumerism and minimalism, rather than straight-up reliability, but he does imply that both are considerations for him.

He went on to say that he wishes he could still get hand-crank windows, and he’d even go so far as having a manual override for windscreen wipers in case the electric motor failed.

A technologically simple, easy-to-repair, hand-crank windowed vehicle? That sounds a lot like the Slate Auto pickup truck to me.

Earlier in the interview, Herzog is asked about not having a mobile phone, and he admits that he hasn’t had one for a long time, but unfortunately had to get one recently. He was at a parking lot in Dublin, and he couldn’t leave the lot because the only way the gate would work was through payment via a mobile app. It wouldn’t take a credit card. It wouldn’t take cash. There was no attendant. You either used the app or you couldn’t leave the parking lot.

While the ruining of everything continues, Herzog notes that there should be other ways to do things for someone who chooses not to have that level of technology in their lives. “I read,” he responds to Conan O’Brien’s questioning of what he does without a phone.

It’s also ridiculous to have an app for parking, because, as we all know, it’s not for the convenience of the parker (though it could be more convenient than a credit card machine), it’s so that the app maker can collect data on you and possibly sell it for additional revenue. It’s not enough to just pay for parking, but you have to be the product as well.

But I digress, as I find the Herzog conversation around the Explorer he owns just as interesting. I’d love to talk to him about the Slate and get his impression of electric vehicles. I feel he’d be opposed to the idea of EV, as he’d probably think of them as being more complex. But as a guy who is always learning, I feel like if you show him the facts around them, he’d be more inclined to give one a fair shake.

Maybe the PR folks at Slate Auto — I’m looking at you, Jeff — should give him a call? That’d be quite the coup.