Tisha Johnson:
When you make a vehicle, you should be perspiring heavily the entire time, and you should really, really feel out of breath. You should also feel that you question your sanity a bit, and that's magnified at a startup.
Devin Liddell:
Welcome to Design This Day, a podcast about the futures we want, and the people working right now to make those futures real. I'm your host, Devin Liddell. I'm a futurist at Teague. This year we're celebrating Teague's 100th anniversary, so I'm thinking a lot about the challenges of today and how we're going to solve them over the next 100 years.
And in today's episode, I'm joined by two designers at an electric vehicle startup called Slate. The design challenge they're up against is a big one. That's because the vision of the startup is to create an EV at a low price point that's entirely modular. Their base model is a boxy stripped down pickup truck. It's around the same size as an '80s-era Toyota pickup, so a lot smaller than most trucks on the American market today. From that base model, buyers can opt to change the wrap, the design, the features, and even the configuration.
One package allows customers to convert their truck into an SUV. They're positioning themselves in the opposite direction of other EV makers like Tesla and Rivian, going for modularity and affordability over luxury tech. They're creating something that the buyer can co-design and make their own. So when I sat down with Ben Whitla, Slate's Head of Brand and Marketing; and Tisha Johnson, their Head of Design, my first question was, of course, why hasn't this been done before?
Ben Whitla:
I think it actually has been done in bits and pieces. There's been plenty of affordable vehicles like we talked about. There have been customizable vehicles, but you don't see them together, and when you look at what customization and personalization mean, in the past, they're not necessarily super supported by the auto manufacturer, by the brand. A lot of that happens aftermarket, and it happens for people who can wrench. Not everybody can wrench. I mean, that's a reality, right? And we're certainly not getting more people, it's not becoming a more of a backyard activity over time, it's becoming less of a backyard activity or a driveway activity.
Devin Liddell:
I love the phrase you used, Ben, around can you wrench basically? There's something happening in there from a generational standpoint that just did not grow up or learn how to wrench, so it does seem like a generational shift for sure.
Ben Whitla:
What we want to do therefore is give some of that power and agency back to the vehicle owner, back to the customer so that they can bring their own life to it.
Tisha Johnson:
I think we should note that a vehicle is one of the most complex products that you could put together. It has so many different systems. The average vehicle is over a couple thousand parts. So it's a challenge, to say the least, to bring these things together. All respect for why we don't see this too often.
Devin Liddell:
When Tisha started at Slate, she already had years of experience in designing cars, but designing a modular vehicle, that was a new test of her skills. And she told me a story about one moment in the design process where she learned just how far they had to go to deliver this level of customization.
Tisha Johnson:
We often talk about the front fascia of the vehicle as being a place where we said, "Okay, we realize we have to do something different here." So in that area we would typically say, "Really communicate the DNA of the brand in what is understood as the face of the vehicle." So you would typically pour tons of money into development, making it with precious materials, expensive lighting programs, different things that create what we describe as the signatures of the vehicle. We were designing things that when tested internally, gosh, people really loved the design themes that we were coming up with in that area.
But as a design group, we just kept shaking our heads, could not feel like we landed on it, until we got to the one big idea. A designer started a conversation with the team, and he really said, "If it's really where we carry the DNA, then it is made to be personalized."
That means that we're not going to make it with materials that people don't want to touch. They'll be robust and in fact we'll say, "Please get your hands on this. Get into this area and do what you want to."
That of course means that we'll have to have a few exposed fasteners where we hold the name mark, and we'll say, "Okay folks, you can take the brand name off of the vehicle." And then we looked at Ben.
Devin Liddell:
I'm looking at Ben right now.
Ben Whitla:
Not at all a terrifying moment when they said, "We're going to take off the place that people know to look to understand the brand of the vehicle."
The number one place where we would say, "Well, if I don't know what this is, I can always look at the front and figure it out."
Except on a Slate, you may not be able to. But I think this reinforces the idea that we want people to make it their own and that's the priority. I took a deep breath and was right on board.
Devin Liddell:
Are there any sort of signature debates that you have had either between the two of you or just in general within Slate around a clear fork in the road where you could have gone one way, but you decided to go another way, or there's just an enduring debate about, hey, how are we going to handle this issue?
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah, there's actually one in particular Ben and I were just discussing this morning having to do with a particular wrap design that we're going after, and there's some open disagreement about what direction we should go.
Ben Whitla:
Listen, I came in pushing what I think is right for the brand, which is splashier. I'm always thinking about this is going to eventually appear on a tiny digital screen in your hand, how do we make sure it captures attention? I'm going to prioritize the thing that is maybe a little louder, a little more wacky, a little more unexpected from a visual standpoint, and so that's the angle I was coming from.
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah. But the thing in particular was that we were really crossing over into another approach to how we execute the design for the brand. And so whether it's the vehicle itself or accessories, we are very definitive. You can see that in our form, we'll call form language, that we commit. If there's a line, it goes from A to B, and it'll dead end into something, and this wrap was getting into that other territory. And as soon as I started to describe why I didn't want to go in that direction, Ben, I really didn't have to finish my sentence, he was like, "Oh my God."
Ben Whitla:
I think you got about four words of a 10 word sentence out before I was like, "Oh yep, I understand what we're saying here. I agree. We're changing. We got to change." And so it was a beautiful collaborative moment, yeah.
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah, it really was. And that's how we work together.
Ben Whitla:
Yeah, totally.
Devin Liddell:
Just to dwell for a second on the collaboration between the two of you in particular, are the two of you organization you paired up very deliberately? Is there an org chart in play there where that's done very specifically?
Ben Whitla:
I think the answer is no. I think we could have opted to spend a lot less time together, how about that?
Devin Liddell:
And fought proxy wars through email?
Ben Whitla:
Yeah. But the company would be less successful, we'd be less successful. I would certainly be less creatively fulfilled not spending the time I spend with Tisha. I mean, we together really, really, mostly the two of us designed the logo with a typographer and a designer together. I mean, that was a fully collaborative both of us in every single conversation kind of call. I mean, even now you look at the logo, you look at the curves on the S, and they mirror curves on the vehicle. It was taken to levels that I never could have taken it on my own.
Devin Liddell:
I love that.
Tisha Johnson:
And what an honor to be part of that process.
Devin Liddell:
Collaboration is central to the design teams at Slate, but it's also central to their product. That's because they're not just collaborating with one another, they're collaborating with their future customers. They've left the design stripped down and paired back so customers can truly personalize the vehicle. This goes against the way every other manufacturer approaches design. Most auto manufacturers work hard to design a desirable brand that customers then attach to their identity, but Slate's strategy is to design a vehicle that customers can use to express themselves.
When you think about who will be driving it, I'm curious who you envision will be the drivers of these vehicles given that tension you're maneuvering between affordability and love. And the only reason I ask this is that in some ways you're up against a hundred years of brand building on behalf of the automotive industry, which is sought to convince us all that a vehicle in particular, a car brand in particular is an extension of our own personality, like an exemplar or a banner of our personality.
Ben Whitla:
We actually don't disagree at all that the vehicle is your banner or your flag or represents who you are. I think that's ingrained in us. It's ingrained in the clothes we choose, right? This is very much an economy where your decisions reflect who you are and those are decisions you make to represent yourself in the world, right? We don't disavow that in the least. In fact, we celebrate it, I would say, arguably, more than any other car brand, because what we say is you can start here.
You can start with what we call the blank Slate, which is the one that comes off the line, slate gray, two door, two seat pickup truck, mid 20,000s, and then customize it into whatever you want. Convert it to an SUV, make it literally any color you can think of. And then so with literally thousands of ways to customize this thing, we're actually hopeful that it becomes a banner of self-expression. Something Tisha and I talk about all the time is that we expect to see Slates on the road that do not reflect the brand we've built.
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah.
Ben Whitla:
Both of us can't wait, and one of the things I'm most excited for is to see a Slate that I'm like, "I can't believe those are the decisions that got made on that vehicle that's now on the road, but I love it. It might not be for me, but I'm so happy you made that you did that for yourself. I'm so happy you love it." And we've taken a lot of that thinking here where it's like, we're just happy you're having fun out there. We're happy you're doing your thing and really taking leeway with the thing that we gave you, which normally, to your original point here, is really considered precious.
Tisha Johnson:
I can let you in on a little secret. There are conversations, one conversation ongoing in design studios around the world. It is focused on the idea that we are going to protect the design of the vehicle. We are going to protect it from customers' bad decision making. That is something we don't talk about openly, but those conversations go on in studios everywhere, and we realized early on we had to throw that playbook out. That is absolutely not what we're here to do.
And in fact, we really did look at inspiration outside of the automotive industry. There are a few examples of really cool brands that respect the relationship that they have with their customers. I think of Vans, shoes. That little brand, it started from one little shop in California, and instantly, it ignited so much interest and imagination, and there was an instant dialogue between the brand and their customers. I mean, people basically started putting graffiti on the sidewalls and so you can think of the famous checkerboard that they then incorporated into their design. How cool is that?
Ben Whitla:
I think about Lego all the time, and the idea that you can get the tiniest, most affordable Lego set, and sure, it becomes the little unit that you bought, but it also becomes anything else you can imagine. I think there are wonderful parallels to what we're doing here where it's like, yeah, you bought the truck, and you can love that truck, but with just a little bit of excitement and energy, it could become a thousand other things and really reflect who you are as a person.
Tisha Johnson:
We like that at times we're going to be completely shocked and that's part of the interesting thing about this whole experience.
Devin Liddell:
I love that. Yeah. So even from your position as head of design, you don't think there's a scenario where you might see a future Slate and think that one goes too far. We're not worried about that all.
Tisha Johnson:
Oh, I'm sure that's going to happen, yes.
Ben Whitla:
I just really hope that I'm standing next to Tisha when it happens. I want to be there and experience that with her. That's my priority.
Tisha Johnson:
I'm pretty sure I've already had some dream about it somewhere where it woke me up in the middle of the night.
Devin Liddell:
To paraphrase Sting, I should say, if you love something, you have to let it go, right? And your seating control.
Ben Whitla:
It's definitely an exercise in letting go, that's for sure. Yeah.
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah, for sure.
Devin Liddell:
It's not just about designing to be modular. At Slate, one of the biggest challenges is to keep the car affordable. They're aiming for a price point between 20,000 and 25,000, when most comparable trucks are around double that. So like with anything, there are trade-offs. The Slate truck is more affordable because really, you get a bit less. It's simpler than a typical car buyer might expect these days. The base model has crank windows, not electric. It doesn't have a screen or heated seats. It doesn't even have a built-in sound system. So I asked Tisha and Ben, "Is that the trade-off you're asking purchasers to make?"
Ben Whitla:
I think the answer is yes, but also not at all. So yes, it is a more intentionally minimal vehicle. And by the way, I don't know when the last time you got in a vehicle without a big screen in it was, but it is a wonderfully calming experience to not have your attention divided instantly from the second you sit down.
I will tell you, interviewing for this job two and a half years ago, I sat one of the very, very early prototypes, and I instantly I was taken back to sitting in my uncle's early '80s Tacoma. I learned to drive on a beach somewhere, and I was instantly in that moment in the old truck, and it was a little bit emotional to be honest with you. And how often do you get in a car that has less, literally less, and have an emotional response? That's unbelievably rare.
If you look at the way the auto industry operates today, if you want to buy a car, you go to buy a car and you say, "Man, I really want the nice stereo system." Well, why are you paying $8,000 for that trim level that also includes a heated steering wheel and heated cup holders and whatever else that you don't necessarily want or need at all when all you wanted was the stereo?
And so we looked at that and said, let's put the power back in the hand of the customer and have them be able to say, "I'm only going to pick the parts I want and that's all I'm going to pay for."
And so I think that's a beautiful moment where we've said, "You decide what's important to you." Yes, it starts minimal, but you build it up as you want and you only pay for what you want. And I think that's the massive difference is how we've approached the industry-
Tisha Johnson:
The very earliest north star description of what we would deliver to people absolutely said, "And by the way, we won't have integrated screens that are going to corrupt the driving experience."
And so what we arrived at was a really smart place to cradle your phone because we said, "Okay, people are going to use their phones. People really have everything that they want and access to in their phone." So we used our design experience to create a really great location for it, putting it up nice and high, allowing you to keep your eyes on the road.
You could even zoom right in on that one topic of the sound system, and how really in the industry there's a lot of emphasis on how you have this magnificent sound system they've designed for the folks that are the audiophiles and the people who really must have that. And so everybody else is now going to pay for that sound system that they don't use to its fullest. They're not interested in it.
And so we've said, "Hey, you can get your hands on a really good audio system for this vehicle, and you might want to start with your own Bluetooth speaker that you're going to bring in. So we're going to have a nice place to cradle your phone, you can access your music, and if you want an integrated sound system from there, we'll get you there." And that's really the way that we then approach each and every topic around the vehicle, but ultimately it's about putting the power of that decision making in your hands.
Devin Liddell:
And it sounds like in a lot of ways that big idea keeps coming back and in different ways, it offers up new tests for each of you and you keep arriving at the same kind of conclusion of, yes, this is the right way forward. It might make me nervous, it might make me scared or it might be create some difficulties, but it is the right way forward. So that's amazing. It sounds like you have some extraordinary design clarity around that.
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah, it's been a wonderful experience and we expect to be uncomfortable and I think there's unknown place within any organization that the design can hold, which is to agitate and to challenge for the right reasons. When you make a vehicle, you should be perspiring heavily the entire time, and you should really, really feel out of breath. You should also feel that you question your sanity a bit, and that's magnified at a startup. I had been curious for a long time about what it would be like to join a true startup, and for years just hadn't seen the thing that made sense to me and this is so purpose driven and of such a... Honestly, it's of a higher order being able to get an affordable, reliable vehicle to people that they feel proud of that they love. Wow.
So doing that for a startup is inherently super intense. I remember when I first joined on, I was designer number one and I felt like I understood the problem. I had enough experience behind me that I felt like, okay, I understand how to approach the problem. But there were moments when I really would just pace back and forth just thinking, this is really hard.
Devin Liddell:
Ben, I'm curious, from your vantage point, coming from outside automotive, what was it about the opportunity that sang to you, right? I mean, there had to have been this kind of thing that was like, "Yeah, there's something here." So I'm just curious, what was it for you?
Ben Whitla:
Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm a lifelong car nerd. Even at first blush, the ability to work in automotive was something I never thought I'd be able to do. It was one of those things you get to a certain point in your career, you're like, "No one breaks into automotive at this point."
That chapter's over for me, but I would've loved it if it was true and turns out I had this opportunity. So when I was having my conversations, my early conversations about the role, I was instantly in love with the idea of working in automotive. And then when I heard the concept of the vehicle, I felt a really personal connection to it. I mean, I think affordable pickup truck that can become an SUV, my parents were a kindergarten teacher and a carpenter. My mom would've had the SUV and my dad would've had the truck. We never had a new car growing up. This would've been the perfect pair of vehicles, two Slates for my family, and I think about that all the time.
And so for me, I remember in the interview process talking to my wife and saying, "It's a startup. This is a gamble. We can't know how it's going to play out."
And we were going back and forth about it, and I said, "You know what? I'm pretty sure that even if this thing doesn't work out, the problems that I'm going to get to solve every day are going to be so interesting that it's totally worth it."
And tell you what, I was right. The problems I've had, the conversations I get to be in and the problems that Tisha and I solve together, I mean, again, for me, from outside the auto industry, to be able to stand in a room of prototypes and parts and have conversations with Tisha's team about grains and finishes and materials and placement and scale, I'm like, "We get to talk about door handles all day? This is awesome. Yeah, I can't believe I get to do this. This is so cool."
And Tisha's team is like, "Yeah, dude, this is our job."
And I'm like, "Yeah, but it's so cool."
Tisha Johnson:
It's so fun to have Ben in the room and we have design evaluations and critiques that normally are very exclusive. We say, "This is a design activity."
And here we say, "Well, let's have Ben join us." And then we discuss the graphical nature of maybe the wheel design that we're considering, and we look for his input. We enjoy that exchange and it's an absolute pleasure.
Devin Liddell:
Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. My favorite moment inside of a Teague project of any duration is that moment when the disciplines, to your point, Ben, the disciplines actually fade the background because people feel like actually, "You know what? I'm not a roboticist, but I can have an idea about robots."
Tisha Johnson:
Yes.
Devin Liddell:
Or, "I'm not an engineer, but I can have an engineering idea even though I'm a strategist." So it's that same kind of goodness, I love that. It taps into a worry of mine. I'd be curious what your takeaways on this, especially in the context of your design teams and Slate in general. There's a model that's being floated for the future of work that's AI-enabled in which essentially individual contributors are supported by a cohort of AIs.
I think the reason that that model gets floated is this notion of, oh, highly capable people, super empowered by technological tools. The cost of the model though seems to me clearly comes with the cost of collaboration, comes at the cost of what the two of you have described today, which is this really ongoing, enduring earnest back and forth of constantly fight testing big ideas, and in doing so, always honing them and making it better. I think that that's what we lose if you imagine a future in which people are in a room with non-human actors. Yes, are there some efficiencies to be gained in that scenario? Sure, but there's huge costs involved and I don't think we're properly grokking those costs.
Ben Whitla:
No, I haven't seen AI debate intelligently in a way that feels like it's pushing ideas to the next level in a way that another human can. The amount of context, the amount of experience you need to generate ideas that are better than the ones that came in doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but I haven't seen it yet.
Tisha Johnson:
First, from the point of view of the design group and Slate in general is human connection runs all the way through. It shows up in the vehicle. It inherently carries some humanity with it. You can see that specifically in the studio we are very proud of the fact that we use clay, which is an additive, subtractive process. We have a couple of very talented modelers. I refer to them as surface designers. They really are helping us work through problems that are visual problems, but it's a 3D problem and they're in the clay and their hands are on the surfaces. And we as a group, we talk about this a lot. We touch the surfaces, understand where the problems are. This is a human activity and then we discuss it and we debate back and forth what solutions we should go with.
Devin Liddell:
And now, as always, it's time for our lightning round of rapid fire questions. But this season, we're honoring Teague's 100 years in how we think about technological innovation.
Ben, I'll start with you. It's like, what do you think is the most overhyped technological innovation of the past century?
Ben Whitla:
The most overhyped... Well, I think I would be a bad brand and marketer for Slate if I didn't say it was the enormous screen in cars. As we talked about earlier, when was the last time you got in a car without a screen? It is a freeing experience, the ability to look around and actually be present. You don't need them. Enjoy the road, live in the moment. Come on.
Devin Liddell:
I love it. Tisha, what about you?
Tisha Johnson:
Yeah, I'm just going to dovetail off of that. I will take it just the next level and say it's our reliance and overdependence on technology that ends up invading the driving experience. I mean, I'm a motorcycle rider and that was one of the things that I found so charming about this project. Now, motorcycles, they're incredibly affordable and they're very tactile. It's imperative that you keep your eyes focused down the road, and so all of the controls you can get to by memory, and then you can feel where they are and use them, and so that was what we went for in our Slate interior design.
Devin Liddell:
At the other end of the spectrum, I can go back to you, Ben, what do you think is the most underhyped technological innovation in the last century?
Ben Whitla:
Okay, hear me out. Oh, and I think mine may fall outside of 100 years, so-
Devin Liddell:
Sure.
Ben Whitla:
... I have not time checked it, but on demand pressurized running water I think is the most amazing thing. And I will tell you that I am someone who every time I turn a faucet on, I go, "Wow." I am consistently amazed by running water. And then when you think about what it did, cleanliness, cooking, all these things, and then it faded into part of daily life. It just became part of daily life. I think there is something, the inventions, the innovations that do that, man, they blow my mind.
Tisha Johnson:
Through my experience at Whirlpool, I became keenly aware of how limited access can be. Around the world and in the United States, there are homes that will be on the grid where you can have power so that you could handle a washer and/or a dryer, but you can't get access to running water on a regular basis. It's actually a significant problem, and yeah, I just agree.
Devin Liddell:
That's fantastic. All right. For both of you, is there a book or a show that has been particularly formative to you even in a small way around your role as an innovator?
Ben Whitla:
I am a huge Wes Anderson fan, and I think that the precision that he builds his worlds with, the detail, the level of specificity that he builds is something that I think about all the time. I think that's so much about brand building, right? It's like let's set all the rules, let's set everything, let's do the best we can to make it perfect, but there's always going to be this level of chaos that happens in real worldness that comes in and intrudes and that tension is where the beauty happens and that's by the way, when you grow it properly, that's where the best stuff comes out of.
Devin Liddell:
I love it. Yeah. How about you, Tisha?
Tisha Johnson:
I'll share a few with you. Going way back to my earliest days as a designer, Bill McDonough's Cradle to Cradle. So impactful for me because it was about rethinking my responsibility as a designer and really creating this net positive outcome with anything that I touch and the accountability factor there was huge.
Then there was one book that I read a few years ago that I often suggest designers read and this one is from Brian Grazer and it's called Face to Face. He talks about the creative as often an introvert, and that we will work through our natural curiosity in more of a personal reflective way, but when we connect with other people, and we talked about this earlier in our conversation today, that there is something really unique and special that is born out of that kind of curiosity where you lean into conversations with people, and so I recommend it to anybody who's in a creative field.
Devin Liddell:
That's it for today. Thank you for listening to Design This Day, a podcast by Teague. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss the next episode, and if you have a complex problem that needs solving, we'd love to hear from you. Visit us at teague.com or send us an email at hello@teague.com.
