Slate’s electric truck: all the news about the ultra-minimal EV

We now cognize the value of Slate Auto’s affordable American-made electrical truck, almost a twelvemonth aft the institution warned it wouldn’t deed its first “under $20,000” target price. The no-frills pickup starts astatine $24,950 — matching the revised mid-$20,000 value range it promised past year, aft the Trump management announced it was putting an end to the $7,500 national EV taxation credit.

Preorders for the Slate motortruck are going unrecorded today, pinch accumulation scheduled to statesman successful autumn 2026. Customers tin salary a $300 non-refundable deposit wrong the adjacent 30 days to fastener successful a transportation date, which is expected to commencement successful “late 2026.” On its website, Slate says customers tin still preorder aft the 30 time window, “but your transportation model will displacement to a later clip slot.”

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With its caller pickup, Slate Auto is making a elemental bet: value matters much than almost thing else. The institution announced coming that the American-made electrical motortruck will commencement astatine $24,950, placing it squarely successful the mid-$20,000 value scope it had primitively promised and making it the slightest costly pickup motortruck and EV disposable today. At a clip erstwhile the mean caller conveyance costs astir doubly that amount, Slate is pitching thing that has go progressively uncommon successful the modern car market: a genuinely basal caller conveyance that doesn’t look that way.

To deed that value point, Slate stripped distant features galore drivers now return for granted. The motortruck doesn’t travel pinch a touchscreen, stereo, aliases moreover speakers. Instead, it includes a dash equine for your phone. The windows usage manual manus cranks. And dissimilar galore caller vehicles marketed astir progressively autonomous features, a Slate requires you to do each the driving yourself.

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Slate Auto, the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, raised $650 cardinal to money its effort to build an affordable electrical pickup motortruck expected to commencement successful the mid-$20,000s. The institution plans connected delivering its first EV later this year.

The Series C information was led by TWG Global, headed by Guggenheim Partners laminitis and LA Dodgers proprietor Mark Walter and financier Thomas Tull. Slate didn’t disclose its latest investors, but some Walter and Tull were investors successful Re:Build Manufacturing, a Bezos-owned institution from which Slate spun disconnected past year. The institution besides didn’t disclose its latest valuation, but was astatine $1.2 cardinal arsenic of January 2025, according to Bloomberg.

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The first point you announcement astir the Slate Truck is its size. It’s small, amazingly so. In a state wherever trucks often travel pinch their ain zip code, Slate’s pickup is refreshingly puny, measuring 174.6 inches long, 70.6 inches wide, and 69.3 inches tall, pinch a curb weight of astir 3,602 pounds (1,634kg). As a reference point, it’s astir the aforesaid size arsenic Marty McFly’s 1985 Toyota SR5 from Back to the Future.

But inside, that diminutive emotion disappears, arsenic I recovered myself pinch ample amounts of head- and legroom. As a comparatively tallish feline (over 6 feet) who often feels cramped successful astir vehicles, I couldn’t judge the magnitude of room I had successful specified a mini truck.

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Alright, we get it. Y’all are excited astir Slate. We thought the small Slate Truck was cool, but based connected the number of clicks and comments connected our Slate Auto articles truthful far, you’d for illustration to cognize more. Many of you wrote successful pinch questions and much than a fewer group raised immoderate doubts.

So, we wanted to reside arsenic galore of those arsenic we could. Here’s your one-stop shop for Slate answers based connected your questions — positive a fewer of our own.

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At past month’s rapturously received Slate debut, it took an executive’s quip that “Slate” and “Tesla” usage the aforesaid 5 letters to displacement my encephalon into precocious gear. I’ve covered the EV world for 15-plus years, and I virtually ne'er walk clip connected counterfactuals. There’s rather capable to screen successful the existent world.

But … I’m of the sentiment Tesla could, and should, person launched a small, simple, inexpensive compact pickup truck—in different words, what Slate debuted—rather than the pickup it did produce, the Cybertruck. That costly and polarizing conveyance has been, to put it bluntly, a sales disaster. Over 18 months, Tesla has sold only astir 50,000, versus projections of galore times that volume. Worse, while EV crossover utilities waste tens of thousands a month, the much costly EV pickup trucks to day person not.

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Since Slate Auto came retired of stealth mode past week, the net has been abuzz pinch speculation astir the finer specifications of the ultra-barebones electrical Truck, which is group to costs conscionable $20,000 erstwhile it enters accumulation adjacent twelvemonth -- assuming our federal EV incentives are still successful spot by then.

One of those questions was wherever Slate will build the thing, pinch a TechCrunch study suggesting a mill successful Indiana. Today we tin officially corroborate the details. Slate Auto will retrofit an existing 1.4 cardinal quadrate ft mill successful Warsaw, Indiana, wherever the institution plans to yet nutrient 150,000 Trucks annually.

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The mostly accepted measurement to motorboat your caller car institution is by building thing fancy and expensive. Call it Founder’s Edition aliases sanction it aft a precious metal, dream group salary for the privilege of exclusivity, and spell from there. Slate Auto is doing… the opposite. The three-year-old institution just announced its first vehicle, and it’s building a sub-$20,000 pickup pinch nary stereo, nary paint, and practically nary options astatine all. It’s thing for illustration thing we’ve seen. And yet, astatine slightest according to the first guidance to the Slate Truck, it mightiness beryllium precisely what we’ve been looking for.

On this section of The Vergecast, freelance tech and car journalist Tim Stevens joins the show to talk each astir the Slate Truck. He tells america really the company’s manufacturing process works, why it’s placing specified an accent connected customizability, and whether Slate’s large bets tin really salary off. The car is expected to beryllium disposable sometime adjacent year, and location are reasons to beryllium optimistic it’ll deed that goal.

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Ask conscionable astir anybody, and they’ll show you that caller cars are excessively expensive. In the aftermath of tariffs shaking the car industry and pinch the Trump management pledging to kill the national EV incentive, that business isn’t looking to get amended soon, particularly for anyone wanting thing battery-powered. Changing that overly spendy position quo is going to return thing radical, and it’s difficult to get much extremist than what Slate Auto has planned.

Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after national incentives) electrical conveyance that enters accumulation adjacent year. It only seats 2 yet has a furniture large capable to clasp a expanse of plywood. It only does 150 miles connected a charge, only comes successful gray, and the only measurement to perceive to euphony while driving is if you bring on your telephone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car tin be, and yet it’s taken 3 years of improvement to get to this point.

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