Ask nearly anyone, they usually’ll inform you that new vehicles are too costly. Within the wake of tariffs shaking the auto business and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that state of affairs isn’t trying to get higher quickly, particularly for anybody wanting one thing battery-powered. Altering that overly spendy established order goes to take one thing radical, and it’s laborious to get extra radical than what Slate Auto has deliberate.
Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electrical automobile that enters manufacturing subsequent yr. It solely seats two but has a mattress large enough to carry a sheet of plywood. It solely does 150 miles on a cost, solely is available in grey, and the one solution to hearken to music whereas driving is should you carry alongside your cellphone and a Bluetooth speaker. It’s the naked minimal of what a contemporary automotive might be, and but it’s taken three years of improvement to get so far.
However that is greater than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY goal, an try and not simply go low cost however to create a brand new class of auto with an enormous give attention to personalization. That design additionally allows a low-cost method to manufacturing that has caught the attention of main traders, reportedly together with Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and shall be manufactured in America, however is that this excessive simplification an excessive amount of for American customers?
Simplify, Then Embrace Injury
If you happen to haven’t seen the leaks and the reviews of weirdly wrapped vehicles hiding in plain sight, the Slate Truck is the primary product from Michigan-based Slate Auto. Suppose “American kei truck” and also you’re not far off. It’s a machine designed to be extraordinarily fundamental, extraordinarily customizable, and intensely inexpensive. These aren’t your typical design objectives, however then the Slate Truck isn’t the fruit of your typical design course of.
Wander by way of any automotive design studio wherever on this planet and also you’ll inevitably come throughout a temper board or two, sweeping collages of placing pictures meant to align the inventive flows of passers-by. They’re a device for serving to a disparate design staff to create a cohesive product, however the place many such temper boards characteristic glamour photographs of unique roads and delightful individuals, entrance and middle within the Slate’s temper board was one thing completely different: a giant, grey shark, lined in scrapes and scars.
“It appears like a shark that has positively been in a couple of brawl and clearly has come out forward as a result of it’s nonetheless swimming,” says Tisha Johnson, head of design at Slate and who previously spent a decade at Volvo. That aesthetic, of highlighting quite than hiding battle scars, is essential to the Slate ethos.
As a substitute of metal or aluminum, the Slate Truck’s physique panels are molded of plastic. Or, as Slate calls them, “injection molded polypropylene composite materials.” The idea is that this makes them extra sturdy and scratch-resistant, if solely as a result of the dearth of paint means they’re one colour right through. Auto fanatics of a sure age will keep in mind the identical method utilized by the now-defunct Saturn Company, a producing method that by no means caught on throughout the business.
Slate continues the theme by way of to the upholstery, too, a heathered textile that was designed to get higher trying because it wears. The concept is to lean into the aged aesthetic.
However not everyone will dig the shark theme, and so the Slate Truck is designed to be customizable to a level by no means seen earlier than on a manufacturing automobile. Johnson says that is in distinction to the overly curated expertise provided by many manufacturers.
She says over-curation by automotive designers ends in conditions like premium, luxurious vehicles which are solely out there in a palette of disappointingly bland colours: “There’s normally solely a fraction that you simply truly need, and people are at all times costlier,” she says.
Disparaging different manufacturers for providing restricted colour decisions may appear disingenuous coming from the designer of a automobile out there in a single shade. The Slate Truck, although, was designed to reap the benefits of the present pattern of vinyl-wrapping vehicles. Its easy form and minimal trim items imply that even amateurs can do the job. Slate will provide DIY kits that newbies can slap on in a day and exchange simply as shortly primarily based on temper.
Nevertheless, the most important advantage of this monochromatic pondering would possibly are available manufacturing.
Naked-Minimal Manufacturing
It’s most likely no shock to you that constructing vehicles is dear. Elon Musk likes to bemoan simply how difficult the method might be at any time when Tesla is late delivery its subsequent new mannequin, however he’s removed from alone in that evaluation.
What’s rather less generally identified is simply how costly it’s to color these vehicles. Making a facility that may reliably, shortly, and cleanly lay down a high quality coat of colour on automotive physique components is an advanced job.
That job has solely gotten extra difficult (and thus costly) in recent times, with better environmental laws and client expectations forcing producers to seek out methods to supply extra vibrant hues with much less ecological affect. Mercedes-Benz simply introduced it’s constructing a “Subsequent Era Paintshop” at its Sindelfingen plant in Germany, and estimates place the factor’s price at almost $1 billion.
By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint store, Slate’s manufacturing course of is massively simplified. So, too, the dearth of steel physique components. “We’ve got no paint store, we’ve no stamping,” says Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s chief business officer who previously led Tesla’s international enterprise efforts.
Car factories are inclined to have excessive ceilings to make room for the multiple-story stamping machines that kind steel physique components. Injection molding of plastic is way simpler and cheaper to do in restricted areas — areas just like the manufacturing facility that Slate has bought for its manufacturing, reportedly close to Indiana. “The automobile is designed, engineered, and manufactured within the US, with the vast majority of our provide chain primarily based within the US,” Snyder says.
The simplification goes less complicated nonetheless. Slate will make only one automobile, in only one trim, in only one colour, with every part from larger battery packs to SUV improve kits added on later.
“As a result of we solely produce one automobile within the manufacturing facility with zero choices, we’ve moved the entire complexity out of the manufacturing facility,” Snyder says.
Whereas most consumers will rightly fixate on the price of the truck, the larger story right here would possibly simply be this radically simplified method to manufacturing. “From the very starting, our enterprise mannequin has been such that we attain money circulate positivity very shortly after begin of manufacturing. And so from an funding standpoint, we’re far much less cash-reliant than every other EV startup that has ever existed, so far as I do know,” Snyder says.
As Slate tries to sprint to manufacturing with out tripping over the headstones of failed EV startups that litter the countryside, that leanness is essential. It’s helped them appeal to some main traders. “The best business magnates to spend money on our firm,” Snyder says. He declined to call names, however in response to a TechCrunch report, a type of magnates is Jeff Bezos.
“We don’t have a direct connection to Amazon,” Snyder clarified, however he didn’t rule out some company cooperation. “Who is aware of? Who is aware of should you’ll be capable to buy on Amazon? I don’t know.”
These vinyl wraps are actually simply the primary layer of what Slate’s designers are positioning as a, effectively, clean slate. They need homeowners to personalize each side of the automobile, together with its silhouette.
Want room for greater than two passengers? Slate has an SUV improve equipment that can bolt onto the again of the truck, including additional rollover crash safety and rear seats with seat belts to match, all in a package deal that’s simple to put in at dwelling.
No, this isn’t a Subaru Brat redux. The seats shall be forward-facing, and the entire setup is meant to be robust sufficient to satisfy crash take a look at laws. The truth is, Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, says they’re focusing on a 5-Star Security Ranking from the federal authorities’s New Automobile Evaluation Program. Slate can also be aiming for a High Security Decide from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security.
This shall be, largely, because of a complete lively security system that features every part from automated emergency braking with pedestrian detection to automated excessive beams.
A compulsory a part of as we speak’s security options is a digital rear-view digital camera. Usually, this view pops up on a contemporary automotive’s central infotainment display, however the Slate doesn’t have a type of. It makes do with only a small show behind the steering wheel as a gauge cluster, which is the place that rearview digital camera will feed. You’ll have bodily knobs for controlling the in-cabin temperature controls plus the standard flip stalk and different switchgear, however that’s about it.
The truck not solely lacks a touchscreen for infotainment duties, it lacks any type of leisure in any respect past no matter enjoyable you may get from the 201-horsepower, rear-drive configuration. There’s no radio, no Bluetooth, and no audio system of any type past for these required to play fundamental warning chimes.
Many will think about this a cost-cutting step too far, however the inside was designed for ease of upgrading, with simple mounting house for something from a easy soundbar to a full sound system.
There’s an built-in cellphone mount proper on the dashboard, however there’s nothing stopping you from bringing one thing even bigger. I count on the low-cost Android pill and 3D-printing communities to have a subject day developing with in-car media streaming options.
The quite excessive omission of any form of media system within the automotive is jarring, nevertheless it, too, has secondary advantages.
“Seventy % of repeat guarantee claims are primarily based on infotainment presently as a result of there’s a lot tech within the automotive that it’s created a really unstable atmosphere within the automobile,” Snyder says.
Eliminating infotainment, the idea goes, essentially boosts reliability. And reliability shall be key as a result of Slate is taking DIY to new extremes on the upkeep entrance, too.
The proper to restore your gadgets is a massively vital matter for everybody from smartphone customers to good tractor operators. Historically, auto producers haven’t precisely gone out of their solution to make DIY upkeep simple, partly as a result of their sellers make a lot cash hawking cabin air filters and pointless coolant flushes.
As an EV, the upkeep schedule for Slate Truck ought to be minimal (most EVs don’t want rather more than an annual tire rotation), however for any guarantee issues, the corporate will encourage customers to do the fixes themselves. No less than when it’s secure to take action.
“If you happen to’re not going to interrupt the automobile and also you’re not going to injure your self, which means excessive voltage, you are able to do service and guarantee service in your automobile your self and have the movies and the helpline to assist you to try this work,” Snyder says.
That assist community shall be known as Slate College and it’ll train you every part it’s essential know. Don’t fancy your self a shade tree mechanic? Or possibly you don’t have a tree to park underneath within the first place? Slate has a partnership with already-established nationwide service facilities, the place homeowners can take their vehicles for any wanted fixes. Upgrades might be carried out right here as effectively, together with putting in an extended-range battery that can carry the truck’s most vary as much as 240 miles.
“At begin of manufacturing, we may have protection throughout the nation for servicing your automobile,” Snyder says. Snyder declined to say who will present the service, nevertheless it appears affordable to count on one thing alongside the strains of a Midas, Monro, Meineke, or maybe another nationwide service chain that begins with the letter M.
And eventually, how will you purchase one? It ought to come as no shock that Slate will observe Tesla’s footsteps by providing direct gross sales. No nationwide community of dealerships is deliberate. As a substitute, a restricted set of pickup facilities will pop up as wanted primarily based on preorder information. Or, should you don’t thoughts paying a bit of extra, dwelling supply shall be out there.
Preorders price simply $50 on Slate’s web site, and deliveries are anticipated to start out in late 2026. Slate hasn’t mentioned precisely how a lot the truck will price, solely that it’ll be lower than $20,000 after federal incentives — assuming these incentives are nonetheless in place in 18 months’ time.
The larger query, although, is whether or not customers will truly be into such a simplified imaginative and prescient of what a automotive might be. The Slate Truck is a rolling rejection of the present, bloated state of American motoring, nevertheless it’s client demand that’s pushed the market down this darkish alley. Are these customers prepared for a rolling digital detox?
