Ask nearly anyone, they usually’ll let you know 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 scenario isn’t seeking 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 onerous 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 technique to hearken to music whereas driving is in case you deliver alongside your telephone and a Bluetooth speaker. It’s the naked minimal of what a contemporary automobile might be, and but it’s taken three years of growth to get up to now.
However that is greater than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY function, an try and not simply go low-cost however to create a brand new class of car with an enormous deal with personalization. That design additionally permits a low-cost method to manufacturing that has caught the attention of main buyers, reportedly together with Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will probably be manufactured in America, however is that this excessive simplification an excessive amount of for American shoppers?
Simplify, Then Embrace Injury
For those who haven’t seen the leaks and the studies of weirdly wrapped vans hiding in plain sight, the Slate Truck is the primary product from Michigan-based Slate Auto. Assume “American kei truck” and also you’re not far off. It’s a machine designed to be extraordinarily primary, extraordinarily customizable, and intensely reasonably priced. These usually are not your typical design objectives, however then the Slate Truck isn’t the fruit of your typical design course of.
Wander by any automotive design studio wherever on the earth and also you’ll inevitably come throughout a temper board or two, sweeping collages of hanging pictures meant to align the artistic flows of passers-by. They’re a software for serving to a disparate design group to create a cohesive product, however the place many such temper boards function glamour pictures of unique roads and delightful folks, entrance and heart within the Slate’s temper board was one thing completely different: an enormous, grey shark, lined in scrapes and scars.
“It appears to be like like a shark that has undoubtedly been in multiple 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 moderately 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 shortage of paint means they’re one coloration 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 to the upholstery, too, a heathered textile that was designed to get higher trying because it wears. The thought 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 might be solely accessible in a palette of disappointingly bland colours: “There’s often solely a fraction that you simply truly need, and people are all the time dearer,” she says.
Disparaging different manufacturers for providing restricted coloration decisions may appear disingenuous coming from the designer of a automobile accessible in a single shade. The Slate Truck, although, was designed to benefit from 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 substitute simply as rapidly based mostly 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 each time 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, rapidly, and cleanly lay down a high quality coat of coloration on automotive physique elements is a sophisticated process.
That process has solely gotten extra difficult (and thus costly) in recent times, with larger environmental rules and shopper expectations forcing producers to seek out methods to supply extra vibrant hues with much less ecological influence. Mercedes-Benz simply introduced it’s constructing a “Subsequent Era Paintshop” at its Sindelfingen plant in Germany, and estimates place the factor’s value at nearly $1 billion.
By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint store, Slate’s manufacturing course of is massively simplified. So, too, the shortage of metallic physique elements. “Now we have no paint store, now we have no stamping,” says Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s chief business officer who previously led Tesla’s world enterprise efforts.
Car factories are likely to have excessive ceilings to make room for the multiple-story stamping machines that kind metallic physique elements. Injection molding of plastic is way simpler and cheaper to do in restricted areas — areas just like the manufacturing unit that Slate has bought for its manufacturing, reportedly close to Indiana. “The automobile is designed, engineered, and manufactured within the US, with nearly all of our provide chain based mostly within the US,” Snyder says.
The simplification goes easier nonetheless. Slate will make only one automobile, in only one trim, in only one coloration, with all the pieces from larger battery packs to SUV improve kits added on later.
“As a result of we solely produce one automobile within the manufacturing unit with zero choices, we’ve moved the entire complexity out of the manufacturing unit,” Snyder says.
Whereas most patrons 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 circulation positivity very shortly after begin of manufacturing. And so from an funding standpoint, we’re far much less cash-reliant than another 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 buyers. “The best business magnates to put money into our firm,” Snyder says. He declined to call names, however in accordance with 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 in case you’ll be capable of 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, nicely, clean slate. They need house owners 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 may 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 residence.
No, this isn’t a Subaru Brat redux. The seats will probably be forward-facing, and the entire setup is meant to be sturdy sufficient to satisfy crash take a look at rules. The truth is, Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, says they’re focusing on a 5-Star Security Score from the federal authorities’s New Automotive Evaluation Program. Slate can be aiming for a High Security Choose from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security.
This will probably be, largely, due to a complete energetic security system that features all the pieces 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 digicam. Usually, this view pops up on a contemporary automobile’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 digicam will feed. You’ll have bodily knobs for controlling the in-cabin temperature controls plus the everyday 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 variety past for these required to play primary warning chimes.
Many will take into account 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 telephone 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 area day developing with in-car media streaming options.
The moderately excessive omission of any sort of media system within the automobile is jarring, but it surely, too, has secondary advantages.
“Seventy % of repeat guarantee claims are based mostly on infotainment at the moment as a result of there’s a lot tech within the automobile that it’s created a really unstable surroundings within the automobile,” Snyder says.
Eliminating infotainment, the speculation goes, essentially boosts reliability. And reliability will probably be key as a result of Slate is taking DIY to new extremes on the upkeep entrance, too.
The fitting to restore your units is a massively essential subject for everybody from smartphone customers to good tractor operators. Historically, auto producers haven’t precisely gone out of their technique 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 far more than an annual tire rotation), however for any guarantee considerations, the corporate will encourage customers to do the fixes themselves. At the least when it’s secure to take action.
“For those who’re not going to interrupt the automobile and also you’re not going to injure your self, that 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 help you to do this work,” Snyder says.
That help community will probably be known as Slate College and it’ll train you all the pieces you should know. Don’t fancy your self a shade tree mechanic? Or perhaps you don’t have a tree to park below within the first place? Slate has a partnership with already-established nationwide service facilities, the place house owners can take their vans for any wanted fixes. Upgrades might be carried out right here as nicely, together with putting in an extended-range battery that may deliver the truck’s most vary as much as 240 miles.
“At begin of manufacturing, we could have protection throughout the nation for servicing your automobile,” Snyder says. Snyder declined to say who will present the service, but it surely appears affordable to count on one thing alongside the traces 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 based mostly on preorder knowledge. Or, in case you don’t thoughts paying a bit extra, residence supply will probably be accessible.
Preorders value simply $50 on Slate’s site, and deliveries are anticipated to start out in late 2026. Slate hasn’t stated precisely how a lot the truck will value, 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 shoppers will truly be into such a simplified imaginative and prescient of what a automobile might be. The Slate Truck is a rolling rejection of the present, bloated state of American motoring, but it surely’s shopper demand that’s pushed the market down this darkish alley. Are these shoppers prepared for a rolling digital detox?