Jeff Bezos-backed Slate Auto has planted a number of idea variations of its EV on the streets of California. It’s a advertising and marketing tactic that teases the secretive startup’s technique to promote a “Transformer”-like car, folks conversant in the corporate’s inside discussions instructed TechCrunch.
This unconventional real-world tease comes days earlier than Slate’s April 24 launch occasion at Lengthy Seashore Airport, in keeping with an invitation seen by TechCrunch.
The Michigan-based startup, based in 2022, has operated in relative secrecy till TechCrunch printed a report revealing Bezos’ monetary involvement, in addition to its plan to cost its EV at round $25,000 whereas encouraging consumers to customise the car to their liking. That base mannequin is known as the “Clean Slate” model, in keeping with a trademark application and one other individual conversant in the corporate’s plans. Slate has additionally filed for a trademark for the phrase: “We Constructed It. You Make It.”
The Autopian’s David Tracy traveled to Venice, California over the weekend the place Slate parked an idea model of the truck made to appear like a two-door SUV utilized by a faux enterprise. Equally, Reddit customers posted photos over the weekend of yet one more version of the truck made to appear like a hatchback that nearly resembles Rivian’s forthcoming R3.
The car Tracy noticed up shut this previous weekend seems to be similar to the two-door pickup truck noticed by a Reddit consumer earlier this month in Lengthy Seashore, however with a tough cowl over the mattress that provides it extra of an SUV form. The car is roofed in a wrap for a faux enterprise known as “Rockabye Rides,” which features a URL that results in an internet site that’s counting down to Slate’s occasion later this week.
That makes three totally different silhouettes we’ve seen of Slate’s truck thus far — and that adaptability is one thing the corporate has privately touted because it locked down properly over $100 million in funding, TechCrunch has realized.
Slate’s management centered closely on the “Transformer” metaphor because it wooed buyers to fill out its Sequence B funding spherical final 12 months, in keeping with an individual conversant in the pitches. The corporate rigorously choreographed the conferences across the concept, in keeping with one other individual conversant in how they went.
This concerned exhibiting potential buyers a generic model of the truck, after which main them to a different room whereas a workforce shortly personalized the car. Then the potential buyers can be introduced again to the primary room solely to search out the truck wanting utterly totally different.
These efforts seem to have been convincing. Guggenheim Companions CEO (and controlling proprietor of the LA Dodgers) Mark Walter seemingly invested within the spherical and joined Slate’s board, TechCrunch has reported.
A spokesperson for the corporate didn’t reply to a request for remark.
These new photographs give a fairly clear view of the outside of Slate’s truck, and the potential degree of customization. The inside stays a thriller, and there’s no public information in regards to the car’s specs.
The corporate has briefed plenty of automotive journalists forward of Thursday’s occasion, and Tracy wrote that he’s “beneath a strict NDA” on any of the sepecifics.
Even nonetheless, Tracy wrote that the Slate truck “is in contrast to any new car I’ve ever seen not simply in my decade as a automobile journalist, however in my complete lifetime.”