In the most surprising automotive debut in decades, Slate — a company funded in part by Jeff Bezos — just showed a brand new pickup truck that comes standard with unpainted plastic body panels, crank windows, no heated seats, no radio, no infotainment screen, and steel wheels. It is a cheap, bare-bones “blank slate” that comes as either a pickup truck, a fastback SUV, or a squareback SUV. Here’s everything you need to know about this completely outside-the-box concept that may end up being America’s only sub-$20,000 EV.
The caveat on “sub-$20,000” is that it depends on the EV tax credit, which may or may not go away soon. But even without the tax credit, the new Slate truck is expected to cost somewhere in the “mid-twenties,” which is dirt cheap. What Slate had to do to get the cost down that low is shocking, especially for 2025; the company — whose engineering is based out of Michigan and whose design studio is in Long Beach, CA — stripped the car down to its very essentials in a way we haven’t seen since… maybe the Chevy Aveo?
I visited the office in Long Beach and saw what looked a lot like a stripped-down black Ford Bronco Sport. It has plastic body panels that are designed to be wrapped, and comes in a single trim (the base model is the top-of-the-line model), which offers crank windows, no heated seats, no radio, no infotainment screen, and steel wheels. It is the most basic modern car I’ve seen since I rode in a Dacia in Romania a few years ago.
The new 400-ish-person American company — which plans to build its trucks/SUVs stateside — says in its press release that the goal since the company started in 2022 has been “simplifying the manufacturing process and removing unnecessary content to reduce cost and increase reliability.”
“The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” says Slate CEO Chris Barman in that press release. “Slate exists to put the power back in the hands of customers who have been ignored by the auto industry. Slate is a radical truck platform so customizable that it can transform from a 2-seat pickup to a 5-seat SUV.”
That’s right, the truck is the SUV. You may recall back in the late 1980s Nissan’s Pulsar, which came with a variety of different roof options. Check it out:
The new Slate follows this same model, but takes things a bit further. Not only can the Slate transform from a truck into one of two SUVs (fastback or squareback), but it can also increase its capacity from two passengers to five.
The fiberglass roofs, seats and roll cage come as as part of the “SUV Kit,” which Slate calls a “flat-pack” accessory, meaning it’s all shipped to your door in a flat-ish box. “The flat-pack accessory SUV Kit turns the truck into a 5-seat SUV, with a roll cage, airbags, rear seat. Do it yourself or have it done for you,” reads the press release, leading me to wonder if customers are meant to install their own rear airbags (surely not, right?).
The roof options represent just some of the over 100 accessories one can buy for the Slate — all of which are DIY.
You read that right: You buy a bare-bones truck, and if you want to add things like a radio and speakers and a rear-mounted spare, you just order the kit and install it all yourself. If you want to add heated seats, Slate will ship you a seat-cover accessory with a pad-heater built in. Power windows? You can install those, too. You can also buy alloy wheels and custom bumpers.
As for infotainment, the truck doesn’t come with any. There’s a place to plug your phone in and use it as your display if you like. “Bring your own tech,” is how Slate bills it, writing: “Rather than learn a new interface, use the one you love. Slate introduces the universal phone mount and USB power. Add a dedicated tablet if you want to.”
Hardware-wise, there’s a 52.7 kWh battery pack that combines with the vehicle’s light 3,600-pound curb weight and small overall dimensions to yield a range target of about 150 miles. As for charging, there’s DC “Level 3” charging with speeds up to 120 kW (using the Tesla “NACS” plug), promising 20% to 80% state-of-charge in under half an hour. At-home charging is limited to 3.6kW with a regular “Level 1” plug (11 hours to charge 20-100%) or 11kW with Level 2 (under five hours from 20-100%). There is also an optional 84.3 kWh battery pack that Slate says will offer a targeted 240 miles of range, though, unlike other accessories, this is something an upfitter would have to install if a customer wanted a range upgrade.
The battery, 150 kW (201 horsepower) rear-mounted electric motor, and gearbox (Slate says it has package-protected for a front motor in order to potentially offer all-wheel drive) are off-the-shelf items to keep cost down. It’s not exactly clear who makes these components, but 52.7 kWh is exactly the same as the Chinese Weltmeister EX5 400’s CATL-based battery pack (that’s just a guess). Suspension is a MacPherson strut setup in the front and a DeDion tube in the rear. Tires are from Kenda, a budget tire brand. The rear taillight is a single LED. And I could go on and on about other cost-saves (I plan to do a deep-dive into it soon).
As for dimensions and capacities, the 3,602-pound vehicle is rated to tow 1,000 pounds and to carry a payload of up to 1,433 pounds. It’ll do 0-60 mph in around 8 seconds, get up to a maximum speed of 90 mph, and carry up to 37 cubic feet of cargo in its bed (34 behind the front seats of the SUV). There’s also a frunk at the nose that holds 7 cubic feet.
Overall dimensions are: 175 inches long, 109 inches in wheelbase, and 71 inches wide, and 68 inches tall. This is two feet shorter than a Ford Maverick, and a couple of inches narrower; it’s a little narrower but otherwise roughly the same size as a Ford Bronco Sport, with which it shares quite a few design elements in my opinion.
As for safety, Slate says its vehicle was “designed to achieve the highest safety ratings,” and that the vehicle has Active Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, and up to 8 airbags.
Reservations of this wacky new approach to cheap EVs are now open at $50 per, with shipment expected direct-to-consumer at the end of 2026.
Well I’m interested when they become truly available in 2027, I don’t qualify for the EV tax credit/giveaway so the value proposition is harder, but two years away is a long time for things to change!
I totally want one.. though I want power windows dangit.
There will be an
appkit for that.I can see installing airbags. They’d just be prepackaged into the roll bar or whatever and plug into existing sensors.
But more importantly, this thing could really breathe new life into JC Whitney.
The bare bones pickup reminds me of my ’87 Comanche.
I want one so bad. A square SUV version….
I will probably die waiting though as I live 9000 kmts away from the USA 🙁
I feel like they just called out the entire commentariat here since we almost all like to complain about needlessly complicated vehicles. So now we all have to buy one or quit complaining… well played!
It needs to be under $15 grand, get 600 miles of range, have a bench seat, and ride on leaf springs or not interested. Never underestimate what lows we can ask for!
You forgot the three row seating that folds down to allow for an 8ft bed.
And portal axles
This is great, the roll up windows is a bit much, not sure if it’s an image thing they’re trying for or what, I actually updated the roll-ups in my Ranger to power windows, there’s cheap but then there’s excessive, Mitsubishi Mirages come with power windows, c’mon.
This actually sounds really neat, and solves one of the biggest issues I have with modern cars – I don’t need a freakin’ tablet molded into the dash!! I really like the self-install option for the radio; isn’t that what we all did back in the end days of the single-DIN units?
It would be nice if there was at least a hybrid option available; I’m still a little hesitant on electric-only ranges.
Hopefully the software is as diy friendly as the hardware looks, then we can hook up a 13kw harbor freight generator while driving.
Its about $1000 and would give about 30 miles of charge per hour.
You know , it would be fun to paint a slate with chalkboard paint and just re-style it with sidewalk chalk every week.
You know, like a big slate!
I mean I want it with the bigger battery, front motor, and a proper radio. The rest of it I can do myself, looks like. Using my phone as a radio had issues in the old days, and nav kinda sucked. If we can find a decent aftermarket kjt, cool, but I have my concerns about acoustics. And yeah, radio is stupidly important to me. It keeps me engaged enough to not zone out when driving.
If it had some speakers you could just use the phone as a radio through the usb port. I barely ever listen to real radio anymore.
Wow. I’m going to have to give some serious thought to trading in the old Rangers.
My wife has the family car and i have work vehicles. Something like this to be a little runabout, get things done, and have something to drive when the work car isn’t around is very appealing
If this makes it to reality (BIG if) at near this price I am in. Add in a front-drive motor and I will get rid of my ’86 4Runner. It has fewer creature comforts than this comes with.
They’ve 50 of my moneys.
yep – if sold like this super – if it’s a few grand more and a few grand more and comes to market is like 4 years, not so much
I love the idea of this in a (more aero) car form, but even as a truck, it’s appealing to me. Could still do without the active “safety” crap and I think it would be better as a hybrid, but I get that adds a big cost in certification if not engineering and packaging and doesn’t get a rebate that knocks it down to dirt cheap territory from a kind of uncompetitive unsubsidized, particularly where it relies on appealing too much to weirdos who want something that is not only simple, but that also almost requires mods and is coming from an unproven company.
This might sound goofy, but my biggest personal reservation would be comfort. If this is a new company building down to a price, I suspect the seats might be abominable (though I suppose the range isn’t all that great for long range driving, anyway). While there seems to be little trouble equipping cars with f’n radar systems, even long-established companies making fairly expensive cars are often unable to deliver a seat bottom that doesn’t turn to stone after 2 hours and/or has intrusive side bolsters sized for a late-blooming middle schooler in a vehicle capable of maybe .75 lateral gs that almost nobody who owns one will hit in the first place.
If the commentariat of this fine website doesn’t buy truckloads of these, I’m going to be pissed off. “I only want the bare essentials in a truck”, “I want to do my own mods”, “I’m not buying a car over 20k”, “The new Charger should be 30k”(real comment i got).
Here’s a car that fits those demands, looks reasonable, doesn’t have any screens etc. Perfect 3rd vehicle if you have the money, daily if not. If you don’t buy this, stop commenting how you would buy a Rivian if it was 30k and had no screens.
Commenters will always need it to be 20% cheaper with 50% more range, no matter what it is. Even then, they’d rather wait a few years and buy one used rather than take the depreciation hit.
Interesting for sure, a lot to like as a gearhead, but leaves me with a lot of questions too.
Redefining vehicle affordability in America, referencing Dacia, Bezos’s involvement… all things that read like red flags to me. This is a car thats ready for a potential period of austerity in America. Not that its a bad thing, I just hate that one of the guys who is causing that is finding another way to make money off of it.
That being said I think this hits what a lot of Autopians have asked for. I’d definitely want it to be 4wd with that styling, and I love the idea of buying the accessories/upfit parts and doing it myself.
Very interesting, but definitely a “wait and see” kind of vehicle.
Any word on Canadian availability? I hear it’s only for the US, but a lot of otherwise US-exclusive stuff (Cybertruck, etc.) does make it up here, so I’m hopeful
Part of me wants to slap a set of RWL General Grabber tires mounted on American Racing Outlaw machined aluminum rims and go for a full out 90’s minitruck vibe.
Jeep used to sell CJs this way. They could come from the factory with nothing but a box for the driver’s seat and everything else was ordered separate
The Slate reminds me of my TJ. For both the Slate and a TJ everything’s bolt-on and replaceable, roll-up windows, no infotainment other than a phone and without any pretense other than what it appears to be. Every picture and description of the Slate give me deja-vu in a good way.
The Scout appeals to me for different reasons and the REX makes it a much more capable vehicle over a wider range of use cases. That said and forced to choose, if both vehicles become real I’d be more inclined to buy a Slate.
So “Under $20k” is $19,999. The full cost (without EV rebate) would be $27,499. Yeah?
If being competitive depends on a $7500 government tax rebate that eventually runs out or could be taken away for political reasons, maybe your business model is flawed.
Not that this isn’t cool, but it’s not $27k cool.
You’re probably aware that there’s no ‘government tax rebate’ but rather it’s a tax credit, and only a potential one at that, since not all buyers owe enough on their taxes to make full (or any) use of the tax credit. I.e.: if you don’t already PAY $7,500. worth of federal income tax in a given year, you can’t claim the $7,500. tax credit… since the credits now get paid to the dealer/mfgr. at time of purchase, I assume if you ‘used’ a tax credit that you were unqualified for, then that sum must be repaid.
Not semantical argumenting, just clarifying in case any readers here thought it was an actual rebate. 🙂
PS: I think it’s probably at least $22.5K worth of cool, assuming no major caveats and decent (by which I mean sturdy, with a chance of moderate longevity) build quality. But that’s JMHO of course.
In any case, I suspect all of will be waiting a fair while before these things actually start going on sale/getting delivered to customers. If any Slates hit customer driveways before 2027, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Like the looks. Not so the price. A hybrid or phev would get me closer to a sign up.
If Slates ever sell in any meaningful numbers, I’d bet we see some sort of generator-in-the-bed thing (David’s article already mentioned the option of an additional battery pack for more range, which I hope goes under the bed and not in it). I mean, a guy or gal could theoretically just put a Honda 2K-3K i series generator https://powerequipment.honda.ca/en/generators/home-recreation/models in the back and top off the battery out in the woods (I’m just spitballing here… maybe they don’t push out enough power, but using one of those couldn’t be that much slower than a 110VAC home charge, right?). But perhaps something more elegant, wired into the car’s internals, so not using the external NACS charge plug.
I dunno… it seems possible. If there’s a market (and thus money to be made) someone will find a way to address a need. That’s capitalism. 🙂 Maybe someday, little portable fuel cells will be a thing, so EVs can just keep them in the trunk for remote recharging, just like so many of us keep lithium ion battery jump boxes in our old cars now. 😉
PS: I’ve always lusted after one of these i series Honda generators… they are soooo quiet and small. I’ve stood right next to a 2,000 watt one while it was running outdoors, and it was possible to have a conversation in a regular tone of voice standing right next to it. Plus, they’re Honda, so they last. I think the 3,000 watt model can be wired directly into a home’s wiring, so that it turns on automatically during a power outage. But of course, they’re pricey, about twice the cost of a Harbor Freight model of the same wattage (I saw a 3kWh one at HF last week that was being sold at just a little over $700. and was so tempted, but managed to restrain myself).
PPS: I have a Chinese-made knockoff of Honda’s 1,000 watt model and have used it several times. It’s not quite as quiet or nice as a Honda, but it only cost me a couple hundred bucks off of Craigslist and I’ve actually used it several times w/o problems to power a fridge, run hand tools, etc…
Ehhh, if it was a properly engineered solution, like integrated, and certified and didn’t take over the bed then maybe. I don’t know why they didn’t consider an ice along with the EV solution from the jump.
On the subject of generators, I have a 9 kw unit I use to power the house when the grid decides to take a break. The engine is a Honda but overall the system is very noisy. The pure Honda gens are nice but are too pricy for my wallet.
To plug directly into the house I used a specialty adapter on the grid feed. Cobblefabbed an auto start system with a vented quiet box for the entire rig. Total cost was about 25% of the equivalent Honda setup.
Yes, the quiet Honda i series ones are pricey.
You really need to stop it with this “Jeff Bezos’ ” crap. He is an investor in the company, not a founder or engineer, just someone with a lot of cash to play with, who decided to throw some of that money at this project.
As to those who say it is less likely to be vaporware because of Bezos backing, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. He may be willing to throw good money after bad, but he is also just as likely to move on to the next shiny thing to throw his money at. Additionally EV trucks are no longer the shiny thing, in fact the Cyber Turd has pretty much taken all of the shine off of that segment by itself.
The only real market for these are auto parts stores, florists and limited gov fleet use. By the time this is equipped like retail buyers want them that Maverick will only look like a much better value.
I agree that repeatedly attaching a billionaire’s name to something is not the best marketing strategy, especially since Musk decided to shit all over everything. Bezos is not a well liked guy either.
Though I disagree about the limited market. I think it’s brilliant and every vehicle should be like this.
I have said before on this site that the only infotainment I need is a place to put my phone and keep it charged, and some speakers to play the audio. Why would I want a dashboard filled with screens? Screens go bad. If my laptop’s screen goes bad, the laptop probably is old enough that a replacement is justified (let’s just say 4 years or older). If I bought a car and the screens went bad in 4 years, I’d be PISSED. How much would that cost? It’s the dumbest of ideas.
But attaching the Bezos name to it is not the company marketing strategy, there is no mention of his name on the website, unless it is in pretty deep.
Attaching his name as if he has some sort of connection to the truck, other than throwing money at the company producing it, is just plain and simple lame reporting and/or clickbait journalism.
The screen thing is pretty much a red herring, my Daughter’s car is now 13yo and its screen still works just as it always has as does the one in my 11yo car. Even if it were to fail it is cheap to replace. https://www.ebay.com/itm/195917957905?chn=ps&google_free_listing_action=view_item&gQT=2 and at least on some of those applications it is under an hour to swap out.
Of course for this with such low volume and lack of sharing with other models if this had one it probably wouldn’t be available in the aftermarket.
Fascinating. My knee-jerk reaction was that it was too expensive for too little, but after some thought and research I went ahead and paid the $50.
I’m the BEV target customer. I make good money, I own my own home, I’m environmentally conscious, I like the tech for its simplicity, I live in a warm climate, etc. But the cars are just too damn expensive.
I go back and forth on the BEV range-anxiety thing, and my takeaway is that to replace my mazda5 a BEV needs a sizeable range (250+ miles) because it’s our fun family car and I load it to the gills with outdoor gear and tow a little camping trailer and we go all over the place on weekends. The BEVs big enough to do that (EV9, etc) are all $70k, which is a complete non-starter. I just won’t tie up that much of my income on a car payment. So instead I’ve settled on eventually getting a Toyota hybrid of some kind (likely highlander? I dig minivans but damn is the sienna huge).
Range anxiety is less so for my commuter – a Mazda3 hatch with a 6sp – to where I’ve gone back and forth on getting a BEV. My commute is short and I could easily do it on 120V nightly charging. Sure, we occasionally take it as the road trip car for better mileage, but we don’t need to. But even when we run into the city the trips are less than 70ish miles round trip.
But as much as I approve of the Bolt as a good little car, it bores me to death. I don’t want to give up my manual “fun” car for a transportation appliance. Even as much as DT loves the i3, I just don’t. So I’m not interested in paying any amount of money to get a BEV that will replace my 3 because the sub20k used options are just soul sucking.
This thing, though? It stirs my soul. I’ve day dreamed about getting an old civic hatch or mini truck or something interesting to build a little BEV swap to replace my 3. But that’s a near-impossibility considering time and resource constraints, and to get anything interesting for under 20k all-in just isn’t going to happen.
This lets you play around with customization, have a great, cheap little BEV runabout, pick up homeowner diy project materials easily, take the kayaks or mountain bikes out, grab a backseat and an open roof kit and play bronco/wrangler without spending $50k, etc, all with (presumably) a warranty and manufacturer support.
I dig it.
A cheap new car with “some assembly required”, sort of like kids toys, and full customization potential does sound quite fun. I’ve been thinking for a while that an EV similar to a Mazda 5, with a wee bit of offroad capability would be a great all around car, too bad there isn’t a way to add a mini sliding door accessory to the passenger side.
Mazda5 BEV with some additional offroad capability is exactly what I want, but nothing comes close. Granted, I’m very particular about the size and roof height (roof racks access) and there’s nothing this size that has the 3rd row “dog or kid’s friend” seating that my 5 has.
I wrote this off since there are far too many compromises to my “ideal” 5 replacement, but as a fun second car this actually ticks a lot of the boxes that are inherently a dealbreaker for the family car at a price-point that still makes sense for the commuter.
For example, I always look longingly at good Bronco builds, but refuse to pay $60k for a car that is a compromise for 95% of my use cases just to get the occasional weekend with the roof off.
But at $20k and even a few grand more for the “roof-off” module, this could check that box and I can still get the practical family car…if something that fits my ridiculous preferences comes up…
“..crank windows, no heated seats, no radio, no infotainment screen, and steel wheels”
Sign me up! Heated seats? Do not need these. Crank windows: fine. No infotainment? PERFECT! Steel wheels? No problem. No radio? Not hard to add this for a person familar with building stereo systems.