I just experienced the craziest new-car reveal ever. Slate, a new company that — according to a recent article by Tech Crunch — has been secretively engineering a $25,000-ish electric vehicle using funding from Jeff Bezos and other investors, just showed off its new car by hiding it in plain sight. The company put an absolutely absurd wrap on its new SUV and then just parked the SUV on the side of a trendy street in Venice, California, with zero information. No sign, no representative, no press release — just a car that has scores of pedestrians craning their necks wondering: “What the?!” I just drove to Venice; here’s what I saw.
This is not how new-car debuts happen. Automakers are usually obsessed with “messaging.” They spend tens of thousands of dollars hiring photographers to make sure the perfect photos are released ahead of a debut, they make sure they invite the “right” journalists to the reveal event, they stage the cars just so, and they not only send out press releases to ensure the brand is received is a very particular way, but they have representatives at the reveal event say all sorts of brand-ish things (words like s”dynamism” and “soul” are often used) to make you all think the car is maximally cool.
Slate didn’t do that. Slate went wacky and just showed the car off by dropping a design buck on the side of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a popular shopping destination in always-trendy Venice. And to make sure people pay attention to this mystery machine, Slate has wrapped the car in an extremely strange livery for a fake company that I guess drives your baby around on the car’s roof until the baby falls asleep?
View this post on Instagram
“Cryshare” in the name of the clearly-fake company, with the message on the back window reading: “When baby drives you crazy, we drive them to sleep.” The baby seats on the roof had more than just a few pedestrians scratching their heads as took these photos.
The binkies/pacifies on the B-pillar and the huge one on the front of the car are bizarre.
I asked a few people about what they thought, and they like the overall shape. “A two-door SUV, count me in!” is (approximately) what one gentleman told me as he asked what I was taking photos of. Sadly, I couldn’t tell him everything I knew, since I’m under a strict NDA, but what I could tell him is that this is the new Slate!
We’ve already written about spy shots of a pickup truck version, and the reason why I even drove to Venice is because this Reddit thread in the “whatisthiscar” community showed a similarly-wackily-wrapped coupe-ish SUV (with an absurd cat-therapist livery!):
Saw this in a tiktok ad, can yall tell what it is??
byu/tough_stough inwhatisthiscar
So now we’ve seen a truck, a coupe-ish SUV, and this boxy one that looks a lot like a Land Rover Defender in profile.
It looks cool, and most importantly, the way this brand new company just showed off its first vehicle has to be the boldest, wackiest thing I’ve seen in my career — I’m here for it!
By the way, those of you who know me are probably wondering if I crawled underneath; of course I did! What I saw were some BFG all-terrains and what looks to clearly be a non-functioning design-buck with no powertrain or real suspension.
Still, this is approximately what you can expect the new Slate to look like, so get excited! The full reveal is coming in just a few days on April 24, and while I can’t tell you anything right now, what I can say is this: Prepare to have your minds blown.
This vehicle is unlike any new vehicle I’ve ever seen not just in my decade as a car journalist, but in my entire lifetime. April 24; get excited!
All Photos: David Tracy
If this thing can be optioned out like the 2-dor removable top SUVs of the 90s, for sub 30k, Boy Howdy!
It won’t be sub 30k.
I will zip through these comments, so apologies if this has been stated already. Tech Crunch is stating that the back of the vehicle can be swapped out, like the old Pulsar NX: pickup or sloped hatch or boxy hatch. The claim is that this was part of the original proposal/pitch to investors.
That looks amazing. But Bezos has no idea how marketing works. He believes any buzz is good buzz. His all girls crew in his 11 minute plane ride fake astronauts has imploded and has more negative reactions than New Coke. I am sure is we drive babies around on the roof of our cars will be met with the same negative reactions people have for the 50s commercials that show women subservient to men. Surprised DT is okay with abusing fake babies but protected actual people who scalped their enemies.
The first thing that came to mind with the Blue Origin all-girl rocket ride was that:
A) everyone rode for free.
B) Bezos can’t sell seats in his Joy ride rocket for what they cost and has to give them away if he wants to fly it.
C) current girl friend won’t be the last.
never mind that the writing of your post is bad, your logic here is somehow worse
Maybe this is how the price will be sub $25K. No real powertrain or suspension!
I hope this does come to fruition. It’ll drive a certain individual more bonkers than this reveal.
Fascinating, it almost seems like the American BEV defender. Small truck and 2 door SUV. Two markets vastly under served in the US market now. I wouldn’t be surprised if you will be able to by the thing on Amazon and it get to you in a few days. Will be interesting to see it’s ties to Amazon and possibly Rivian as a supplier.
the more i think about this car the better it sounds. amazon already has tons of warehouses, fulfillment centers, and stores across the US, often located outside city centers along interstates. Pretty easy to set up a nationwide charging network.
I wonder if the goal of this is to have removable panels to modify the vehicle to the owners needs (i.e. pickup, two door suv, slant back suv). Essentially the core of the vehicle is the same but the roof/top is interchangeable.
It’s the new Nissan Pulsar NX!
If MuskCo would have come out with something similar to this instead of the dorky Cybertruk, priced and featured proportionally with their small sedan, and kept his nose out of politics, Tesla would be selling them like hotcakes. Instead they have a six figure stainless steel magnet for spray paint taggers and arsonists.
I wonder if part of the sales will be for Amazon last mile deliveries where the person is usually driving their personal vehicle. Maybe Amazon will offer special leases or furnish these people with these inexpensive trucks and it will cost less money than the per mile wear they’re paying now.
That’s possible, although I haven’t seen personal vehicles used for Amazon delivery here in Indiana for a couple of years. It’s all Ram Promaster type vans with the Amazon paint and logos. Which I assume are making a lot of warranty work for the local CDJR store because there’s always a half dozen in the service dept waiting lot.
Here in South Florida, all of the early or late hour deliveries take place with personal vehicles. This is for deliveries that come at 4-6 am or 8-11 pm.
Technically those are third party companies, its like how fed ex does deliveries, use a third party contractor to do the work. They still do the Amazon hub but alot of those people turned into delivery drivers
I could see that. They did a similar program for a while trying to get contractors to form businesses with fleets much like FedExs model. I’m not sure what came out it. Uber and Lyft offered rentals and I think some lease deals. The personal cars seem to be part of different program that’s more to a gig level like Uber and lift so maybe even rent them out from the depot and a very cheap rate.
https://www.rockabyerides.com/en that’s the real advert. The website on the other one the coupe/suv probably leads to a similar site. Oh it does, (catthurrrapy.com) not sure why they covered the site, especially so amateurishly, I mean any phone can do better than that.. Why do people insist on upgrading to newer devices when they don’t even use the features of 10 year old ones?
YES! Oh man…I really hope this is what you’re saying it is. If it’s a 4×4 I’m fucking in. My XJ will likely be gone this weekend and having something small and electric to replace it would be perfect. I’d throw a class 3 and hitch carrier on the back and haul myself and a dirtbike on some adventures.
reallllly hoping for 4×4 stuff
1) I’ll believe it when I see one that is not a design buck. Too many EV startups that have built prototypes and never delivered (Faraday Future anyone? They even had richer-than-god money backing them too).
2) On the off chance that it does ship as a $25k EV, there’s no way it stays at that price long. Just like the Maverick didn’t stay at $20k long after it launched.
The ole bait and switch. There are Mavericks out there for over 40k (Tremor). Theres even TikTok’s of Ford dealers asking why their nearly 40k Mavericks are sitting on the lot.
25K electric 2 door SUV.. count me in! I am going to be looking for a new commuter soon and would be all over this.
The fastback one is pretty quirky.
If someone had told me that this was Lada’s new 4×4, the long lost car designed by Bertone and engineered with the help of Porsche in 1983, I would’ve believed them. Turns out that the car, internally code named as “Andropov”, never left the prototype stage and was shelved during Glasnost in the late 80’s. As Putin and Trump relations have gotten stronger over the last years, Trump a few years back, sent one of his closest allies and Lada aficionado, Jeffery Preston Bezos, to Togliatti to explore the potential in US/Russian industrial collaboration. Turns out he found the Andropov running prototype in the corner of the factory and immediately fell in love with it. A few years later, it’s now been re-engineered with an EV platform developed by Russian space engineers in the Kazakstan city of Baikonur and is now ready for production. Just as Fiat helped build up the Lada factory in The Soviet Union in the late 60’s, Russians are now hard at work setting up the Slate factory in Palm Beach, only a stone’s throw away from Mar-a-Lago.
Considering how Space X has dominated Blue Origin in space travel, it would be the height of irony if Bezo’s became the new EV king.
Its gotta be a modular design thing with the truck being the base, and you can buy the other toppers/back seats etc. to add on for more spend. Right? Ala K5 Blazers with the removeable hardtop and easily removeable back seats. That would be truly amazing and make a really flexible around town truck with ability to add seats when the need to move people arises (or vise versa).
Around town is the key. Aero doesn’t really matter that much up to 50 mph or so.
There’s tremendous marketing potential to be able to target people for specific sales by getting right up into their business. Free / extremely underpriced Echo Dots and Google smart speakers are exhibit A. Constantly micro targeting what we may be influenced to purchase based on conversations and music just heard and all that. Cars are another huge potential where folks spend a lot of time, talk a lot, and are bored a lot. Monetize that shit! Sure, Alexa built in exists in a bunch of cars. But a mainline to the development of a vehicle would be golden.
i bet if you cut out the microphone/camera or disconnect the cellular radio it will brick the car or at least make it very annoying to use. but, I’m sure you could disable the data mining functions through some other methods. I have a few in mind already.
Tech Crunch is stating that the back of the vehicle can be swapped out, like the old Pulsar NX: pickup or sloped hatch or boxy hatch. The claim is that this was part of the original proposal/pitch to investors. I think you hit the nail on the head
There’s really no excuse for this not already being widely available, aside from of course making owning two or three cars the norm, because “you need a commuter and a bigger vehicle.”
Well, honestly, I don’t know how many urban people would have space to store multiple toppers around their place. Now, renting out toppers for when you need them? OK….but I don’t know if that’s what we are doing here
Good point!
Definitely a suburban/rural mindset here.
I’m worried it will more likely be something that is “easily changeable” … at a shop or service center … by their mechanics.
But I’m hoping its like my van seats that I can just snap out!!
I mean, the last full-size Bronco (think OJ’s Bronco) had a top that was technically removable, even though it was a challenge to do so. But then you had to have room for that big fiberglass topper somewhere.
Follow along…
”Slate”, as in Mr. Slate, Fred Flintstone’s boss.
Vehicle has the same power train as cars featured in “The Flintstones”.
Obviously royalties are owed to Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Wow, edgy! They make jokes about child safety in their launch.
This reminds me of when Ambien first hit the market and they were like “Fussy toddler? Just give ’em a half!”
Right?! Not to be too sensitive here, but both of these ideas are implicitly suspect.
The making fun of endangering babies one you called out.
The making fun of receiving mental health care and or people who like their pets is similarly odd.
Only $25k.
Oh, you wanted a motor also? That’ll by $20k more.
Wondering if it could get a parking ticket since it clearly isn’t operational.
It looks promising. It’s like a nearly real-life version of what Alpha Motors has been promising for basically ever. I want so hard to believe in Alpha, but with Bezos throwing money around and the goal of appealing to a different level of pocketbook Slate has a decent chance of getting to market with a compelling product. Plus, with little else in the world to look forward to, why not look forward to something cheap and cheerful in the coming days?
To bad that Mr. Bezos treats Amazon workers like they are disposable…
Thank you for reminding me of Alpha, have to check on them. But probably will be disappointed
You will be disappointed. They have soo many good-looking renders that I’d love to see in my driveway. I love the Saga Estate and the Super Rex. Honestly, they should sell models of their renders as a fundraising campaign and I’d be happy enough owning one of those for the time being.
The lines of this remind me a lot of the first generation Ranger/Bronco II
Why reinvent the wheel when the cardboard box era of auto design worked well???
That is exactly what I saw as well!
i havent read the comments because there are WAY too many. I don’t know what the speculation is but I’m pretty sure this is a convertible truck with easy add panels. And it won’t be a flop.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Seeing the cut line on the roof behind the rear door, and seeing that everythign below the shoulder line on the “fastback” and the “long roof” are the same… could very easily be that. That would also make for an easy “trucklet” to produce as well.
They are non-working concept cars, so don’t assume that the actual product will be the same…
“This vehicle is unlike any new vehicle I’ve ever seen not just in my decade as a car journalist, but in my entire lifetime. April 24; get excited!”
I’m gonna get excited for entirely different reasons… for making bets on how bad of a failure/flop it will be, how much money will be lost and how long it’s kept limping along on life support before the plug is pulled… like with Nikola and their stupid hydrogen trucks.
LOL love this take! This thing has quite the marketing plan. And the product sounds great – like a lot of marketing pitches. If they can make a legit “basic truck” and sell it, cool! But I’m definitely not holding my breath.
Not to mention that all they have shown is the usual “concept cars”, that have no mechanical workings…
At $25k, I doubt there’s much ‘wow’ in the mechanical parts.
Seems a bit harsh to compare this to Nikola based off the basically zero information we have on Slate today.
Bezos has a pretty good track record of bringing things to market… eventually. Unlike a lot of other pump and dump IPOs, he can afford to privately fund pet projects for decades. Blue Origin is a great example. They’re only just now getting around to launching their SpaceX competitor rocket, but they’ve only had 2 failed missions in 36 launches
Bezos also invested heavily in Rivian. Still not sure what Rivian’s future will be, but I wouldn’t call them a failure/flop since they’ve actually delivered a lot of vehicles, which seem to be very well received.
Slate could very well have trucks ready to ship today that they’ve kept secret, and that would certainly make them far better than Nikola. We’ll see.
“Slate could very well have trucks ready to ship today that they’ve kept secret”.
So they could be ready to ship their concept cars today, as if anyone wants a fake auto that doesn’t even roll for their movie set…
I didn’t mean the displays they set out in the photos, just pointing out it seems a bit early to pass judgement when outside of those people under NDAs, we don’t know anything about it yet.
The unveiling could show it’s all just vaporware, sure, but I’m willing to at least wait until that point before making up my mind.
“Seems a bit harsh to compare this to Nikola based off the basically zero information we have on Slate today.”
Yeah… maybe I should be comparing it to Fisker… LOL
“Bezos has a pretty good track record of bringing things to market… “
Amazon was a fucking shit show for well over a decade until more knowledgeable people he hired whipped the business into what it is today.
“, he can afford to privately fund pet projects for decades. “
That absolutely is true.
“Bezos also invested heavily in Rivian. Still not sure what Rivian’s future will be, but I wouldn’t call them a failure/flop since they’ve actually delivered a lot of vehicles, which seem to be very well received.”
My guess? He taps Rivian and/or VW for help as a shortcut.
But the fact remains that for the claimed price point, the product needs to be cheap with tech fully amortized.. and sold in really high volumes.
For them to build a decent electric truck, it either will cost way more than $25K or it will be a terrible truck.
And even if by some miracle that it does cost $25K and is merely basic and not terrible, it’s in a body style that will NOT sell in huge volumes these days.
Consider as well that a company like VAG has had huge trouble getting their BEVs to market.
Now ask yourself… who knows more about building and selling affordable vehicles of any sort… VAG or Amazon?
VAG of course. And even with all their money and other resources, it’s still hard for them.
And even when you’re working from a clean sheet like Tesla and Rivian have and without the bureaucracy issues VAG has, it’s still hard.
So even if Bezos/Amazon throws a ton of money at this to make it happen, I still see this as turning into a flop because there isn’t much demand for 2 door pickups or 2 door SUVs.
Oh I generally agree, and Fisker might very well be a more apt comparison.
Sure, but my point is that Bezos eventually got it there, and going from David’s comment about their engineering talent, at least he believes Slate got the knowledgeable people from the get go. Again, time will tell.
I think there’s a ton of demand for two door pickups in fleet vehicles, judging from how many contractors use two door pickups and even light trucks like the Maverick. I see a TON of Mavericks with just a single person driving around for various construction companies doing stuff like site inspections, meetings, etc. Nothing that requires any heavy hauling, but where a small utility bed might still come in handy.
Another good example is lawn fertilizing companies. All those trucks in my area are like base two door F-150s. They do need to have a decent payload for the liquid tank on the back, but it’s just the one guy driving around, and their main site is only a few miles away, so range isn’t a huge concern.
These may also be fleet-only sales, where economies of scale help keep costs low compared to single retail sales.
Even with those use cases, I still don’t see enough volume happening for the vehicle Amazon has mocked up here.
And if there does turn out to be pent up demand (which I doubt), I could see Ford and others easily filling the gap with better vehicles for the money.
lol you watch
I am watching. So far all I’ve seen is nothing that is sellable on any large scale that has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.
You really are trying very hard to manufacture things out of whole cloth
I don’t know any details, but more and more is trickling out ahead of the 24th, and it seems like there’s a whole bunch of reasons it could stay at 25k, assuming you wanted to, you know, learn such things.
Allow me to slightly hedge by saying I nevvvvvver get excited until I hear results of federating stuff, like crash test results and certifiying the charging system/”mileage”/ and so on.
“You really are trying very hard to manufacture things out of whole cloth”
Actually it’s the opposite… I’m seeing the *absence* of something viable being proposed/manufactured.
And thus, I’m expecting it to turn into a fiasco like Nikola or Fisker.
“and it seems like there’s a whole bunch of reasons it could stay at 25k, assuming you wanted to, you know, learn such things.”
I know enough about BEVs, automotive safety and other standards as well as many observations of what people actually buy to see a bunch of reasons why it WON’T stay at $25K… OR if it does stay at $25K, then it will be complete crap. OR it will cause big losses on every unit sold.
Given recent insane-Trump economic policies in the USA that is causing inflation in the present (and will cause inflation into the future), for $25K, you’ll be lucky to get an updated Mitsubishi Mirage… let alone an all new electric pickup truck.
And honestly, I wish I was wrong about this. But I know too much about what is going on as well as the costs involved in making an all-new vehicle.
If Bezos sells a BEV truck that is actually decent, my prediction is that he will lose thousands to tens of thousands on each one sold. And it will be a matter of time before something gives.
Part of what is shaping my view is my understanding that all-new designs and new tech is expensive. Hence, if you’re starting out, it makes way more sense to do things by the Tesla playbook… start off with a high end, high margin, low-volume product, gain experience, figure out ways to take the cost out and then move to more affordable and higher volume products.
That’s not just a successful playbook for Tesla, but has been a successful approach for other products in other industries.