Slate Auto’s Radically Simple Electric Truck Starts At $24,950

Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model’s estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. “The aggressive pricing — half the average cost of a new car in the United States — puts Slate in position to capture a share of the lowest end of the new car market, which has few gas and fewer electric options these days”. The price reveal comes more than a year after Slate Auto emerged from stealth. Since then, the company has been steadily detailing the extremely basic, transforming EV, which starts as a two-seater pickup truck, but can be modified into a five-seater SUV. The SUV version will start at $29,950, Slate said Wednesday. Slate has said the conversion can be done by professionals or by owners themselves. On Wednesday, it finally showed off some of the first of its “Slate University” how-to videos, which guide people through the steps for doing everything from the SUV conversion to adding headlight covers.

Everything else about the truck is bare, though it’s customizable. It has hand-crank windows, lacks an infotainment system, and all orders start with the same gray composite material, with no paint options, as Slate plans to let buyers order customizable wraps for the vehicle. That likely helps cut out a major cost center, as factory paint shops can run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company did not offer more details about the buying process. Slate has said it “won’t have traditional dealerships,” and plans to sell directly to customers, similar to other EV companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid Motors.