Slate shows its bare-bones, ‘mid-$20s' EV truck at Detroit summit

Miami Herald

6 days ago

DETROIT - Slate Auto, the Michigan electric vehicle startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has publicly touted a starting price for its pickup of "under $20,000" since coming out of stealth mode in April.
But that was before President Donald Trump's big tax and domestic policy bill was signed into law on July 4, halting the $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers by the end of September. Now, Slate CEO Chris Barman said in Detroit this week, the starting price will be in "mid-$20s" when the two-seater trucks ideally start rolling off the line at a facility in Warsaw, Indiana, late next year.
"Our business model was never built upon that tax credit being in place," Barman told The Detroit News at the Reindustrialize summit, a gathering of executives and policy experts focused on bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Slate showed off one of its vehicles at the summit.
"We always viewed it as something that would be great for the customer to be able to get an even more affordable vehicle. But we've always, you know, had a target of being priced in the mid-$20s, and that's what our business case has been built upon," she said.
Still, the company had widely touted the sub-$20,000 price tag upon its launch. TechCrunch reported that the carmaker stopped promoting that figure on its website once Republicans' "One Big Beautiful Bill" passed at the start of the month. A mid-$20s price tag would put the stripped-down EV truck in line with a number of entry-level vehicles on the road today - rather than, at the initial sub-$20,000 mark, potentially the cheapest new car out there.
Slate, headquartered in Troy, has built much of its early brand on going against the grain of the auto industry's ever-increasing focus on bigger screens, more sensors and various other luxury accoutrements. A hype video Barman showed to Reindustrialize attendees noted that "cars are getting bigger, fancier and more expensive, because of ... stuff."
Chief Commercial Officer Jeremy Snyder pointed out at an April launch that the average new car payment tops $700 per month and that many new cars face frequent warranty issues due to being packed with so much technology. "The industry has abandoned the majority of Americans," he said.
Slate says it will offer a basic truck with only a few standard features, including air conditioning, cruise control and rear and forward-facing cameras. Much more can be customized later by the owner - items like additional speakers, colorful wraps and a DIY conversion kit to turn the little pickup into a five-seat SUV. "By eliminating the complexities of build configurations as well as a paint shop, we passed savings back to the customer without cutting corners," Barman said in a presentation.
She said Slate's idea has quickly gained traction, with more than 100,000 people so far placing a $50 reservation.
The startup is also advertising that the truck will be America-made at a moment when there is increasing interest in domestic manufacturing with Trump's tariff policies. The company is converting an old printing press facility in Warsaw, population 16,000, into its assembly site and expects to eventually employ close to 2,000 people.
"We're still doing quite a bit of demolition" on the interior of the production site, Barman told The News. "We're gonna be, within the next few weeks, starting to get into laying in some floors where we had to take (them out) because the depth of the cement there wasn't enough for the equipment we put in. So we're really putting a lot of infrastructure in right now."
Barman said her company aims to source parts domestically wherever possible, with a number of suppliers so far based in the Midwest. But some parts for the truck simply can't be found in the United States anymore, the CEO said, like the truck's manual-crank window regulator, which is sourced from Brazil.
She said Slate sees itself as drawing in customers who would otherwise only be considering used cars, which on average sell for about what the Slate truck aims to retail for, in the mid-$20,000s.
"We're going to be pulling from the whole 35 million used vehicle (market)," Barman said, where shoppers figured they may be forced to settle for fewer safety standards and no warranty. "Now, they can step into a vehicle that has all the latest safety standards, comes with a warranty. It's an EV, so repairs will be lower because there's less parts to maintain in the vehicle, and it can grow with them. ... If they can't afford to make it an SUV when they first buy it, a year later, two years later, they can then change it out."
Several EV startups have gone bankrupt or faced dire financial straits in over the last year as demand for the vehicles hasn't met expectations and funding has dried up. Even established players like Tesla Inc., Rivian Automotive Inc. and Lucid Group Inc. face headwinds, especially now that the tax credit is ending. Slate, though, is pushing ahead and advertises almost 100 open positions on its website in Michigan, Indiana and elsewhere.
The startup has drawn attention from more established automotive players because of its Bezos connection and its focus on being cheap and customizable.
"It was really interesting seeing that (Slate truck) out there," Paul Stephens, Ford Motor Co.'s global strategy manager, said on a panel at the Reindustrialize summit. "Complexity reduction is one thing, and part-count reduction is another thing too. So when we're looking at future product designs, trying to reduce the number of components while keeping the same task, is one of the top priority items that I've been seeing, and not just at Ford but the industry at large."
And Tim Kuniskis, the CEO of the Ram truck brand who also oversees other U.S. Stellantis NV brands, recently called Slate's approach "super interesting" during a press event.
"The idea behind it, you know, we've talked about that idea a million times. Super interesting. I give (Barman) a lot of credit," he said. "It's a cool idea. Now what's it going to actually transact at in the marketplace where the tax credits are gone and people start to option them up? It's not going to be $20,000. It's going to be $35,000, and by the time you get to $35,000, you're in midsize truck territory."
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