Latest news with #TishaJohnson
Motor Trend
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
Meet the Woman Behind the $27,000 Electric Pickup Everyone's Talking About
For Tisha Johnson, head of design at Slate, the startup EV maker backed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos and the owners of the Cadillac F1 team, among others, the no-frills pickup truck designed under her direction has been a long time coming. Johnson, whose design career includes two stints at Volvo totaling almost 17 years, described the need for a similarly functional and affordable vehicle in her final year thesis at California's Art Center College of Design in 1999. 'I really believed that as a designer I should be impacting society with the skills that I have available,' Johnson said at the recent Car Design Event in Munich, Germany. 'There were people who 25 years ago really couldn't get ahold of reliable personal transportation, and it was really upsetting to me.' The Slate, which with the Federal EV tax credit applied could cost as little as $20,000 for most buyers, addresses what Johnson sees as a problem that has only gotten worse over the past quarter century: 'Most folks cannot afford to buy a new car. In fact, cars have gotten so expensive that most households spending responsibly cannot afford a used car.' The customer Johnson had in mind for her affordable vehicle back in 1999 was a single mom. 'I had her profile exactly [in my head],' Johnson says. 'It was a struggle for her to really be able to take care of basics.' At Volvo—her design credits include the interior design of the 2005 Volvo 3CC 'sustainable mobility' concept car and the production interiors of the S90 sedan and V90 wagon—Johnson says she came to realize that while she was working for an automaker that, more than most, was committed to equity and concern for people, she was actively pushing the brand up and away from accessibility as it moved into the premium vehicle segment. Johnson calls the Slate truck a radically affordable vehicle that is also highly desirable. To square that circle, the Slate was deliberately designed from the wheels up to be infinitely customizable by its owners. Yes, its basic format, single factory color, and simple spec makes the Slate much less expensive to build. But it's also been deliberately designed as a blank, ahem, slate upon which owners can bring out their own personality. For example, the Slate's single-color injection molded body panels not only eliminate the need for an expensive paint shop in the factory, but, says Johnson, they make it simple to cloak the vehicle in colorful wraps. 'I learned how to wrap a car in the process of designing the vehicle; in fact, our whole team did,' Johnson says. 'The coach lines on the surfaces are anchor points that make it easy to wrap. It takes minutes to get to whatever color you can imagine on it.' The Slate, which also can be configured by way of a factory kit as a low-cost SUV, even allows owners to commit what for most automotive marketers is the ultimate heresy: remove its branding. The Slate branded faceplate at the front of the truck has fasteners and can be removed and replaced with one displaying any name customers want, created by an embossing kit that Slate will sell you. 'When the truck rolls off the line, it becomes infinitely personal,' Johnson says. 'Our North Star was creating a vehicle that people would love.' For decades the auto industry has followed what is now a predictable path, launching new models that are bigger, bolder, and more lavishly equipped than their predecessors to justify their ever-increasing prices. The uncompromisingly simple Slate pickup kicks that tired orthodoxy into the weeds. 'We thought a lot about the people who can't afford cars,' says Trisha Johnson, 'and we wanted to make sure that the vehicle itself left people with a sense of pride and dignity.'
NZ Autocar
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- NZ Autocar
Literally born from a clean slate
An American start-up backed by Amazon will launch a bare-bones $US27,000 electric pick-up truck in 2027. It is called the Blank Slate. News first broke last month and now further images are to hand. believes 'people deserve to have a car that they can afford'. They add that the concepts of desirability and affordability should be 'inseparable'. Blank Slate will go heavy on personalisation options. Tisha Johnson, director of Design said that the response to the Slate Truck's unveiling last month was overwhelming. It reflects the public's desire for an affordable yet still attractive pick-up. Johnson said that the Slate project appealed specifically to her desire to have a 'meaningful impact for society and on people's lives'. It also gave her an opportunity to fulfil a career ambition. 'It was concerning to me that I hadn't delivered affordable mobility, an affordable car, to people.' Indeed, the Slate Truck is tipped to be one of the most affordable pick-ups – electric or otherwise. It goes on sale in the US with a targeted start price of $US27,000, before incentives. That makes it roughly the same amount as an entry-level petrol-engined Ford Maverick. It's about half the price of the Ford F-150 Lightning, the least expensive electric pick-up in America. To achieve this it has a bare-bones cabin featuring manual seats, no stereo as standard and a device mount in place of a touchscreen. 'People know what they want in their own tech that they're carrying with them. Let them nest their phone or a tablet, if they want to, and then just get back to the act of driving.' It's an approach similar to that taken by the Dacia Spring and Citroën ë-C3. 'We are probably the least influenced by the directionality of industry players,' she said. There's a huge array of personalisation options for the pick-up. They range from vibrant liveries and chunky cladding to different wheel designs and even the choice of body style. There are kits available that turn the vehicle into a compact SUV or a fastback crossover. Johnson said the aim was that 'the person looking at it can overlay some interesting possibilities'. 'First and foremost, we want people to love the car.' Slate can build just one basic model line at its factory in Indiana, which keeps tooling and supply chain costs in check. Will Slate go global? Not initially, according to Johnson. It is 'focused on an American truck that we can deliver in the US'.
Auto Car
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- Auto Car
People deserve a cheap car they actually want, says Slate designer
The design boss of Slate Auto, the American start-up backed by Amazon that plans to launch a bare-bones, £20,000 electric pick-up truck in 2027, believes 'people deserve to have a car that they can afford' and the concepts of desirability and affordability should be 'inseparable'. Speaking to the Autocar Meets podcast from the Car Design Event in Munich, Tisha Johnson said the 'clear, overwhelming response' to the Slate Truck's unveiling last month has been 'oustanding and somehow surprising' but ultimately reflective of the public's desire for more affordable yet still attractive cars. Prior to joining Slate, Johnson spent several years at Volvo's North American design studio, primarily focused on interior development, before taking a break from the automotive industry with stints at appliance manufacturer Whirlpool and furniture maker Herman Miller. Asked if those experiences have informed the utilitarian, functional design of the Truck, and whether it could be considered an appliance rather than a car, Johnson said: 'I haven't contemplated it as an appliance. When we first started talking about what we were going to do, there were two objectives that were inseparable. The first thing was to provide affordable transportation, a car that people could afford, and the second was to make it desirable. 'And that is exactly why I knew I was in the right place, because [those things] should be inseparable. People deserve to have a car that they can afford.' Johnson said that the Slate project appealed specifically to her desire to have a 'meaningful impact for society and on people's lives' and gave her an opportunity to fulfil a prevailing career ambition: 'It was concerning to me that I hadn't delivered affordable mobility, an affordable car, to people.' Indeed, the Slate Truck is tipped to be one of the most affordable pick-ups – electric or otherwise – on sale in the US, with a targeted start price of just $27,000 (£20k) before incentives. That puts it roughly on a par with the entry-level, petrol-engined Ford Maverick and makes it roughly half the price of the Ford F-150 Lightning - currently America's cheapest electric truck. Crucial to the Slate's low list price – and, Johnson argues, its mass appeal – is a bare-bones cabin that eschews much of the advanced technology and equipment common to new cars, featuring manual seats, no stereo as standard and a device mount in place of a touchscreen, for example.
