The Jeff Bezos-backed Slate Automotive says it may well promote an American-made electrical automobile pickup truck for about half of the typical transaction worth within the U.S.
Slate’s pitch is preserve the automobile so simple as potential to avoid wasting on manufacturing prices, after which let homeowners add on and customise the truck nevertheless they need.
The Slate Truck is compact — two doorways and two seats in its most simple type. It’s spare — if you need an infotainment system, you must add that your self. And, you may. The automobile is nearly endlessly customizable.
Slate plans to promote greater than 100 equipment for its truck, together with a equipment that may convert it to a 5-seat SUV. However Slate additionally needs to make the truck “open supply,” which means anybody might make equipment for the pickup.
Up to now, greater than 100,000 folks have made reservations for Slate’s small barebones truck.
Value has been Slate’s large promoting level. Almost half of American automotive customers say the highest downside to EVs is sticker worth, in accordance with a Could 2025 survey by J.D. Energy. In the meantime, President Donald Trump has been levying tariffs on overseas automakers and slashed federal incentives for EVs, making it tougher for customers to purchase EVs.
Earlier in 2025, the corporate marketed that its truck would begin under $20,000 with the $7,500 federal EV tax credit score. It then wiped that language from its web site across the time the Trump Administration issued an government order in July that started the rollback of EV incentives.
The corporate says the case for its low-cost truck will stay sturdy after federal EV tax credit expire in September.
The query for Slate is whether or not the automobile continues to be compelling at round $27,000 or $28,000 as it could be round $20,000. There is just one automobile in the US transacting under $20,000 — the Mitsubishi Mirage. However under $30,000 there are about 20 fashions, in accordance with Cox Automotive. A type of is the Ford Maverick, which comes with both a straight inside combustion engine or a hybrid powertrain, and has most of the options the Slate lacks.
“Abruptly, that worth level simply does not look very aggressive anymore,” mentioned Market Analysis Telemetry Vice President Sam Abuelsamid, including that Slate might decrease its worth to attraction to customers. “However now you begin to eat into that revenue margin.”
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