Ask nearly anyone, and so they’ll let you know that new automobiles are too costly. Within the wake of tariffs shaking the auto trade and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that scenario isn’t trying to get higher quickly, particularly for anybody wanting one thing battery-powered. Altering that overly spendy establishment goes to take one thing radical, and it’s exhausting to get extra radical than what Slate Auto has deliberate.
Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electrical automobile that enters manufacturing subsequent yr. It solely seats two but has a mattress large enough to carry a sheet of plywood. It solely does 150 miles on a cost, solely is available in grey, and the one method to take heed to music whereas driving is for those who deliver alongside your telephone and a Bluetooth speaker. It’s the naked minimal of what a contemporary automobile might be, and but it’s taken three years of growth to get up to now.
However that is greater than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY function, an try to not simply go low-cost however to create a brand new class of auto with an enormous concentrate on personalization. That design additionally permits a low-cost strategy to manufacturing that has caught the attention of main traders, reportedly together with Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and shall be manufactured in America, however is that this excessive simplification an excessive amount of for American shoppers?
Simplify, Then Embrace Injury
When you haven’t seen the leaks and the stories of weirdly wrapped vehicles hiding in plain sight, the Slate Truck is the primary product from Michigan-based Slate Auto. Assume “American kei truck” and also you’re not far off. It’s a machine designed to be extraordinarily primary, extraordinarily customizable, and intensely inexpensive. These usually are not your typical design objectives, however then the Slate Truck isn’t the fruit of your typical design course of.
Wander by way of any automotive design studio anyplace on the earth and also you’ll inevitably come throughout a temper board or two, sweeping collages of placing photographs meant to align the inventive flows of passers-by. They’re a device for serving to a disparate design crew to create a cohesive product, however the place many such temper boards function glamour pictures of unique roads and delightful folks, entrance and heart within the Slate’s temper board was one thing completely different: a giant, grey shark, lined in scrapes and scars.
“It seems to be like a shark that has undoubtedly been in multiple brawl and clearly has come out forward as a result of it’s nonetheless swimming,” says Tisha Johnson, head of design at Slate and who previously spent a decade at Volvo. That aesthetic, of highlighting relatively than hiding battle scars, is vital to the Slate ethos.
As an alternative of metal or aluminum, the Slate Truck’s physique panels are molded of plastic. Or, as Slate calls them, “injection molded polypropylene composite materials.” The speculation is that this makes them extra sturdy and scratch-resistant, if solely as a result of the dearth of paint means they’re one colour throughout. Auto lovers of a sure age will keep in mind the identical strategy utilized by the now-defunct Saturn Company, a producing approach that by no means caught on throughout the trade.
Slate continues the theme by way of to the upholstery, too, a heathered textile that was designed to get higher wanting because it wears. The concept is to lean into the aged aesthetic.
However not everyone will dig the shark theme, and so the Slate Truck is designed to be customizable to a level by no means seen earlier than on a manufacturing automobile. Johnson says that is in distinction to the overly curated expertise supplied by many manufacturers.
She says over-curation by automotive designers ends in conditions like premium, luxurious automobiles which might be solely accessible in a palette of disappointingly bland colours: “There’s normally solely a fraction that you simply really need, and people are at all times costlier,” she says.
Disparaging different manufacturers for providing restricted colour selections may appear disingenuous coming from the designer of a automobile accessible in a single shade. The Slate Truck, although, was designed to make the most of the present pattern of vinyl-wrapping automobiles. Its easy form and minimal trim items imply that even amateurs can do the job. Slate will provide DIY kits that newbies can slap on in a day and substitute simply as rapidly based mostly on temper.
Nevertheless, the largest advantage of this monochromatic pondering would possibly are available manufacturing.
Naked-Minimal Manufacturing
It’s in all probability no shock to you that constructing automobiles is dear. Elon Musk likes to bemoan simply how sophisticated the method might be each time Tesla is late delivery its subsequent new mannequin, however he’s removed from alone in that evaluation.
What’s rather less generally recognized is simply how costly it’s to color these automobiles. Making a facility that may reliably, rapidly, and cleanly lay down a high quality coat of colour on automotive physique components is an advanced process.
That process has solely gotten extra sophisticated (and thus costly) in recent times, with higher environmental laws and shopper expectations forcing producers to search out methods to supply extra vibrant hues with much less ecological influence. Mercedes-Benz simply introduced it’s constructing a “Subsequent Technology Paintshop” at its Sindelfingen plant in Germany, and estimates place the factor’s value at almost $1 billion.
By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint store, Slate’s manufacturing course of is massively simplified. So, too, the dearth of metallic physique components. “Now we have no paint store, we’ve no stamping,” says Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s chief industrial officer who previously led Tesla’s world enterprise efforts.
Automobile factories are likely to have excessive ceilings to make room for the multiple-story stamping machines that kind metallic physique components. Injection molding of plastic is much simpler and cheaper to do in restricted areas — areas just like the manufacturing unit that Slate has bought for its manufacturing, reportedly close to Indiana. “The automobile is designed, engineered, and manufactured within the US, with nearly all of our provide chain based mostly within the US,” Snyder says.
The simplification goes less complicated nonetheless. Slate will make only one automobile, in only one trim, in only one colour, with all the things from greater battery packs to SUV improve kits added on later.
“As a result of we solely produce one automobile within the manufacturing unit with zero choices, we’ve moved all the complexity out of the manufacturing unit,” Snyder says.
Whereas most patrons will rightly fixate on the price of the truck, the larger story right here would possibly simply be this radically simplified strategy to manufacturing. “From the very starting, our enterprise mannequin has been such that we attain money move positivity very shortly after begin of manufacturing. And so from an funding standpoint, we’re far much less cash-reliant than another EV startup that has ever existed, so far as I do know,” Snyder says.
As Slate tries to sprint to manufacturing with out tripping over the headstones of failed EV startups that litter the countryside, that leanness is vital. It’s helped them entice some main traders. “The best trade magnates to put money into our firm,” Snyder says. He declined to call names, however based on a TechCrunch report, a kind of magnates is Jeff Bezos.
“We don’t have a direct connection to Amazon,” Snyder clarified, however he didn’t rule out some company cooperation. “Who is aware of? Who is aware of for those who’ll be capable of buy on Amazon? I don’t know.”
These vinyl wraps are actually simply the primary layer of what Slate’s designers are positioning as a, effectively, clean slate. They need homeowners to personalize each facet of the automobile, together with its silhouette.
Want room for greater than two passengers? Slate has an SUV improve equipment that may bolt onto the again of the truck, including additional rollover crash safety and rear seats with seat belts to match, all in a package deal that’s straightforward to put in at dwelling.
No, this isn’t a Subaru Brat redux. The seats shall be forward-facing, and the entire setup is meant to be sturdy sufficient to fulfill crash check laws. Actually, Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, says they’re focusing on a 5-Star Security Ranking from the federal authorities’s New Automobile Evaluation Program. Slate can also be aiming for a Prime Security Decide from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security.
This shall be, largely, due to a complete energetic security system that features all the things from automated emergency braking with pedestrian detection to automated excessive beams.
A compulsory a part of as we speak’s security options is a digital rear-view digicam. Usually, this view pops up on a contemporary automobile’s central infotainment display screen, however the Slate doesn’t have a kind of. It makes do with only a small show behind the steering wheel as a gauge cluster, which is the place that rearview digicam will feed. You’ll have bodily knobs for controlling the in-cabin temperature controls plus the everyday flip stalk and different switchgear, however that’s about it.
The truck not solely lacks a touchscreen for infotainment duties, it lacks any type of leisure in any respect past no matter enjoyable you will get from the 201-horsepower, rear-drive configuration. There’s no radio, no Bluetooth, and no audio system of any variety past for these required to play primary warning chimes.
Many will take into account this a cost-cutting step too far, however the inside was designed for ease of upgrading, with straightforward mounting area for something from a easy soundbar to a full sound system.
There’s an built-in telephone mount proper on the dashboard, however there’s nothing stopping you from bringing one thing even bigger. I count on the low-cost Android pill and 3D-printing communities to have a discipline day developing with in-car media streaming options.
The relatively excessive omission of any sort of media system within the automobile is jarring, however it, too, has secondary advantages.
“Seventy p.c of repeat guarantee claims are based mostly on infotainment at the moment as a result of there’s a lot tech within the automobile that it’s created a really unstable setting within the automobile,” Snyder says.
Eliminating infotainment, the speculation goes, essentially boosts reliability. And reliability shall be key as a result of Slate is taking DIY to new extremes on the upkeep entrance, too.
The correct to restore your gadgets is a massively necessary matter for everybody from smartphone customers to sensible tractor operators. Historically, auto producers haven’t precisely gone out of their method to make DIY upkeep straightforward, partly as a result of their sellers make a lot cash hawking cabin air filters and pointless coolant flushes.
As an EV, the upkeep schedule for Slate Truck needs to be minimal (most EVs don’t want rather more than an annual tire rotation), however for any guarantee issues, the corporate will encourage customers to do the fixes themselves. At the least when it’s secure to take action.
“When you’re not going to interrupt the automobile and also you’re not going to injure your self, that means excessive voltage, you are able to do service and guarantee service in your automobile your self and have the movies and the helpline to assist you to try this work,” Snyder says.
That assist community shall be referred to as Slate College and it’ll educate you all the things you have to know. Don’t fancy your self a shade tree mechanic? Or perhaps you don’t have a tree to park underneath within the first place? Slate has a partnership with already-established nationwide service facilities, the place homeowners can take their vehicles for any wanted fixes. Upgrades might be carried out right here as effectively, together with putting in an extended-range battery that may deliver the truck’s most vary as much as 240 miles.
“At begin of manufacturing, we may have protection throughout the nation for servicing your automobile,” Snyder says. Snyder declined to say who will present the service, however it appears affordable to count on one thing alongside the strains of a Midas, Monro, Meineke, or maybe another nationwide service chain that begins with the letter M.
And at last, how are you going to purchase one? It ought to come as no shock that Slate will comply with Tesla’s footsteps by providing direct gross sales. No nationwide community of dealerships is deliberate. As an alternative, a restricted set of pickup facilities will pop up as wanted based mostly on preorder information. Or, for those who don’t thoughts paying just a little extra, dwelling supply shall be accessible.
Preorders value simply $50 on Slate’s web site, and deliveries are anticipated to begin in late 2026. Slate hasn’t stated precisely how a lot the truck will value, solely that it’ll be lower than $20,000 after federal incentives — assuming these incentives are nonetheless in place in 18 months’ time.
The larger query, although, is whether or not shoppers will really be into such a simplified imaginative and prescient of what a automobile might be. The Slate Truck is a rolling rejection of the present, bloated state of American motoring, however it’s shopper demand that’s pushed the market down this darkish alley. Are these shoppers prepared for a rolling digital detox?
