Ask nearly anyone, they usually’ll inform you that new automobiles are too costly. Within the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that state of affairs isn’t seeking 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 car 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 option to take heed to music whereas driving is in the event you carry alongside your cellphone and a Bluetooth speaker. It’s the naked minimal of what a contemporary automobile might be, and but it’s taken three years of improvement to get thus far.
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 allows a low-cost method to manufacturing that has caught the attention of main buyers, 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 customers?
Simplify, Then Embrace Harm
In the event you haven’t seen the leaks and the stories of weirdly wrapped vans hiding in plain sight, the Slate Truck is the primary product from Michigan-based Slate Auto. Suppose “American kei truck” and also you’re not far off. It’s a machine designed to be extraordinarily fundamental, extraordinarily customizable, and intensely reasonably priced. These aren’t your typical design objectives, however then the Slate Truck isn’t the fruit of your typical design course of.
Wander by means of any automotive design studio wherever on the earth and also you’ll inevitably come throughout a temper board or two, sweeping collages of hanging images meant to align the inventive flows of passers-by. They’re a software for serving to a disparate design workforce to create a cohesive product, however the place many such temper boards characteristic glamour photographs of unique roads and delightful folks, entrance and heart within the Slate’s temper board was one thing totally different: a giant, grey shark, coated in scrapes and scars.
“It appears to be like like a shark that has positively been in a couple of 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 slightly 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 idea is that this makes them extra sturdy and scratch-resistant, if solely as a result of the shortage of paint means they’re one coloration all over. Auto lovers of a sure age will keep in mind the identical method utilized by the now-defunct Saturn Company, a producing method that by no means caught on throughout the trade.
Slate continues the theme by means 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 car. Johnson says that is in distinction to the overly curated expertise provided by many manufacturers.
She says over-curation by automotive designers leads to conditions like premium, luxurious automobiles which can be solely accessible in a palette of disappointingly bland colours: “There’s often solely a fraction that you just really need, and people are at all times costlier,” she says.
Disparaging different manufacturers for providing restricted coloration decisions might sound disingenuous coming from the designer of a car accessible in a single shade. The Slate Truck, although, was designed to make the most of the present development of vinyl-wrapping cars. Its easy form and minimal trim items imply that even amateurs can do the job. Slate will supply DIY kits that newbies can slap on in a day and change simply as rapidly based mostly on temper.
Nevertheless, the largest advantage of this monochromatic pondering may are available in manufacturing.
Naked-Minimal Manufacturing
It’s most likely no shock to you that constructing automobiles is pricey. Elon Musk likes to bemoan simply how sophisticated the method might be at any time when Tesla is late delivery its subsequent new mannequin, however he’s removed from alone in that evaluation.
What’s rather less generally identified 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 coloration on automotive physique components is a sophisticated activity.
That activity has solely gotten extra sophisticated (and thus costly) in recent times, with better environmental laws and shopper expectations forcing producers to search out methods to supply extra vibrant hues with much less ecological affect. 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 nearly $1 billion.
By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint store, Slate’s manufacturing course of is massively simplified. So, too, the shortage of steel 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.
Car factories are inclined to have excessive ceilings to make room for the multiple-story stamping machines that kind steel 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 car 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 easier nonetheless. Slate will make only one car, in only one trim, in only one coloration, with every thing from larger battery packs to SUV improve kits added on later.
“As a result of we solely produce one car 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 may simply be this radically simplified method to manufacturing. “From the very starting, our enterprise mannequin has been such that we attain money circulation positivity very shortly after begin of manufacturing. And so from an funding standpoint, we’re far much less cash-reliant than some other 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 appeal to some main buyers. “The best trade magnates to spend money on our firm,” Snyder says. He declined to call names, however in line with 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 in the event you’ll have the ability to 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 house owners to personalize each facet of the car, together with its silhouette.
Want room for greater than two passengers? Slate has an SUV improve package 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 bundle that’s straightforward to put in at house.
No, this isn’t a Subaru Brat redux. The seats shall be forward-facing, and the entire setup is meant to be robust sufficient to fulfill crash check laws. In reality, Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, says they’re concentrating on a 5-Star Security Score from the federal authorities’s New Automobile Evaluation Program. Slate can be aiming for a High Security Decide from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security.
This shall be, largely, due to a complete energetic security system that features every thing from computerized emergency braking with pedestrian detection to computerized excessive beams.
A compulsory a part of as we speak’s security options is a digital rear-view digicam. Sometimes, 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 form past for these required to play fundamental 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 house for something from a easy soundbar to a full sound system.
There’s an built-in cellphone 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 slightly excessive omission of any form of media system within the automobile is jarring, nevertheless it, too, has secondary advantages.
“Seventy % 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 atmosphere within the car,” Snyder says.
Eliminating infotainment, the idea 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 right to repair your units is a massively essential matter for everybody from smartphone customers to sensible tractor operators. Historically, auto producers haven’t precisely gone out of their option 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 considerations, the corporate will encourage customers to do the fixes themselves. No less than when it’s protected to take action.
“In the event you’re not going to interrupt the car 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 car your self and have the movies and the helpline to help you to try this work,” Snyder says.
That help community shall be referred to as Slate College and it’ll train you every thing you have to know. Don’t fancy your self a shade tree mechanic? Or perhaps you don’t have a tree to park beneath within the first place? Slate has a partnership with already-established nationwide service facilities, the place house owners can take their vans for any wanted fixes. Upgrades might be carried out right here as effectively, together with putting in an extended-range battery that may carry the truck’s most vary as much as 240 miles.
“At begin of manufacturing, we could have protection throughout the nation for servicing your car,” Snyder says. Snyder declined to say who will present the service, nevertheless it appears cheap to count on one thing alongside the traces 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 observe 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 knowledge. Or, in the event you don’t thoughts paying a bit of extra, house supply shall be accessible.
Preorders value simply $50 on Slate’s site, and deliveries are anticipated to start out 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 customers 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, nevertheless it’s shopper demand that’s pushed the market down this darkish alley. Are these customers prepared for a rolling digital detox?