- Slate announced its uber-cheap EV pick-up just two weeks ago.
- In that time, it racked up 100,000 reservations, the company announced.
- The tiny modular pickup is a bare-bones option for folks who want an affordable EV where even speakers are optional.
If you’ve been dreaming of an EV that costs less than the average family’s income, Slate’s got you covered for the low starting price of under $20,000 after federal incentives, assuming those are still around when it launches. That puts it within reach of far more buyers than expensive electric trucks like the Rivian R1T.
That price point has attracted buyers far and wide—100,000 of them, in fact. On Monday, Slate announced today that it had racked up a massive 100,000 reservations just two weeks after revealing its product for the first time.
Photo by: Slate
That’s not a typo. The previously unknown automaker, now backed by some serious Bezos bucks, is garnering some serious attention. Slate isn’t just an anagram for Tesla either. It’s a rehash of the same mission that Elon Musk & Co once had (the cheap EV) and is actually doing the damn thing.
How, you ask? Well, just think of Slate like a modern Saturn. We’re talking plastic body panels, no fancy gigacasting to complicate engineering and a major focus on the no-frills/everything-is-optional approach. Yes, even the speakers. Some argue that cheapness ruins the value proposition of a cheap vehicle, while others applaud Slate for making a runabout EV for a modest price. Remember when we all cheered on Ford for doing the same thing at the same price with the base Maverick Hybrid? Its starting price has gone up almost 50% since launch, making the Slate truck simultaneously one of the cheapest pick-ups and electrified vehicles at the same time.
Slate’s reservation is a mere $50, meaning that the company has managed to get a free loan of about $5 million to finalize development and production of its tiny do-anything, be-anything truck.
It’s important to note that this deposit is refundable, meaning folks can ask for it back at any time and it doesn’t mean that it will translate into a sale. Hell, the Tesla Cybertruck was said to have more than two million reservations, and now the automaker is struggling to offload them even with cash on the frunk, so Slate still has an uphill battle to convert reservations into sales—but it at least has its claws in 100,000 potential buyers at this point.
Slate says that it intends to have an annual production capacity of around 150,000 vehicles by the end of 2027 at its factory in Indiana. It might be hard to wait that long, so maybe pop over to the configurator and build out your perfect cheap EV in the meantime.
I have to admit that as a homeowner who happens to have an overlapping love for both tiny kei trucks and EVs, the Slate truck definitely appeals to me. Its incentive-laden price of $20,000 is also nearly impulse-buy territory when put side-by-side with a number of other used pickups.
If Slate manages to pull this off without being the next Canoo, this should prove to be a wake-up call for Detroit. People want cheap cars, and they’re still willing to sacrifice comfort if the price reflects it. $20,000 seems to be the magic number to make at least for 100,000 people look north and say, “I want a cheap EV that doesn’t suck.” And that’s where Slate will find its win.
