In an auto industry racing toward ever-smarter, bigger, and pricier vehicles, a new electric pickup is taking the opposite lane.
Slate Auto’s first model, known simply as the “Slate Truck,” strips the modern truck to its essentials in the name of affordability and personalization.
This sub-$20,000 EV (after federal incentives) eschews paint, touchscreens, and even factory color options, presenting itself as a blank slate for buyers to customize.
As a behavioral psychologist and auto journalist, I find Slate’s radically minimalist approach a fascinating case study in design culture and consumer psychology.
Can an “analog” EV truck that’s this Spartan really succeed in a market that’s been trained to expect tech-laden, full-featured rides?
Let’s dig into what Slate’s truck offers, why it’s generating buzz, how it compares to competitors, and what potential pitfalls lie ahead.
A price tag that turns heads (and opens wallets)
$19,900.
That eye-catching figure is the effective base price Slate is touting – including the U.S. EV tax credit.
In raw terms, Slate says the bare-bones pickup will cost roughly $25,000 before incentives, with a single factory configuration. That undercuts every other new EV on the market by thousands, and no other electric pickup even comes close.
For context, Ford’s F-150 Lightning starts around $57,000, the Rivian R1T around $72,000, and even Canoo’s not-yet-released small EV pickup is near $35,000.
Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck hasn’t confirmed pricing, but it’s expected to be far above Slate’s territory. In short, the Slate Truck aims to be the affordable outlier in a segment known for luxury prices.
Such a low price is made possible by deliberate cost-cutting choices in design and manufacturing.
There’s only one trim level, one configuration, and one color – gray – coming out of the factory. Options like a larger battery or add-on body styles are handled post-production as upgrades, not separate models.
By moving complexity out of the factory, Slate avoids expensive tooling and assembly line variations.
“Because we only produce one vehicle in the factory with zero options, we’ve moved all of the complexity out of the factory,” explains Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s chief commercial officer.
The upshot:
A lean operation that Slate claims will reach cash-flow positivity soon after production starts, unlike many cash-burning EV startups.
CEO Chris Barman adds that skipping big-ticket facilities like paint shops and metal stamping saved “$350 million to $500 million” in upfront costs at the projected 150,000 units/year scale.
Key specs of the Slate Truck at a glance
Despite its bargain pricing, the Slate Truck covers the basics that an everyday driver needs:
Battery & Range: ~52.7 kWh standard pack for 150 miles range, or optional ~84.3 kWh pack for 240 miles (Slate hasn’t announced the price bump for the bigger battery.)
Motor & Drivetrain: Single 150 kW (201 hp) motor, rear-wheel drive only. No dual-motor or AWD option is offered – a purposeful omission to keep costs and complexity down.
Performance: 0–60 mph in ~8 seconds, top speed ~90 mph. Not a tire-shredder, but peppy enough for city and light highway use.
Cargo & Towing: ~1,400 lb payload in the 5-foot bed, plus a 7 cu ft front trunk (“frunk”) for extra storage. Towing maxes out at just 1,000 lb – enough for a small utility trailer or bike rack, but a far cry from conventional trucks (even the compact Ford Maverick can tow 1,500–4,000 lbs)
Charging: Tesla’s NACS charge port (future-proofing access to Superchargers) with DC fast-charge up to ~120 kW, good for 20–80% in ~30 minutes. Level 2 home charging at 11 kW can fully recharge the small battery in ~4 hours (8 hours for the big pack).
Dimensions: Truly a “small truck.” At ~174.6″ long and 70.6″ wide, the Slate is over two feet shorter than a Maverick and even a few inches shorter than a Honda Civic hatchback. It’s roughly the size of a 1980s Toyota mini-truck, not today’s bloated pickups. Yet its bed is actually a touch longer than the Maverick’s (60″ vs 54″)
Safety & Tech: Engineered for a 5-star crash rating with 8 airbags (including side curtains) and active safety features like automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning with pedestrian detection, and even auto high beams.
If those specs sound unexciting, that’s by design.
This truck isn’t just breaking performance records or boasting luxury features – it’s hitting a “good enough” baseline at an unprecedented price..
Design of Slate Truck: Gray plastic and zero screens
What grabs you first is what’s missing.
Body panels are molded in gray polypropylene — literally no paint.
Scratches won’t reveal primer, and wraps stick easily thanks to flat sheet metal and hidden seams. Inside, there’s no infotainment display, no stereo, and crank windows by default.
A dashboard phone dock stands in for Apple CarPlay.. Slate will sell optional speakers if you need tunes.
Designer Tisha Johnson says the textile seats and plastic exterior will “look better as they age,” a wink at folks tired of babying glossy finishes. Jalopnik called the look “refreshingly small and cute,” like an ’80s Toyota redux.
Critics counter that even a base Nissan Versa offers a radio; Slate is betting customers prefer to add only what they truly value.
The blank-canvas business model
Instead of factory trims, Slate offers more than 100 bolt-on parts:
Lift or drop kits, auxiliary lighting, bigger wheels, roof racks, power-window retrofits, and — wildest of all — a flat-pack SUV kit.
For roughly $5 K, owners can unbolt the pickup’s rear wall and attach a cage-style extension with back seats and extra airbags, creating a five-seat wagon.
Vinyl-wrap kits arrive pre-cut. $500 changes the truck from gray to hot-pink tiger stripes without removing panels.
Slate University video guides walk non-gearheads through each mod, and a nationwide service-partner network will install parts for a fee.
Accessories are where profits hide: sell the truck near cost, then cash in as owners personalize.
It’s the printer-and-ink strategy, transplanted to autos.
How Slate Truck stacks up to Tesla, Rivian, Ford, and Canoo
Feature-for-feature, Slate is outgunned.
Tesla’s Cybertruck touts 300-plus miles and sub-3-second acceleration — at an estimated $61 K to start.
Rivian offers quad motors, air suspension, and 300-mile batteries — at luxury prices
Ford’s Lightning keeps the familiar F-150 shape and full-size utility but starts at triple Slate’s cost.
Canoo’s mini-truck promised affordability and modularity, yet still lacks a production date, while its projected $35 K price misses Slate by a country mile.
In short, Slate is pursuing buyers the others ignore: folks who don’t need 4-ton towing or digital dashboards, who want a city-friendly runabout that happens to be electric.
If the Maverick hybrid proved there’s mileage in a small, cheap pickup, Slate may do the same for EVs—provided shoppers embrace its no-frills ethos.
Who might actually buy a Slate Truck?
Three groups loom:
Urban DIYers who want low operating costs and a canvas for self-expression;
Budget EV intenders priced out of every other plug-in;
Small-business owners — landscapers, campus facilities, mobile food vendors—who can upfit the bed or swap to SUV form over a weekend.
Younger drivers, raised on customizing sneakers and phone cases, may relish a wrap-ready truck that changes outfits like an avatar. But will mainstream consumers trade creature comforts for price? Forum chatter splits.
One ArsTechnica commenter cheered the “anti-Tesla vibe”; another asked how many people will accept manual windows in 2026. Much hinges on whether federal credits remain and whether production hits 2026 as promised.
History is full of cheap-EV startups that never reached showrooms. Slate must prove its Indiana plant — and its balance sheet—are more than press-release promises.
The bottom line
All in all, Slate Auto has tossed a minimalist grenade into the over-optioned EV space.
By deleting paint, screens, and dealer markups, it claims to deliver a sub-$20K electric truck that doubles as a modder’s playground.
If it ships on schedule and at cost, Slate could broaden EV adoption the way Ford’s Model T once democratized gas cars — sparking a new micro-truck niche focused on creativity over horsepower.
If delays, funding gaps, or consumer sticker-creep creep in, it may join the long list of well-meaning disruptors that couldn’t scale.
Either way, the Slate Truck reopens an old question:
How much car do we really need, and how much are we willing to pay for the tech we rarely use?
This little gray pickup is about to find out.
