Slate Auto Unveils Refreshingly Simple And Small Two-Seat Electric Truck Designed To Be Customized, Starting Under $27,500

Read More: https://www.jalopnik.com/1843154/slate-auto-electric-truck-suv-customizable-design-specs-details/

American Made too.  More...

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/bezos-backed-slate-auto-debuts-analog-ev-pickup-truck-that-is-decidedly-anti-tesla/

I created a reservation. We'll see what happens!

I honestly like the design quite a bit.  This seems like a smart approach to me -- very much in the opposite direction of a Cybertruck.

They hit two vehicle segments with the same chassis: light truck and SUV, right from the start.

Also how many times have we talked about wanting a small pickup truck?  Well this is it.

>Well this is it.

Right, small, simple and inexpensive.  Time will show if it is reliable and serviceable.

>analog

AFAIK, the last analog-ish pickup in the US market was the Nissan Frontier.  I had old-school super-mechanic friends (antique RV clubs) actively pursuing the last model year sold before Nissan screwed them up by going digital.     

Related:

Little Trucks Are Quietly Taking Over the U.S. Car Market

https://news.yahoo.com/news/autos/little-trucks-quietly-taking-over-182700531.html

Sidenote:
The 1985 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab that was in the Back to the Future movie

I looked it up, and even with over 200K miles they run anywhere from 10K to 20K. And if it looks like the one in the movie: 30K

I've always wanted a pickup that was that size. I think they could sell the hell out of those.

Slate Auto crosses 100,000 refundable reservations in two weeks | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/12/slate-auto-crosses-100000-refundable-reservations-in-two-weeks/

Impressive.

They have the design down, now they have to deliver product, price and dependability.

And as Musk reminded Rivian and others; Scale up production. That's hard to do.

Followup:

Slate Auto FAQ: your questions answered

https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/676036/slate-auto-faq-truck-ev-specs-price-tariff

QuoteDoes the Slate Truck have a cellular connection?
No, the Slate Truck does not have built-in cellular connectivity. LTE is an increasingly common feature in new cars, enabling auto manufacturers to do all sorts of stuff, including good things like software updates and some perhaps not so good things like selling your driving data.

For the former, o-the-air updates will still be possible via the Slate smartphone app. Updates will be downloaded to the phone and then pushed to the Slate Truck via USB cable. As for the latter, that leads us to our next question.

I like that.  A couple of years ago I did a Tesla factory tour in Fremont and they had a map on the wall that showed "in real time" all the Tesla vehicles driving all over the world.  All that data collecting, and the 8 to 9 cameras recording all the time and you have some serious lack of privacy issues.  There is no reason why electric vehicles need to be spyware.

Showed up in my 3dprint feeds today:

Slate EV Pickup and SUV by Angrybird12 - Thingiverse

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7115421

The Slate $20k price assumed a $7500 federal tax credit, which is now ending. I'm not sure it'll make a lot of sense for most people. Ford Maverick starts at $28k which includes a lot of standard features (like a radio).