Slate Auto’s Electric Truck Starts at $24,950

Slate Auto, the American EV startup, finally revealed pricing for its bare-bones electric truck this week.

What would you do with a blank slate?

Slate also boosted the base model’s estimated range from 150 miles to around 205 miles, making the price look even better against a US new-car market where almost nothing starts under $30,000. The price excludes taxes, title, registration, destination, and documentation fees, so the out-the-door number will be higher. But even with those added, it sits at roughly half the average price of a new car in the US, which now hovers around $50,000.

It's likely to seriously disrupt the market for America's legacy auto manufacturers, and may give many, many consumers exactly what they have been waiting for. Backed by Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Eric Schmidt (Google), Slate Auto says that affordable price is possible because of its pared-down, basic model that can then be customized - and even transformed from a truck into an SUV.

Everything about the truck is stripped down. It has hand-crank windows, no infotainment screen, and a single gray composite body finish with no paint options. Slate plans to sell customizable wraps instead, which conveniently sidesteps the cost of a factory paint shop, one of the most expensive parts of building cars.

CEO Chris Barman (a Chrysler veteran) says Slate wants to change the typical process in which a buyer goes to a new - or used-car lot and picks a car, and then has to accept - and pay for - all the features it comes with. “We’ve decoupled that and said to the owner of the vehicle: ‘You choose. You choose if you want a radio. You choose if you want to have heated seats. You choose what you want the color to be,’” she says. “We are putting the power back into the hands of the consumer, so we give them this blank slate, and then they decide.”

First deliveries are still expected by the end of 2026.

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