Jeff Bezos’ Sub-$20k Slate EV Is A Bare-Bones Truck With Crank Windows And No Paint: Here Are The Details

In the most surprising automotive debut in decades, Slate — a company funded in part by Jeff Bezos — just showed a brand new pickup truck that comes standard with unpainted plastic body panels, crank windows, no heated seats, no radio, no infotainment screen, and steel wheels. It is a cheap, bare-bones “blank slate” that comes as either a pickup truck, a fastback SUV, or a squareback SUV. Here’s everything you need to know about this completely outside-the-box concept that may end up being America’s only sub-$20,000 EV.

The caveat on “sub-$20,000” is that it depends on the EV tax credit, which may or may not go away soon. But even without the tax credit, the new Slate truck is expected to cost somewhere in the “mid-twenties,” which is dirt cheap. What Slate had to do to get the cost down that low is shocking, especially for 2025; the company — whose engineering is based out of Michigan and whose design studio is in Long Beach, CA — stripped the car down to its very essentials in a way we haven’t seen since… maybe the Chevy Aveo?

I visited the office in Long Beach and saw what looked a lot like a stripped-down black Ford Bronco Sport. It has plastic body panels that are designed to be wrapped, and comes in a single trim (the base model is the top-of-the-line model), which offers crank windows, no heated seats, no radio, no infotainment screen, and steel wheels. It is the most basic modern car I’ve seen since I rode in a Dacia in Romania a few years ago.

The new 400-ish-person American company — which plans to build its trucks/SUVs stateside — says in its press release that the goal since the company started in 2022 has been “simplifying the manufacturing process and removing unnecessary content to reduce cost and increase reliability.”

“The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” says Slate CEO Chris Barman in that press release. “Slate exists to put the power back in the hands of customers who have been ignored by the auto industry. Slate is a radical truck platform so customizable that it can transform from a 2-seat pickup to a 5-seat SUV.”

That’s right, the truck is the SUV. You may recall back in the late 1980s Nissan’s Pulsar, which came with a variety of different roof options. Check it out:

The new Slate follows this same model, but takes things a bit further. Not only can the Slate transform from a truck into one of two SUVs (fastback or squareback), but it can also increase its capacity from two passengers to five.

The fiberglass roofs, seats and roll cage come as as part of the “SUV Kit,” which Slate calls a “flat-pack” accessory, meaning it’s all shipped to your door in a flat-ish box. “The flat-pack accessory SUV Kit turns the truck into a 5-seat SUV, with a roll cage, airbags, rear seat. Do it yourself or have it done for you,” reads the press release, leading me to wonder if customers are meant to install their own rear airbags (surely not, right?).

The roof options represent just some of the over 100 accessories one can buy for the Slate — all of which are DIY.

You read that right: You buy a bare-bones truck, and if you want to add things like a radio and speakers and a rear-mounted spare, you just order the kit and install it all yourself. If you want to add heated seats, Slate will ship you a seat-cover accessory with a pad-heater built in. Power windows? You can install those, too. You can also buy alloy wheels and custom bumpers.

As for infotainment, the truck doesn’t come with any. There’s a place to plug your phone in and use it as your display if you like. “Bring your own tech,” is how Slate bills it, writing: “Rather than learn a new interface, use the one you love. Slate introduces the universal phone mount and USB power. Add a dedicated tablet if you want to.”

Hardware-wise, there’s a 52.7 kWh battery pack that combines with the vehicle’s light 3,600-pound curb weight and small overall dimensions to yield a range target of about 150 miles. As for charging, there’s DC “Level 3” charging with speeds up to 120 kW (using the Tesla “NACS” plug), promising 20% to 80% state-of-charge in under half an hour. At-home charging is limited to 3.6kW with a regular “Level 1” plug (11 hours to charge 20-100%) or 11kW with Level 2 (under five hours from 20-100%). There is also an optional 84.3 kWh battery pack that Slate says will offer a targeted 240 miles of range, though, unlike other accessories, this is something an upfitter would have to install if a customer wanted a range upgrade.

The battery, 150 kW (201 horsepower) rear-mounted electric motor, and gearbox (Slate says it has package-protected for a front motor in order to potentially offer all-wheel drive) are off-the-shelf items to keep cost down. It’s not exactly clear who makes these components, but 52.7 kWh is exactly the same as the Chinese Weltmeister EX5 400’s CATL-based battery pack (that’s just a guess). Suspension is a MacPherson strut setup in the front and a DeDion tube in the rear. Tires are from Kenda, a budget tire brand. The rear taillight is a single LED. And I could go on and on about other cost-saves (I plan to do a deep-dive into it soon).

As for dimensions and capacities, the 3,602-pound vehicle is rated to tow 1,000 pounds and to carry a payload of up to 1,433 pounds. It’ll do 0-60 mph in around 8 seconds, get up to a maximum speed of 90 mph, and carry up to 37 cubic feet of cargo in its bed (34 behind the front seats of the SUV). There’s also a frunk at the nose that holds 7 cubic feet.

Overall dimensions are: 175 inches long, 109 inches in wheelbase, and 71 inches wide, and 68 inches tall. This is two feet shorter than a Ford Maverick, and a couple of inches narrower; it’s a little narrower but otherwise roughly the same size as a Ford Bronco Sport, with which it shares quite a few design elements in my opinion.

As for safety, Slate says its vehicle was “designed to achieve the highest safety ratings,” and that the vehicle has Active Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, and up to 8 airbags.

Reservations of this wacky new approach to cheap EVs are now open at $50 per, with shipment expected direct-to-consumer at the end of 2026.

The Slate EV Would Be A Better ‘People’s Car’ If It Had A Gas Engine