The biggest questions around the Slate Auto truck have centered less on the engineering and more on the customer. Are there actually buyers for a vehicle that might encourage you to install your own airbags? If the cost goes up, is there still a customer?
While there are no definitive answers to either question, Slate Auto just revealed that it received over 100,000 reservations in the first two weeks. This doesn’t mean it has 100,000 customers, merely that more than 100,000 people found the radically reimagined truck interesting enough to put $50 forward to hold a spot.
Full disclosure: I was one of those people. I don’t currently have a convenient place to even charge this truck, which is an issue given that this is not a super fast-charging vehicle with giant range. It’s a relatively average charging vehicle with a sub-average range.
Why did I reserve one? I think the idea of a super cheap electric truck is great and, at the earliest, this truck will be available at the end of next year, which gives me time to merely enjoy the idea of it. I regret not ordering a Ford Maverick Hybrid when they, too, were theoretically sub $20k (Really, $22k after delivery). I’m not sure I’d have even held onto the truck, but it would have been fun for a year.
What’s important to me is the pricing of all the little additions. If this ends up being a $35k truck, with no tax credit, after all my options then… I’m probably out. If some tax credit is in place and I can finance at a reasonable rate then I’d consider it. For the moment, I’m only out $50.
I also don’t entirely agree with David’s premise that this should be gas-powered, as my buddies here in the ‘burbs suddenly all have Chevy Bolts as little around-town vehicles. I want an around-town EV and so the 150-ish mile range doesn’t phase me.
Is 100,000 a good number? Depends on who you ask. The $5 million the company netted isn’t going to probably make a huge difference one way or the other given the huge costs associated with setting up a car company from scratch. Is it enough to convince investors like Jeff Bezos to keep putting money into the operation? That seems more important.
As TechCrunch points out, Fisker also had a lot of reservations:
Many other EV startups have touted reservations in the past only to fail to live up to the expectations of such big, round numbers. Fisker filed for bankruptcy having sold just a few thousand Ocean SUVs despite once claiming more than 60,000 reservations. Lordstown Motors, meanwhile, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for misleading investors about the number of “preorders” for its own electric pickup truck. (Lordstown Motors similarly filed for bankruptcy and ultimately settled with the SEC.)
I’m just a little less pessimistic about this operation because the cost of setting up an anti-gigafactory seems so much lower than what other EV startup automakers attempted. My longstanding issue with Fisker and others was mostly about the high pricing they were starting with, which was necessary to show a balance sheet that had any kind of path to profitability. This left Fisker and others nowhere to move in a price war.
Slate Auto, if it can pull it off, has a little more leeway as it’s starting from a lower starting cost. In theory, it’s also more insulated from tariffs as it’s setting up a supplier base mostly in the USMCA zone.
Additionally, the underlying engineering is so simple that it should help the automaker source alternatives that are harder to come by for more complex systems. This doesn’t seem like a vehicle full of semi-conductors.
Does this mean I think I’m going to get a truck? I don’t know. There are still huge risks related to this vehicle, even with Bezos funding. In addition to global economic uncertainty, it’s possible that Ford or another automaker could swoop in and offer more car for the same money (what’s the new Bolt going to be?).
Also, I might not have $20k to spend on a random car in a year. For now the $50, like the $50 from most of the other 100,000 people who signed up, is just an ante. A small amount of hope.
Top photo: David Tracy
I reserved a Slate for the simple fact that its a two door and basic.
I was wondering how long it would take for them to release the reservation numbers and just how many that would be. They are definitely screwed with only getting 100k orders. Of course there are many factors that we won’t be able to predict so a lot depends on whether or not the tax credit is still available and if they will be able to hit the current expected price point.
Even if they are able to hit that $27,499 base price, the tax credit holds and the economy doesn’t tank, I think they will be doing great to convert 20k of those reservations to actual orders. Way to many people will cancel once they are able to take a test drive and find out just how cramped it is. Others will cancel when they find out just how much extra all the must have options will add to the price.
W/o the tax credit or if the base price climbs more than a $1k or so, the Maverick is a way better value that is actually much more useful and appealing to the average consumer.
My bet is they will end up with only converting ~10% of those reservations.
Although on the other hand, people who want basic trucks aren’t the same people who put down online deposits to get the latest thing. I won’t, but I could definitely see myself buying one of these (well, a 2WD station wagon).
Time will tell!
Yeah, and I doubt companies and gov’t agencies are putting down deposits and those are great applications for this.
100% correct on price – that is where it HAS to compete. There are a lot of people wanting a no-frills vehicle, but even those people will not buy it if they can get a Maverick, which is far more feature-packed, for basically the same price.
If Ford really wanted to cut Slate off in the incubation phase they would make a two door Maverick, Ford is stupid so they wont, Slate for the win.
Ford is smart so they won’t do a 2dr Maverick, or even an extended cab. It would be a big money looser.
Honestly thinking about putting my deposit down just to be in the loop.
I haven’t put anything down but I will watch to see how it progresses. I’m not sure I can convince my wife we need a new car that our kid can’t ride in. I kind of want something more between the Slate and the Telo. Give me a Slate with 4 doors, power windows, and support for a double DIN receiver then sell it for less than 30k, or 35k with AWD, before incentives and the argument gets a lot stronger.
I believe it was the CEO that recently did an interview and said the dash of the Slate does have a place to accommodate a double DIN receiver.
I occasionally buy a powerball ticket. It gives me a reason to think about absurd purchases for a minute, like what color would I want my helicopter to be. Not too garish, but kinda loud.
I feel the same way about my Slate reservation. 20k for a little fun electric truck seems like okay-enough math. But if they’re targeting 27k and factoring in a likely-to-disappear tax credit I am probably out. That is before adding the second motor for all wheel drive or the bigger battery for range or the ‘fastback’ SUV roof that my better half would eventually want to make her stop thinking about the Rivian R3. I don’t see the version I would end up with anywhere south of $35k.
On the plus side, I get $50 back when they announce all the reasons I won’t get one.
I mean, for $50 and being refundable, how could I refuse? My concern is people are expecting too much out of a base model car. There’s already people complaining about the lack of power mirrors on the Slate forums!
“…doesn’t phase me.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/phase-vs-faze
C’mon now. We’re better than this.
Also, Bezos has contributed a known minimum of $111 million to the overall $700+ million. That’s about 15%.
Can everyone please stop saying this is his company or that he’s some major part of it? There are a number of other investors that represent the other 85%. He’s not even really spoken much about it nor has is he involved with management of the company.
Hopefully it’s just a phase
Like all of the people misusing “then” when they mean “than”? Or is that going to be a permanent thing?
Every time I see this misuse of “phased,” I am stunned.
Don’t phase me, bro!
I’m just relieved it doesn’t look like a giant dildo.
I doubt people will stop connecting Bezos to Slate, because the whole “eat the rich” movement needs to have something to flap their gums about, even when they are all qualifying the interest in it to use as a secondary (or thirdidary or fouthadary car). Which is hilarious to me.
If it has nothing else tangible to garner attention about it (it’s not actually really a good vehicle looking from a step or two back), mentioning Bezos’s coin in a fountain investment makes the marketing.
Other than DT wanting one, which I totally get for him, I don’t see the appeal in these things. The idea is cool, but even the on-paper stats as of now are sub-par.
I love the idea of this truck, and that was enough for me to toss $50 their way. It would a handy/fun little rig and my first new (not just new-to-me) vehicle. As to actually owning it, that comes down to price. At under $20K to start, yes please even if the add-ons push it back up a bit.
However at $27K to start, with the hatchback kit pushing it up into the low $30’s, I’m now in used Lyriq territory and something tells me my wife and daughter would both enjoy that being a replacement for our Volt a bit more than the Slate.
I didn’t reserve one as I’m not sure how they’ll play out in relation to Canada. No point in reserving something I can’t buy/drive in my country.
But I am extremely interested, and at the current projected price, I would literally buy one today if it was available, to replace my dying daily driver.
same here….and it will be $70Canadian Bucks so I am out LOL
Gonna be interesting to see the conversion rate. I suspect that some people may find that the cool configuration they put together increases the price more than they’d like. Combine that with the two doors, the bring-your-own-tablet (and speakers) infotainment, and the lack of AWD and you may see a lot of people taking back their $50.
I’m pretty interested in this. I went away from having two vehicles, but if I could turn my RAV around for one of these and something that might be fun for my occasional long drives, I’ll be looking really hard at taking up a little more space again.
I love the Slate’s minimalism- the way elegance is often simple. I don’t need tons of tech and complexity in my car.
That said, I also fear that this is bringing Spirit Airlines-style bait-and-switch pricing of often essential “options” into the car realm.
I reserved one
That being said there’s a decent chance I’ll be buying an Airstream Basecamp Xe and living out of that, and this thing sure can’t tow it. So I’ll probably end up with a Telo for a tow rig.
If that ends up happening I’ll probably end up getting the 2 door Pickup for my mother as a replacement for her very rusty 4th gen Mazda B Series pickup.
None of these “reservations” amount to anything. But 100k of them actually seems a little low doesn’t it, considering how many people profess to want a no frills 2 door pickup?
It’d be a far more valid number if the pittance $50 was NON-refundable or was $1000 instead and if the vehicle would actually be sold for the amount advertised.
I mean if the others above failed to get that many, I think 100k in 2 weeks is pretty impressive.
Well, considering the only people putting in a reservation are car nerds who want this sort of thing, that 100k number is pretty impressive.
(I’m considering a reservation, but want to learn more first… both about the vehicle and about us still having a country or not… which I would guess is the case for many people.)
That’s a reservation every twelve seconds 24/7 for 14 days. Seems pretty good to me.
This is very exciting. I too reserved one, and while I would like to follow through on it, we’ll see if I’m able to in a year. The range is fine, the slow charging is fine, the size is fantastic, and the customization is just too fun not to go for it. My current daily would sell for at least $10k, so I would only be in about $15k (I’m assuming the SUV kit will be around $5k) and for that I’m in, but much more than that and I’m not so sure. I also still need to get the Yugo going.
I also put a deposit down, but many things can happen before this is available that would turn me away.
The pricing and availability of the stuff needed to make this truck the vehicle I want could definitely be a deal-breaker. The actual sales price could also turn me away.
For now, I choose to believe it will all be fine.
I did not reserve one, but I am very interested. I want to see how they handle the actual roll out first.
I currently have a 125 mile range EV, so even the small battery appeals to me. I would rock the base truck as a daily then hopefully in about 10ish years do the SUV conversion and give to my daughter when she starts driving.
I keep going back and forth about this. I ‘build’ one in their (admittedly horrid) online build tool and like what I see, and it ::is only $50::, but there are just so many unknowns here.
The pessimism I’m seeing surrounding this company seems to be coming mostly from established car enthusiast circles. The general public seems genuinely interested in this thing and I think, if they can actually build them, it’s going be hugely successful. It’s not going to be anyone’s primary car, but it would make a perfect third car for an awful lot of suburban households.
It would be my primary car. We’ll have the wife’s minivan still for the family, but it would be my daily and be used as much as I could get away with.
This is an excellent point. It’s almost like enthusiasts are pissed off at this whole deal
Enthusiasts? Pissed off? Never
pearls clutched
I find it deeply hilarious but also kind of sad that when manufacturers finally make something that’s pretty damn close to what so many of us claim to want people still find excuses to poo poo it. Half the comments on the manual Fiat 500 hybrid article yesterday were Fix It Again Tony jokes and adjacent jabs at reliability.
This thing, which is basically an even more barebones Maverick (which we all claim to love) and the unicorn “right sized” truck shows up and people are still frustrated because it isn’t absolutely perfect. Meanwhile these same folks will spam comments lamenting the death of manuals and the proliferation of crossovers all day every day until they’re blue in the face.
You can’t have it both ways. If you want cool stuff you have to stop being so goddamn cheap and talk with your money every now and then. And don’t look at me-I went out and bought a ridiculous hot CUV that makes fart noises and tries to torque steer the wheel clean out of your hands. I’M DOING MY PART!
“I’m an ENTHUSIAST so I wouldn’t buy anything that isn’t a brown, manual, mid-engine wagon that weights under 1500 lbs and can be entirely disassembled with a 10 mm wrench!”
<Steps away from computer and proceeds to get into gray CVT powered mid-sized crossover>
Enthusiasts are loud used car buyers and the main audience for the automotive press is … the automotive press.
The insinuation that we get easily pissed off pisses me off.
I’M SENSITIVE TO THE FACT THAT I’VE BEEN ACCUSED OF BEING SENSITIVE
(Said with affection)
what you did here I see it
Car enthusiasts love to stomp their feet that they can’t buy a very specific type of vehicle only to not buy said vehicle when it does go on sale.
this is true
Soapbox time again, but refundable reservations are completely useless at the best of times; and scams at the worst of times when the owners disappear with your free working capital loan.
It should have to be 10%-20% down, nonrefundable, and the company has to agree to sell it for a specific price or pay your deposit back, plus a penalty. Then everyone has skin in the game and we can actually look at reservations as a reliable metric.
exactly this.
Slate can’t really do that since they don’t know their pricing. Even the pricing for the base truck is a guess, nevermind the accessories.
Your way is definitely more real, but these startups usually aren’t real enough to make those commitments.
Fair point, but if they wrote in “sales price not to exceed $25k” or something general like that, you could at least give the owners some assurance.
All of business is based on setting a goal and then trying to hit it, even if you’re a little off on your guesses.
Their pricing guesses right now could easily be $10k off from reality, depending on federal and state ev incentives.
Yeah they would have to give a price guarantee for reservation holders for that to work, and then they will lose money should the price need to rise in the future.
And that’s the rub — if they really need to price it at $28k, but the reservations were made at $25k, then they would have to eat it (or pay to break the reservation, whichever is cheaper). Anyone who didn’t make a reservation has to pay the “revised price.”
What we don’t need is another Cybertruck “reservations vs deliveries” debacle, complete with pricing clusterf*cks.
I understand both sides of the issue, I’m just trying to hold some of these people to the same standard that 99% of businesses operate under. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Yeah. Really, if I were the one running things and thought we could sell it at the $27k they are promising, advertise it at $30k, then the reservation holders are planning for that, and if you are then able to sell for the 27k, no one will be upset. Going the opposite way always hurts you.
More than anything, I am sick of the Tesla style of over promising and under delivering.
I spoke to the designer briefly over dinner last week, and she said to me they were still working out the cost of the car and the options. I said to her they have to be careful because all the hype around $20k is setting them up for an almighty backlash if it doesn’t come to pass.
They’re also announcing (expected) pricing well in advance of actual sales. A lot can change between now and then.
I hope it all works out as they hope, but I wouldn’t be surprised if things go significantly off-course by delivery time.
Or we can just wait until the vehicle is ready to sell – and sell it to real customers at a real price
It’s a much more reliable metric then free surveys after a vehicle reveal which was basically the metric automakers were running on until this point. A huge company could maybe make that work, but startups like this need a more reliable indicator of the customer base.
As small a step as it is, a list of customers that were willing to toss $50 to get in line shows addressable market much more accurately than just asking “would you like to buy this?”
I think it’s also more useful than requiring a down payment months or years in advance to “reserve” a spot, since that would drop reservations by 99% or more and wouldn’t show them anything about who would be willing to buy it once it’s available.
As a fundraising strategy, taking $50 reservations is pointless. As a marketing strategy, it’s great–there’s now 100k+ people with just enough skin in the game who’re gonna talk about it to everyone they know, every time there’s a new email blast. That’s the kind of buzz that gets earned media, investor interest and valuable goodwill from vendors.
Exactly – the $50 isn’t to fund the development – they now have a list of people who have shown interest in the vehicle beyond clicking a like button which they can leverage for more investment and vendor pricing in addition to having 100,000 brand ambassadors.
I don’t agree with Doug DeMuro on a lot of things but he also pointed out that not having four doors is going to be a huge deal breaker for these. That’s the reason why Matt probably sees so many Chevy Bolts and almost no Fiat 500Es or Mini Es.
The Bolt also has a real range (259 miles) vs the Fiat and the Mini (both right around 100).
And the bolt is cheaper than both while having double the range, and double the practicality.
Which will likely also be true of the 2nd gen Bolt vs the Slate.
2nd gen will be decently used by the time the Slate drops, but third gen yeah it likely will be. Though I am guessing the Slate will at least be similar priced, hopefully cheaper but who knows. The Slate also fills a different niche. The two box cars are all similar, a cheap truck hasn’t really been done before, so I don’t think there will be as much overlap.
Based on nothing, I expect the 2nd gen Bolt to do like the 2nd gen Scion xB did: ruin everything the 1st gen had going for it in order to cater to the normies that didn’t buy the 1st gen.
It is GM.
The Bolt was a car for normal people – especially the EUV version. GM has already confirmed they will not be making a second gen hatchback – only the crossover.
The two door compact truck market is small and underserved. There are some mid-size options with extended cabs but nothing like this. The Slate will satisfy that niche market and sell to some fleets. It will do OK if it hits production.
The only reason I reserved a Slate is because its a two doors.
Not a good sign as their business plan is based on selling 150K per year.
Also – Tesla had 2 million Cybertruck preorders and converted about 50K of them to actual sales.
10 of these reservations arent for youtubers who are just going to see how durable they are or wrap them with something loud for attention
We can only hope that in the next year they don’t increase the price by 150%.
Or have their CEO go full mask-off nazi…
Pretty sure this truck doesn’t have a heat pump so I hope you live in a warm climate, Matt.
Amazon sells space heaters too!
Edit: Oops, just realized you meant a heat pump for BEV range. Not sure a space heater will help with that…
The New York Metro tropics that we all know and love.
I thought about reserving one. I really like what I’m seeing, and my spec would be one with zero options. I hope they succeed, and I can pick one up in year 2 or 3 after they’ve worked out some of the inevitable bugs.
There were over a million Cybertruck reservations…and 40,000 delivered trucks. Just saying.
Funny how delivering a significantly worse product at a significantly higher price will do that.
The other takeaway here is that unhatched eggs aint chickens yet.
No doubt, and I think that the time it took to get the big silver dumpster into production played into that woeful take rate. If Slate’s simplified production model manages to keep costs down and lead times short they stand a pretty good chance, but that’s a BIG “if”.
That is such a different product than this it may as well be from a different planet.
The Cybertruck was also touted as having a $40,000 starting price, a 500 mile range and could crab walk. None of that came to be, and the initial offering was three times the quoted starting price. Not to mention the horrid QC problems.
My expectation is the tax credit will be gone by the time these start shipping, so I think the media would be doing Slate a favor by stopping with the sub-$20,000 price tag fantasy in the headlines, but other than that, if they make the sub-$30k target in today’s dollars, they’ll convert a much higher percentage of the reservations.
I expect the same on the Slate as well. As you say – the Federal tax credit will likely be gone before the Slate every reaches production. Then there will be the normal start-up cost overruns and we will likely see a $30K to $35K base price by the time this reaches production in 3-4 years.
People will then still expect the price to be $20K out the door and the product fails.
I’m actually not positive the tax credit will go away. Considering the stupidity we just saw with tariffs ended in “shit, the economy is going to crash, we better back off” there does appear to be something of a limit to how destructive Trump will be.
And at this point, there’s billions of dollars in investment into building EV’s in the US, predominantly in Republican districts. Trump loves touting new auto factories in the US, and almost everything that’s going in now is for EV’s. I won’t say I’m holding my breath that Trump will recognize or care about the effects of pulling the tax credit on jobs in deep MAGA country, but it is something to be considered.
There’s a pretty good chance that the tax credit will be reworked in a way that allows Trump to tout his victory on it but doesn’t actually make many meaningful changes. Something like reworking the critical minerals component or adjusting the leasing credit requirements might do it. I could even see something like the income caps being raised.
Just read today’s morning dump and it looks like Republicans (at least in Congress) are not only going after the EV credit but explicitly aiming to claw back loans that were used to fund new EV factories currently being built.
That’s going to play well in these communities. “Hey so you know how you were about to get 4,000 good paying factory jobs? We’re pulling the loan and killing the market for the product all because billionaires are pissy about paying taxes. I mean, because EVs are wOkE” Goddamn these people are idiots.
The unfortunate thing is the “EVs are woke” line will work great and the voters will still find a way to be pissed at Democrats that the 4000 jobs aren’t converted into making “manly” diesel truck engines immediately
Yeah, I wrote this before TMD. Didn’t really expect them to fully cut the EV credit, but the car loan interest deduction was definitely not on my radar until today. Seems like a blatant attempt to encourage people to overspend because they don’t realize how little the deduction will help.
More tax cuts for luxury/expensive purchases that will only benefit the wealthy!!
I’m a middle class homeowner and have never benefitted from mortgage interest deduction.
I cant say I have never benefited from the Mortgage Interest Deduction but my benefit is likely less than a few thousand over the last 25 years. On the other hand Trump’s SALT cap has cost me thousands per year.
Personally I expect the business credits and incentives for building factories / batteries to stay and the $7500 retail credit to people that buy EVs to go away.
Trump also needs to hunt for every dollar he can if he wants to do the big tax cut deal he wants and stay within the framework of the reconciliation bill. That bill already got tanked yesterday in the house because it didn’t have enough cuts. I cant see anything doing the suicidal step of cutting poor seniors medical care in the heartland (the VAST majority of medicaid spending goes to seniors) while keeping EV tax credit that mostly goes to wealthy people in states Trump didn’t win