A few weeks ago, I got a cryptic message from automaker Slate Auto, the company behind the maybe-not-$20,000 barebones electric truck. I’m one of at least 100,000 people who have plopped down $50 as a reservation, to hold a spot, to maybe try to buy a Slate truck at some point in the future. Slate wanted to know if, in addition to the $50, I would share my address. If I did so, they’d send me something special.
I wasn’t expecting much. The whole gimmick behind Slate is radical simplicity, so while I’d like to get a fun die-cast model of the truck as my daughter and I designed it, it would be somewhat antithetical to the company’s mission. With the Senate passing a bill that could strip Slate Auto of any federal tax credits, the company probably wants to keep itself from blowing all that sweet, sweet Jeff Bezos money at one go.
My wife brought in the mail yesterday, and had a laugh when she saw the card-sized white envelope with the SLATE logo on the outside. While my kid and I are excited about the idea of getting a small, electric truck, my wise partner recognizes both the lack of charging infrastructure in our parking spot and, more importantly, the non-existence of $20,000 to be spent on yet another vehicle.
When I opened up the envelope, I was pleased to find a little drawing of the truck:
It’s kind of a slightly more detailed version of the kind of drawings that Jason does for Velour+ members. It’s on a nice cardstock and has a little printed signature on it. This also comes with a note:
That’s thoughtful. Here’s what it says if you can’t read it clearly:
We’ve loved building the Slate truck. But, if you ask us, the real magic happens when you make it your own, and make memories of your own. Before you know, you’ll be behind the wheel of your very own Slate. And whether it’s a couple of small accents or you’ve put your creative fingerprint over every square inch, you’re part of the Slate family.
Until then, here’s a small token of our appreciation. It’s a concept sketch by our design team. Slate started as an idea, but now it’s real. And that’s because of you.
So, from everyone on the Slate team, thank you.
By comparison, David put a deposit on the Scout Motors electric truck almost six months before I put one down on the Slate. Has he even gotten a thank-you card? According to David, he hasn’t gotten squat.
Score one for Slate, I suppose. In general, Slate seems to have a compressed schedule when compared to the EV/EREV Scout Motors truck. The VW-offshoot plans to be in production in early 2027, whereas Slate is targeting the end of next year. Whether both, either, or neither hits those dates remains to be seen.
Photos: Author
Top graphic images: Slate; Cra-Z-Art via Amazon
I am pulling for Slate. I came close to putting down a deposit to have this little guy as my first step into the EV realm. Would be a great around town/haul small stuff truck. But I just couldn’t commit as it would be a 3rd vehicle and the cost of upgrading it to be what I actually need it to be scared me off.
I really hope Slate finds success in the market, despite all of the headwinds EV makers are seeing right now. Let’s hope their formula of keep it simple and make it your own resonates with buyers. Right now, they seem to be making all the right moves.
I really hope this doesn’t end up as vaporware.
I was hoping for an Etch A Sketch!
I am very tempted to give them $50. I would put their letter next to my Elio bumper sticker (which was $100 as I recall)
I’m just glad they didn’t send a pack of inferior craZart crayons.
I skim through my Slate emails. If I see any pricing details for optional add-ons or details about deliveries, I read the whole thing before deleting. Otherwise I just delete.
I hope I do get the chance to take delivery, but I don’t need a ‘no progress’ update every two weeks and a link to the configurator as if new options are available (they’re not).
Love it or hate it, the Slate truck sure gets a lot of reactions in every comment section. I have my little card they gave me on the mantel. I’ve watched many EV startups come and go, but this one I hope sticks around long enough for me to get one!
2 doors=????
= 2 door truck?
2 doors + pay for 2 more doors = 4 doors!
The best thing about Slate Auto is that you won’t have to worry about recalls or design defects or parts availability or any of that stuff because THEY’RE NEVER GOING TO BUILD IT!!!!!!
Ouch there goes my $50.
I hope I’m wrong and I wish you the very best!
That’s OK. I send more than that to Bezos for my Prime membership, where the company misses their own stated delivery date over and f’n over again despite being in control of every step of the fulfillment and delivery process.
Part of that might be the use of USPS. they suck at just about everything these days.
Always sold by Amazon from their own warehouse and shipped through their own logistics. I know because they give themselves five tracking updates for moving it across their own warehouse and placing it near the loading dock.
I GOT NOTHING DAGNABBIT
Same, nothing here either. They didn’t ask for my address.
There was an email ~early June mentioning “a little something”. I think that is what you had to reply to. I got my sketch Saturday.
I think Slate was a decent bit farther along with their development when they unveiled the truck than Scout was.
I got one too except I didn’t put down a deposit. I only signed up for their mailing list.
That’s a nice little detail that others aren’t doing. I do hope they ship more than drawings in the end, but it’s a great first step that keeps reservation holders interested.
I don’t want junk mail, good vibes or community from them. I just want the truck.
Have Hydrox become the official cookie of the Autopian?
No, just the official propellant.
If this truck manages to be a massive hit, that picture will be like a rookie card and worth some Bezos bucks, though it might be more valuable if the Slate flops and most people throw out their pictures leaving a few examples extant.
I didn’t think about that! Shouldn’t have immediately thrown mine in the garbage.
Dangit.
I have some Enron and World Com shit from before the bankruptcy.
Probably worth big bucks now. LOL.
Neat can’t wait to get mine. Now that EV incentives are gone is Slate done for? Or will they just wait for incentives to possibly return with the next administration?
That is the question.
They were done for either way.
The only way the Slate had a prayer is if it was being made with a Chinese partner and imported. There is zero chance of selling a made in the USA EV at the production volumes we are realistically looking at for $30K
They could go to a 50-66% smaller battery and add a small ICE, might make the math get a little closer
That will cost more than a 150 mile EV.
The problem is volume or lack thereof. Rivian is selling 50K vehicles a year, in a premium segment and still can’t break even.
Then there is the problem of the Slate being bare bones. Money is made on the middle and top trims. All the margin is in the options not the base vehicle.
Slate’s batteries apparently cost $201.75/kwh, so their base battery is $11,500
Then they have no hope. In 2024 the global average OEM cost for EV batteries per kWh was $115. In China it is $94 per kWh. That is for a fully assembled battery not just the cells.
However, that would make sense with Slates tiny volumes. Tiny startups pay more for everything down to nuts and bolts. Which is why when a tiny startup says they can make a product and sell it for less than their massive competitors you should run away very fast. Both as an investor and as a buyer.
I assume their add-on packages are not cheap, since a couple of them include rear seats and airbags. They should have some room for margin.
Of course, I’m less interested if my $25k truck becomes a $32k truck without tax incentives and then becomes a $45k SUV because the rear topper kits are $10k and the pre-cut wrap kits are another $3k each. For that money I’ll take a used electric GV70 with $12k miles.
My guess is that’s exactly how it’s going to play out. No incentives and huge cost for options.
They could take off one wheel a-la Elio and the Dale! Oh wait…
I bet you’re wrong
It also didn’t help that *every* single article about it was flaunting it as a $20k truck. It’s NOT $20k. It’s $27.5k regardless of the EV incentive, which is not guaranteed , and reporting otherwise is disengenuous. I can see why some lost interest once they found that out.
What next administration.
The Jasonian administration.
But whom to have as the running mate? Personally I think Mercedes would be least likely to accidentally kill a religious leader(David might give one tetanus from the jeeps).
Who said it was an accident?
Sorry, I forgot the quotation marks.
The Bishop seems levelheaded. California David is pretty safe unless his cats scratch you.
I can’t see us taking that well. That possibility just means we’ll all have to join the resistance/rebellion full-time. I suspect they’ll F around and find out.
This is why China is ahead. The incessant “I’m going to undo all the previous guy’s stuff” don’t happen every 2-4 years.
And this is an example of why the two-party system doesn’t work anymore.
It only ever kinda worked in the modern era because we had mixed political parties. After the War of Southern Secession and then the end of union occupation basically every politician elected in the former Confederate states was a Democrat because nobody was voting for the party of Lincoln. You also had liberal Northern Republicans from the 30’s to the last 70’s. With both parties being mixed they had to work together to get anything done.
That all fell apart and not the parties are ideologically sorted and House districts are gerrymandered so that the actual election happens in the closed party primary. There are only about 2 dozen competitive house districts in the USA.
… and they make decades long industrial plans and then follow them. Made in China 2025 was announced publicly in 2015.
Although I don’t think even W undid as much Clinton era stuff as Trump has done of Obama and Biden era stuff. W mostly gave away the deficit progress as upper income tax cuts and launched a stupid war. I don’t think Clinton undid much Bush I era policy.
Trump is a rather unusual, extremely petty mental case.
That assumes there is a next administration…
Nifty! BMW sent me a nice drawing of my car after I did European Delivery.
A bit more cartoonish, but pretty cool.
https://flic.kr/p/2moDjgi
Almost worth the $50 to get another drawing to hang with it. I like the concept of this, and it’s an EV I actually might find useful. An old friend of mine is working for Slate, so I do wish them well. But I am not holding my breath. Second only to the airline industry, the car industry is a great way to make a small fortune by starting with a large one.
Pay money, not quite sure what you’ll get. Sounds like a Cards Against Humanity promotion.
This feels fairly Saturn. In a good way I mean.
And the odds of success might actually be similar, as nobody in the late 80s would have said GM would be able to create a successful new division that made only small cars.
I think the passing of the big ugly bill may decrease the chance of success significantly. If that tax credit is gone before these are available for purchase, then the value proposition goes *wet fart sound*.
Well, GM didn’t, as Saturn is long gone and was very much a “one hit wonder”. And the one hit wasn’t really that great.
Saturn died during the purge of 2008 as well as all the other brands fighting to kill the brand. Lutz never knew what he had with it product wise as they forced it to become Vauxhall of the US instead of building more polymer bodied cars.
But they did take some of the manufacturing lessons and dealer lessons and instituted them across the board. There is that.
Saturn should have never been an entire, stand-alone division, they should have just made the S-Series the new Cavalier and focused on selling better cars under the brands they already had. It was a lingering hangover of Roger Smith’s mismanagement in the ’80s that was too hard to kill outside of bankruptcy, because of the cost of buying out all the single brand dealer franchises (that, as it turned out, GM had used misleading accounting practices to sell in the first place, deceiving prospective dealers as to the true financial health of the division, or lack of it)
It wasn’t a total waste of time an money, but it was ultimately a failure. Saturn was a dead brand by 2008 and needed to die along with the rest of them.
Take off the rose-colored glasses and those plastic-fantastic Gen 1 Saturns really weren’t that good. Better small cars than anything GM had foisted on the American public before – but that is a bar so low you don’t even have to pick your feet up to get over it.
Saturn died in 2000 with the introduction of the L series. Part of the premise for Saturn was world class compacts with no badge engineering, but the L series was the start of the decline as it was just a rehash of the Opel Vectra.
The initial Vue proved out the CUV, but the platform spread to others and again Saturn wasn’t its own thing. Just to ensure the whole initial premise was dead, they introduced the Relay and Outlook. Thin veneer rehashes of a mediocre GM minivan and crossover that sealed Saturn’s fate.
It was great while it followed the initial premise, but as usual GM lost the plot.
Depends on your definition of success, Saturn only had one genuinely profitable year in its entire history (1994 – which was also its peak sales year).
I judge success by fan base and nostalgia. It’s working for the K-Car.
I like it
According to the USPS informed delivery, mine should be in the mailbox when I get home. That’s pretty neat, actually.
Yeah I remember when spry, innocent, young Amazon sent me plastic insulated tumblers and bookmarks for free. Later it grew up and slew a bunch of younglings.
I received my little drawing today as well. I propped mine up on the little shelf next to my desk that also displays some LEGO cars. Apropos, I think.
Ahhh, CraZart crayons, like the Hydrox cookies of childhood classism. Next gift will be a Megablox building set 😉
Cute that it looks like a chalkboard, you know, the ones made out of that dark, exfoliating, hard metamorphic rock of some kind.
Growing up on the poorer side of things, I remember the treat of getting legit Oreos instead of store brand or Hydrox cookies. I also remember my dad constantly pointing out to people that Oreos are copies of Hydrox, as Hydrox came first, and would be THE name brand…had they chosen a name that didn’t sound like the short name of a toxic chemical.
It really does sound like some kind of rust remover, doesn’t it? “David brought 20 gallons of Hydrox with him to California in the back of the J10 three years ago, and now Elise wants it out of the garage before Delmar starts crawling.”
Kind of ironic: “Hydrox is a play on hydrogen and oxygen to evoke cleanliness and purity.” https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/hydrox-cookies-make-a-comeback-for-100th-anniversary/
We only had Oreos a couple of times as a kid, and I still like Hydrox better, even though the reboot a few years ago weren’t as good as I remember them before. They were still better than Oreos, whose cream always tastes like plastic dust, oil, and sugar.
Until recently the Oreo filling was made from lard.
By “recently”, you mean almost 35 years ago? They dropped the lard in 1991 in favor of vegetable oil.
Has it really been that long?
I remember having to make up a prop package of Oreos for a play my wife was directing, where one of the actors was not eating pork.
I guess that time sounds about right, I didn’t look at a package again until probably 7 or 8 years ago.
As a child, I ate Oreos for the filling. As an adult, I eat them for the chocolate wafer.
Hydrox is OG. Period
It’s also, to adult palates, a little less sweet than Oreos. Though it’s been off the market for awhile now so who knows how accurate my memory is.
There was a column in Car and Driver some thirty or forty years ago that seemed Hydrox superior to Oreos for just that reason, but I wasn’t able to find it online.
Less sweet, more chocolate like flavor, better texture, and the filling didn’t have a weird aftertaste.
I am told that the Oreo aftertaste is to get you to eat another right away.
Well there’s some left in the package, isn’t there? What did you think I was gonna do with those?
It’s like Combos. They don’t bother making the bag resealable because they know once you get in there you’re not stopping until you hit the bottom, who are you kidding.
Amazingly, Hydrox is still around. My local Kroger carries them off and on, but the company who bought Hydrox has been selling them online and through Amazon for years now. I snagged a package the last time Kroger had them and I have to admit they were pretty tasty and, as others have said, not quite so cloyingly sweet.
Now you’re reminding me that they used to be made by the same company that made Cheezits. Which were even better back then, before whomever the big conglomerate is that makes them now.
granite gneiss? biotite schist? Geez, It’s like my mind got wiped like a cleaned blackboard.
On the next episode of Off-brand theater, Arizona jeans and Thom McAn shoes