The craziest automotive debut I’ve ever seen is actively taking place in Venice, California. A brand new company — one reportedly partially-funded by Jeff Bezos — just showed its very first car for the very first time by… simply parking it on the side of the street. Yes, it’s an extremely trendy street in a popular part of the LA metro area, and yes the car was wrapped in an extremely strange livery for a fake service company that drives babies around on the car’s roof to get them to fall asleep, but still: This was a relatively subtle way to show a new company’s first car, and now there’s a new livery in place of “Cryshare”: It’s a Harry Potter-themed website called “gethexed.org.”
This is now the third livery that I’m aware of on a Slate car parked on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice — the first was a fake, bizarre cat-therapy service; the second was the aforementioned baby-driving service, and now we have a witch/Harry Potter-themed livery.
After tipster Tracy Moore emailed in a picture, I headed to Abbot Kinney and took a few shots of my own. Check it out:
You may recall in my previous article how excited I was when I saw the Slate just sitting on the side of the road (again, after a reader sent us a tip; please hit us up at tips@theautopian.com when you hear of cool car-things!). My headline read: “The New Slate SUV Reportedly Funded By Jeff Bezos Was Just Revealed In The Most Insane Way.”
And I still stand by that. This is not a functional car, no, so it’s not the full reveal of the production-intent car, but this is a design buck that represents how the car will look, and I know this because I’ve seen the production-intent design at the Slate HQ (all the good info is under embargo; sorry!). So yeah, when I learned that Slate was showing off what its car would look like by just wrapping it in something weird and placing it on the side of the road without saying a peep, I was really into it. This “guerilla marketing,” as some call it, is unique and different, and — above all — fun.
But not everyone agrees with me! My article was posted into Reddit’s r/cars and a person named CrispityCraspits was clearly not amused, writing:
It wasn’t revealed, this was just a viral teaser bullshit thing. It also was not a particularly insane viral stunt, given that it has been done before. what is actually insane is that it’s 2025 and people are still doing clickbait headlines.
What the hell?! What about that was clickbait? I just told you what I saw/thought! I responded saying as much but Mr. Craspits couldn’t be cheered up, replying with:
First I thought this comment was serious, then I thought it must be parody because it’s so cringe, then I checked your comment history and I realized it wasn’t parody. You’re not a journalist, you’re an influencer who maybe once worked as a journalist.
Damn, Mr. Craspits! You find an influencer who writes 10,000 word technical deep-dive-reviews! But I guess I’m also kinda an influencer — that’s it’s fine! More from Craspits:
To begin with, whatever you think of the stunt, your headline was 100% undeniably clickbait. (The answer did not surprise me, and I did guess what happened next.).
Mr. Craspits doubles down on the clickbait claim; he simply cannot fathom that I found such a debut — a quiet reveal of a brand new car from a brand new car company — to be insane. I’m not sure why. They go on:
Next, the stunt is not insane, it’s been done before with lots of things in an attempt to “go viral.” They dropped a shell (not the car) on a street with attention-getting wrap. To go viral, they merely seed it to social media and “friendly” journalists. Who then overhype the thing in an attempt to break through the clutter (we are here). The fact that marketing ghouls do this is normal if annoying; any “journalist” who participates and acts like it’s so insane is not to be trusted about anything. The rest of your comments in here just confirm that.
[…]
P.P.P.S. I am never going to watch your dumb reel.
[Editor’s Note: I wonder if that guy watched the reel? – JT]
[Editor’s Note: I like the crescent moon taillight masks – JT]
They then tell me this has been done before, when actually this is not at all common practice in the auto industry (teasers are, but a new company’s first car’s whole design quietly put out into public).
The rest of the comment gets weird and mean so I cut some of it but kept the bit about them saying they’re not gonna watch my dumb reel. Tell us how you really feel!
I understand how people are tired of marketing and brands and stunts and buzzwords and the like, but I still think this is cool, and I hope our friend Craspits finds Jesus or Allah or Raymond Loewy or Bob Seger or whatever they are looking for, because showing the design of your new company’s very first car by just parking it without a word is something worth getting excited about! When the car makes its full debut on Thursday, I bet everyone, even Craspits, will feel their pulse rise at least a few BPMs. It’s that bizarre of a car debut.
Where can I see the launch and at what time? The only official thing I found for Slate Auto was a linkedin page with no posts.
I know David has an NDA and knows some stuff ahead of tonight’s livestream*, but my source that says everybody is completely wrong about what these trucks parked on the street in LA are.
*Unclear if it’s going to be livestreamed.
Ok. So the start time for the premier has been bugging me… it is a really odd time.
So time to put on my thinking hat.
I am using Eastern Standard Time as my basis for all these calculation. I know, weird, but lets try some math.
At 8:24AM today, the countdown clock was reading 13 hours 51 minutes 00 seconds until the reveal. Using simple math, lets have fun.
Countdown number:
13 51 00 Multiply 13 by 1000. Multiply 51 by 10. Multiply seconds by 1.
13000 + 510 + 0 = 13510
Actual time:
08 24 00 Multiply 08 by 1000. Multiply 24 by 10. Multiply seconds by 1.
8000 + 240 + 0 = 8240
13510 + 8240 = 21750
Even if you change time zones and change the time and countdown timer appropriately, the price stays at 21750.
So there you have it, the Slate starting price will start at $21,750. You heard it here first!!!
Of course I deny everything if I am wrong, but will bask in glory forever if I am right.
Given the weird launch time, I’m actually feeling pretty confident with this.
Hopefully their next step will be to put a Nikola wrap on it, and roll it down a long hill in LA, that would be even more entertaining, especially if there’s a dummy of Trevor Milton in a jail suit riding on the roof rack
Attached to a SF trolly line with a dummy behind the wheel!
I think the “without saying a word” bit is a little funny.
Like, yeah, Slate didn’t put out a press release about these promos.
But I would be astounded if they/their marketing team weren’t working pretty damn hard to make sure this was seen all over the automotive web/socials.
The whole point of setting these things up is to get them on line…
Slate’s marketing team might be the ones who sent the tip to various auto journalists, while pretending to be random passersby who happened to see an interesting thing.
100%.
And as someone who relies on Reddit for a moderate amount of research, I am hyper aware of the accounts that drop into all kinds of threads and just note that “hey, I found [insert product] to be good/noteworthy/an option to consider/interesting etc.” I have zero doubt that many are legit users. Same time, many are generating consumer awareness.
Slate’s marketing team (unsurprisingly) has former auto journalists. Their marketing and branding people are hot stuff.
Huh, so that’s what people are talking about when they tell me Reddit is garbage. Clearly I’ve been spending way too much time on the Fiestaware subreddits, where the only annoyance is people posting a picture of a new plate and asking “IS THIS RADIOACTIVE???”.
Where are those subreddits?
Fiestaware is no longer available from Amazon and plate death is always around the corner here.
Edit: My wife is a monster. She somehow broke the knob off our butter dish last week. She was int he room when I wrote this. Sh*t. She’s back. Everything’s fine!
I’ve mainly been in r/Fiestaware lately. I had no idea Amazon ever carried the stuff; back when there was a Betty Crocker catalog, I acquired a lot through them. If there’s something I really need, I’ll wait for a sale announcement on the factory website.
With all the different Amazon delivery trucks I’ve seen used (Hertz, rando white vans etc) this is probably a fleet mostly for Bezos to take over that part of service. They could lease these out to the third party last-mile delivery companies.
Anybody know when the plan actually gets rolled out?
Roster of esteemed executives and engineers?
Location of production plant?
Deliveries begin in?
Well, DT did state that “I know this because I’ve seen the production-intent design at the Slate HQ (all the good info is under embargo; sorry!).” So I assume he will be able to answer at least a few of these questions soon.
If you click the gethexed.org link in the article, it takes you to a countdown page for Slate. Presumably, they are announcing the truck tomorrow at 10:00 PM ET.
I think this is really just witch-themed… There’s no HP reference except the general idea of witchcraft.
lol
I agree it’s new, cool, and clever approach, but it is also very much clickbait. Clickbait is also part of your business model, so embrace it.
I thinks it’s interesting what Slate is doing with dropping a design buck in the wild with a crazy wrap and no explanation. Mr. Craspits is in the popular parlance of Pittsburgh, a jagoff, with no sense of humor. Dude needs to seriously lighten up a bit and enjoy the wierdness.
Jagoff FTW. Yinz wanna go dahn t’ Primanti’s to discuss over a couple ‘Ahrn’s?
I admire the craft, but I’m afraid I’ll have to (fairuza) Balk at this.
Nice. Very nice.
This and the Telo present an interesting dilemma, for most truck buyers these are not the trucks they want. In the current manosphere of Big Truck it does not serve the purpose of flex. For the smaller population of people who need trucks, this could serve them well. Vinyl interior, no carpet, no big touch screen…it can be a hit. I am just not sure how you determine the actual market for a work truck when the numbers are currently so skewed by people who did not get enough hugs as children.
This will probably have a decently sized touch screen and probably a screen for the instrument pod.
They’re marketed as a luxury, but screens are so much cheaper for the manufacturer than buttons, switches, and gauges.