TROY, MI—Slate Auto is a mysterious start-up company that is backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. It plans to build a small, bare bones, customizable electric truck that will cost less than $20,000 after federal incentives, “making it among the most affordable new vehicles.” The goal of the project is to “redefine personalized transportation.”
Slate also claims that it will “manufacture the truck at a reindustrialized factory in the U.S. alongside a customer experience center.” According to reports, the assembly plant will be located in northeastern Indiana, but it will not include a body shop or a paint shop. The site may be in Warsaw, IN, at a 1.4-million-square foot facility that until recently housed a printing plant owned by R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Production of the Slate vehicle is expected to begin sometime next year.
Slate has hired engineers from Ford, General Motors and Stellantis to work on the unique project, which harkens back to much simpler days in the auto industry.
For instance, the vehicle will feature crank windows and HVAC knobs, but no heated seats, no infotainment system and no touch screens. Similar to the Model T, it will only be available in one color (gray). But, it will be easy to modify with a variety of do-it-yourself add-ons, such as a kit that transforms the two-seat pickup into a five-seat SUV.
The vehicle will be approximately the same size as a 1985 Toyota SR5 pickup truck. However, it’s designed to be customized with three levels of vinyl wrapping that will make personalization easy and affordable. Slate recently filed for a trademark on the phrase “We built it. You make it.”
Body panels will be made out of injection-molded polypropylene. The minimalist look, which challenges the status quo, is the work of a former Volvo designer.
“The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” says Chris Barman, CEO of Slate Auto. “[We will] put the power back in the hands of customers who have been ignored by the auto industry. Slate is a new American company founded on a disruptive business model of simplifying the manufacturing process and removing unnecessary content to reduce cost and increase reliability.”
According to Barman, a former Stellantis engineer, the new rear-wheel-drive vehicle will have a range of 150 miles and will be powered by a 52.7-kilowatt-hour battery pack.
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