Slate, the new, suburban Detroit-based EV start-up has officially released pricing and, as it had long promised, it will start in the mid-$20,000 range — $24,950 to be more precise. That positions it as one of the most affordable EVs on the market and the lowest-priced all-electric truck.
Along with the pickup first shown in April 2025, two SUV packages, dubbed Squareback and Fastback, also will be available at launch, starting at $29,950. Buyers of the pickup will also have the option to convert their trucks to SUVs later.
With first deliveries set to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026, Slate will maintain its focus on bare-bones vehicles. The truck will have crank, rather than power, windows, for one thing. But the company hopes to appeal to do-it-yourself buyers, product chief Chris Barman said in an exclusive interview, with 175 accessories available at launch, including the SUV conversion kit.
What’s New?
During a media preview in California, Slate revealed the final production version of its eponymously named Slate pickup. The design was essentially identical to what was first shown more than a year ago, with a single row of seats, a small cargo bed and a total length of 174.6 inches. The wheelbase comes in at 108,9 inches. The body panels are made of injection-molded plastic and come in a single color, appropriately slate-gray, though more colorful wraps will be among the available options.
Slate
There’s one significant change in strategy, former FiatChrysler executive Barman told Autoblog. Instead of offering standard and long-range battery options, Slate will stick with a single lithium-iron-phosphate pack. It will deliver an estimated 205 miles per charge, 37% now than what the original standard pack was expected to offer.
As it releases pricing details, meanwhile, Slate said it now will begin taking advance orders for a non-refundable $300. Those who had already put down a refundable $50 advance reservation can have that applied to their “preoder.”
Related: Slate Electric Pickup Can’t Track You Because It Has No Modem
By the Numbers
The Slate pickup and SUV models will all share a single electric motor driving the rear axle. It will pump out 135 kilowatts, or 180 horsepower, and make 264 Nm, or 195 pound-feet of torque. That will be enough to launch from 0 to 60 in 8.0 seconds, the factory claims, with a top speed of 90 mph.
Slate
Since the original prototype was shown last year the tow rating has been increased to 2,000 pounds, while payload has jumped from 1,400 to 1,500 pounds.
The original plan was to offer a standard, 52.7 kWh battery pack delivering an estimated 150 miles per charge. But while the one-size-fits-all alternative grows to 65 kWh, and a range of 205 miles, it falls short of the planned upgrade, a long-range 84.3-kWh pack that would have boosted range to 240 miles per charge. Once plugged into a Level 2 240-volt charger, meanwhile, Slate estimates it will take around 4 hours to go from a 20 to 100% state-of-charge. A DC quick charger, it claims, should get the pack from 20 to 80% in a half hour.
Plenty of Options
There are several EVs currently available at or just under $30,000 in the U.S., the Chevrolet Equinox EV currently going for a base $26,245 – though that’s after factory incentives of more than $8,000. Slate significantly undercuts the other options without givebacks in its base trim.
Slate
The automaker has taken a number of steps to trim production costs, such as going with the plastic body panels and substantially reducing the number of individual parts used in the truck – about 800 compared to more than 2,000 with a comparably sized conventional pickup, according to Barman. Left and right head and taillights are identical, for one thing, as are passenger armrests. And the truck is more in line with the bare-bones pickups popular with young Baby Boomers in the 1970s and 1980s than the more lavishly equipped compact and midsize trucks of today. They come with steel wheels, crank windows and no radio. Instead, owners will be able to use built-in Bluetooth to pair their smartphones.
That said, DIY-minded buyers will have plenty of ways to “customize” their vehicles, the executive noted, so “they become an extension of their personality.” There will be 175 accessories available on the Slate Marketplace at launch, 80 of them for under $500. These include roof racks, zip-off seat covers and over 100 different colored body wraps.
If They Build It Will Buyers Come
Slate is coming to market at a time when several other EV start-ups, Rivian and Lucid, are struggling to reverse hefty losses, and the overall U.S. EV market has shrunk markedly since federal tax credits were phased out last September. Automakers, in general posted tens of billions of dollars in write-offs as they backtracked on EV programs last year. So, industry analysts are waiting to see if Slate will do any better.
“More than 180,000 reservation holders have told us they’re ready for a vehicle that’s affordable, reliable, and built around their lives,” Slate CEO Peter Faricy said in a statement, referencing the number of advance reservations Slate has logged. The company is so confident of demand that it plans to rapidly ramp up production over the next year. It will launch with a single shift at its new assembly plant in Warsaw, Indiana, increasing that to two shifts by the second quarter of 2027. A few months later that will jump to three shifts capable of rolling out 150,000 pickups and SUVs annually.
Will a Different Reality Set in?
At least, that’s the plan. But several observers, including analyst Sam Abuelsamid, of Telemetry Research, cautioned that advance reservations don’t necessarily reveal real demand. Tesla early on boasted it had taken over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck. It sold just 20,237 last year, a 48% year-over-year decline. Ford bought into its own early numbers for the F-150 Lightning, ordering a 600% capacity increase at its plant in Dearborn, Michigan. After an initial surge, however, it could barely meet the original sales target of around 25,000 of the electric pickups annually.
Slate Auto
But those were very different, and far more expensive, vehicles with a very different business case, insisted Barman, who stepped down as Slate CEO to focus on product operations in March. With a starting price of barely $25,000, she said, the pickup could appeal to the millions of buyers today struggling to buy a new vehicle. (The industry average transaction price has now topped $50,000.) But there’s also a second group of buyers, she added. “We’re offering a very compelling (price with which) we can draw from the 35 million” American who buy used vehicles each year.
