“Non-gearheads” now have the prospect to design their very own automobiles.
Final month, a picture appeared on Reddit of an unidentifiable small truck in a car parking zone in Los Angeles. The sighting was first famous by Carscoops simply after TechCrunch reported that Jeff Bezos was making an “inexpensive” automobile by a “secretive EV startup” referred to as Slate Auto.
Associated: I Tried Shopping for a Automotive on Amazon. Right here Are the Execs and Cons.
Web sleuths rapidly put collectively (and TechCrunch confirmed) that the truck within the Reddit picture was the precise Slate Auto idea automotive.
Now, the corporate is prepared for reservations, and personalization is essential. All the pieces is customizable, from the outside look to the colour to the inside knobs.
“We expect everybody ought to be capable to personalize their automotive,” the web site says. “However autos aren’t constructed to be personalized by non-gearheads (we love you, gearheads). So, we modified that.”
Supplied by Slate Auto
In a video asserting the brand new “radically easy, radically inexpensive Slate truck” on X, CEO Chris Barman mentioned the worth begins within the “mid 20s,” although will probably be nearer to $20,000 (after federal EV tax credit). The one-cab electrical truck is about to be delivered to clients in late 2026. The corporate relies in Troy, Michigan.
The folks spoke. We constructed. Meet the radically easy, radically inexpensive Slate. Reserve yours at https://t.co/Y5RkOIFCRo pic.twitter.com/uvSZVpdkWv
— Slate Auto (@slateauto) April 25, 2025
“There is a huge inhabitants of individuals on the market relating to secure, dependable, inexpensive transportation; there simply actually aren’t many alternate options for them,” CEO Chris Barman informed Enterprise Insider forward of the official unveiling.
Associated: The ‘Secretive’ Electrical Car Inexpensive Truck Was Simply Noticed in Los Angeles
A technique the corporate is preserving it inexpensive is thru its customization choices. For instance, the vehicles are wrapped, not painted, and could be modified at a buyer’s whim.
“With different automobiles, you decide your colour once you purchase it, and that is it,” the web site says. “With a Slate, you possibly can decide your colour at any time when—and alter it at any time when. It is the primary automobile of its variety designed to be simply wrapped.”
Wrap kits will begin round $500, in keeping with the corporate. (Although preserving it the easy grey—as per the Reddit reveal—will nonetheless stand out.)
What is that this automotive?
byu/discostranger09 inwhatisthiscar
Amazon founder Bezos, Mark Walter (Los Angeles Dodgers majority proprietor and CEO of Guggenheim Companions), and investor Thomas Tull have helped the brand new automotive firm increase not less than $111 million, per TechCrunch.
NBC studies that, in keeping with a doc filed with the Securities and Alternate Fee, Melinda Lewison, the pinnacle of Bezos’ household workplace, is the brand new Slate Auto director.
