Robert Duffer

Slate, you have our attention.

The U.S.-made EV startup backed by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos proposes something new if not revolutionary: an affordable, customizable, do-it-yourselfable two-seat electric pickup truck that can be converted to an SUV. The revolutionary is the proposed $20,000 starting price.

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So many questions, I know. Like, what is the model name?

It’s called the Slate Truck, kind of, but the owner can christen it whatever they want with a custom wrap or decal slapped on the side. That’s one of more than 100 accessories Slate will offer once it goes into production late in 2026, in a converted paper plant in Warsaw, Indiana.

I got a few more answers by getting my hands on a static prototype Slate Truck at the automaker’s launch in Long Beach, California, on Thursday. For now, there are about 40 hardware accessories for the little truck, not including colors and wraps over its composite plastic body. It’s modular, too, with snap-on bits, like a Lego truck.

Robert Duffer

The nostalgic factor runs high. Some onlookers compared it to a Japanese Kei truck. The two-door SUV warranted comparisons to classics such as the Jeep Wrangler, Scout, and Ford Bronco.

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With 17-inch steel wheels painted black, crank windows, heating and air conditioning knobs, an available bench seat, no trim levels, and no touchscreen, the Slate Truck is a throwback.

“We took everything out that wasn’t a car,” Slate CEO and former Stellantis executive Chris Barman added, noting that it comes in a single configuration from the factory.

On the dash — covered in conspicuously cheap materials, moreso than in the hard plastics of the Ford Maverick compact pickup — recessed storage areas open up with flip-up doors. On the flat floor between the two seats, a console rail runs down the middle. There’s no deep storage console, no arm rests. Throughout the truck, in six spots, are wiring and connectors for 12-volt outlets.

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Power door locks counter the crank windows, and a fob with buttons exists for a slightly modern touch. From the logo to the rectangular panels, the Slate Truck is refreshingly 8-bit in an over-pixelated world.

“Instead of asking what we can add to differentiate, we asked what we can take away,” Slate said in a promotional video at the event.

Robert Duffer

One key piece of modern technology, beyond the two battery pack choices and single-motor rear-wheel-drive system, is a smartphone holder in the dash. It’s the navigation, infotainment, and audio controller we’ve all been using anyway. Two USB-C ports come standard to make sure your phone stays charged.

It mounts to a thin rail that runs on the lower part of the dash, under the HVAC knobs. There are more than six of these utility rails of the same size so, if you choose, you can mount any of the accessories anywhere, on the doors, the B-pillars, and inside the 37.0-cubic foot bed. The 7.0-cubic inch frunk has a drain plug, the better to tailgate from.

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Add a tablet-like touchscreen via Slate, if you like; replace that portable speaker mount with a mounted center speaker box, then right and left speakers; and keep adding up to six speakers total from Slate as if it were a Sonos home sound system.

Like life, it is what you make it.

Robert Duffer

In about an hour, on a veiled stage, a Slate crew converted the Slate Truck into the Slate SUV. They swapped off the stock 17s for wheels with 31.5-inch BF Goodrich all-terrain tires, wrapped it in a sharp matte ocean shimmer, and boxed the bed by installing a roll cage with airbags, side windows, a roof, and a rear bench seat to increase the total seating capacity from two to five.

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It can be the two-seat truck, a five-seat SUV, an SUV fastback, or an SUV open top. “It’s awesome, being able to put choice back in customers’ hands and having them feel more connected to their car,” said CJ Waelti, head of accessories and one of the first 30 hired by Slate in 2023. Previously, he worked at Harley Davidson, Tesla, and Rivian.

Customization is key. Want heated seats? Slate offers vinyl seats covers that zip on and off, easy to clean in a washing machine, I imagine. The heated seat option comes in the seat cover itself. Like those heated jackets and gloves popular in hockey rinks and lift lines, the heating element plugs into one of the 12-volts. What about thermal runaway?

Safety remains a top priority, with Slate targeting a top five-star crash-test rating on the NCAP scale. The converted SUV won’t start if you don’t install the rollbar and rear seat properly. It comes with up to eight airbags, most of them standard, as is automatic emergency braking. But without a touchscreen, where is the federally mandated rearview camera?

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The camera hardware itself sits in the tailgate handle. The projection appears In the small 4.7-inch digital gauge cluster that displays other vehicle info. That bit was not ready to display. There’s still 18 months of development to go.

Robert Duffer

The lightweight doors moved, sounded, and felt like a prototype, flimsy and without the clean opening and closing we take for granted with new cars. A knock on the body panels returned a durable, tougher feeling. Getting inside, I was not allowed to move the manual driver seat forward to climb into the rear seat. With only two doors, it appeared tight. With the top off, though, it would be reasonable for a more nimble fella to hop over the short side wall into the back.

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The ground clearance measures between six and seven inches, unofficially. Off-road accessories include the all-terrain tires, a 2.0-inch lift, and a tailgate-mounted spare, but skid plates were not in the offing, at least initially. Running boards can be added. It only comes in rear-wheel drive with a single motor rated at 201 hp and 195 lb-ft of torque.

Isn’t that enough for most weekend uses? Of course, the bed is wide enough to haul the benchmark known as a sheet of plywood.

The estimated range comes up short of every other EV. A small 52.7 kWh battery pack comes standard with a projected 150-mile range. A larger, 84.3 kWh pack with a 240-mile range is projected to add about $5,000 to the cost. The packs are made by South Korean supplier SK On, but will be sourced and produced domestically, easing concerns should the tariff boondoggle persist in 18 months.

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Robert Duffer

That’s the biggest question and the greatest source of my skepticism: Will the Slate Truck really cost less than $20,000?

If you believe the $7,500 federal EV tax credit will still be in existence when production starts in Indiana in the fourth quarter of 2026, then it would be only the second new car you could get for less than $20,000, behind the 2025 Nissan Versa. Even at $27,500, it would be cheaper than a Ford Maverick Hybrid.

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Is the market there? Are the accessories and demand robust enough to make up for the slim profit margins on what is essentially a budget car? How deep are Slate’s presumably deep pockets? Could Slate produce the targeted 150,000 vehicles annually to make economic sense, whether those are Slate Trucks or repurposed models for fleet use?

Questions persist.

Only time will tell. In the meantime, Slate encourages us to reserve a spot for $50 at slate.auto.

Slate paid for airfare and lodging for SlashGear to attend the reveal.