Meet the $20K Electric Truck That’s Turning the Auto Industry Upside Down – The Slate Truck?
if you’re anything like me you’re probably pretty dismayed at the price of a new car these days which pushes $50,000 and if you want a new electric car well I’m sorry to say that’s going to cost you even more but a new very different.
- kind of EV startup is changing all that with an EV pickup truck that costs under $20,000 after federal incentives and here it is this is the Slate truck and we’re going to take a look at it today so the question that I had on my mind and that a lot of you probably have too is like how did they get this.
- thing to be so damn cheap and there’s a few things that go into that basically this company says that they have stripped down manufacturing to its simplest form and the truck is really really basic you get one color that’s gray you don’t get an infotainment system but as we’ll.
talk about later you get a lot of really interesting options to customize this truck you get this blank slate they call it just a platform and then you can add on hundreds of different accessories to
basically make this truck your own but this as you see it here is going to be the base model that arrives in your driveway if you don’t add any of those options you can add wheels and wheel covers and all sorts of stuff and you can even turn this thing into a damn SUV so believe it or not this is actually the exact.
This $20K Slate EV Truck Is Stripped Down, Customizable, and Totally Game-Changing?
same vehicle that you saw before they turned this thing into an SUV they wrapped it and that just shows kind of how customizable and diyable this slate truck is it is quite a bit smaller than a Ford Maverick and it kind
of reminds me of those older twodoor trucks like the Ford Ranger or Toyota Tacoma the kind of whole concept here is to create a back to basics vehicle that regular people can actually afford slate is all about customization and diying your truck to be exactly.
what you want it to be and it’s a really interesting new approach I think to EVs it’s kind of crazy how many different combinations of add-ons and accessories you can add to this vehicle to make it look and feel however you want one of the things you can do you can wrap it they say it’s super easy to wrap it has these coach lines the body panels are really.
This $20K EV Truck Cuts Costs, Not Possibilities – Meet the Customizable Slate?
easy and they say that professionals can wrap a truck in just 30 minutes and just to linger on the color. thing for one second this is a really interesting way that they’ve cut costs out of the manufacturing process the vehicle comes in gray and that is dyed into the composite body.
panels that means that they saved $350 million installing a paint shop in their factory according to the CEO this company has done a lot of stuff just uses regular hex keys so it seems like pretty much anybody could figure out how to swap parts on their truck so you’re probably wondering what’s the range of this thing you can get two different estimated ranges in this truck.
the lower range one gets 150 miles projected and the longer range one gets 240 miles remember how I talked about how they simplified the manufacturing process so those are the only two variants that come out of the factory it is one with a small battery.
The Slate Truck: A $20K EV With Impressive Charging Speed and Customizable Features?
one with a big battery everything else is added after the fact as accessories so the Slate truck is single motor rearwheel drive someday we might see an all-wheel drive option but they’re not talking.
about that yet really interesting thing this comes with a Tesla designed Knax port and it’s actually in the right place on the back left of the vehicle so you don’t have to act like a jerk when you go and charge at the Tesla Supercharger the max power is 120 kW and they say that this car can charge from 20 to 80% in under 30 minutes none of it is super impressive specs- wise we’re not talking about.
top of the EV market but then again you have to remember that this is more affordable than basically any other EV out there the Slate truck.
will be built at a factory somewhere in the Midwest they’re not talking about that yet either and production starts in late 2026 by the time things are up and running in 2027 or 2028 Slate expects to be making about 150,000 of these a year it’s kind of hard to talk about the Slate trucks.
Truck You Can Transform Into an SUV—Meet the Ultra-Customizable Slate?
design just because this thing can be so different depending on how you customize it but I think in general it looks really good it has this really timeless really. simple design without being boring and one thing that’s really cool is that you can actually install the SUV kit yourself they send it to your.
house and there are actually two different options that you can choose from there is this boxy one that we’re looking at here and there’s also a fastback which honestly is probably the one that.
options for the interior here we are in the inside of the Slate truck and it’s pretty basic in here you know you have a good amount of hard plastic but it has a nice texture to it in front of me I’ve got a digital gauge cluster that also functions as the backup.
This $20K EV Truck Starts Basic—But You Can Build It Into Anything, Even an SUV?
camera and I should note this interior that you’re seeing here has a few upgrades over the blank slate in the blank slate truck you’ll have gray panels up here and this brown leather is also an accessory but one thing that is on the blank slate that you also see in here are manual windows let’s give that a give that a little go yep they work that’s for sure powered windows are an accessory that you can buy and you can
- get door bins you can get a center console and you can also outfit this dashboard in a bunch of different ways you don’t actually get a stereo in this vehicle if you order the blank slate the idea is you can use your phone and maybe you could put a Bluetooth.
speaker in the cup holder and that’s going to be your music but you can also buy accessories from Slate so in this one we have actually a couple of speakers behind here that can connect to your phone via Bluetooth there are some things that you
do get in this vehicle as standard that includes AC and heat one interesting customization option for this interior is something.
Slate Truck’s ‘Slatelets’ and Custom App Make This $20K EV Truly Yours?
that Slate is calling slatelets and they’re kind of like those little things that you can stick into your Crocs they’re basically these little tiles with cool designs on them that you can slot into this.
track one thing that you might notice about this interior is there is no screen instead of an infotainment system you get an app on your phone you stick your phone into
this phone holder and it actually gets plugged into the vehicle the app shows you how far you can get on a charge through this map and also shows you where charging stations are one neat thing.
Customize Your $20K EV with Slatelets and Control It via Your Phone?
to diagnose problems in the vehicle yourself this is a really unusual thing for any car and especially for an EV but the app will tell you what’s wrong with your car and suggest ways to fix it whether that’s by yourself or by bringing it to a service.
- this is still a two-door vehicle even when you converted the SUV these windows also don’t open this is probably good option for kids or maybe smaller adults overall this interior is pretty darn basic but it’s really cool that you can upgrade it over time so I’ve got to say this is a really interesting concept.
especially when you consider that most new EVs that we test at Inside EVs cost like 50 or 75 or $100,000 it’s really cool to see a company going the complete.
Truck Has a Surprising Secret—And It’s Not What You’d Expect!
opposite direction and making something that’s really for everyday Americans i do have some questions. though one big one is can a new EV startup even survive in 2025 and beyond you go back.
- to the early 2020s and there was a lot of hype around a lot of different EV startups a lot of them didn’t even make it to production.
some of them did and then failed after that building an EV company from scratch is really really hard and I hope Slate can pull it of.
This $20K Slate EV Truck Is Stripped Down, Customizable, and Totally Game-Changing?
same vehicle that you saw before they turned this thing into an SUV they wrapped it and that just shows kind of how customizable and diyable this slate truck is it is quite a bit smaller than a Ford Maverick and it kind
what you want it to be and it’s a really interesting new approach I think to EVs it’s kind of crazy how many different combinations of add-ons and accessories you can add to this vehicle to make it look and feel however you want one of the things you can do you can wrap it they say it’s super easy to wrap it has these coach lines the body panels are really.
This $20K EV Truck Cuts Costs, Not Possibilities – Meet the Customizable Slate?
easy and they say that professionals can wrap a truck in just 30 minutes and just to linger on the color. thing for one second this is a really interesting way that they’ve cut costs out of the manufacturing process the vehicle comes in gray and that is dyed into the composite body.
panels that means that they saved $350 million installing a paint shop in their factory according to the CEO this company has done a lot of
really innovative things to bring the cost of manufacturing down and changing the color of this truck is really.
the lower range one gets 150 miles projected and the longer range one gets 240 miles remember how I talked about how they simplified the manufacturing process so those are the only two variants that come out of the factory it is one with a small battery.
camera and I should note this interior that you’re seeing here has a few upgrades over the blank slate in the blank slate truck you’ll have gray panels up. here and this brown leather is also an accessory but one thing that is on the blank slate that you also see in here are manual windows let’s.
Slate Truck’s ‘Slatelets’ and Custom App Make This $20K EV Truly Yours?
that Slate is calling slatelets and they’re kind of like those little things that you can stick into your Crocs they’re basically these little tiles with cool designs on them that you can slot into this.
track one thing that you might notice about this interior is there is no screen instead of an infotainment system you get an app on your phone you stick your phone into
this phone holder and it actually gets plugged into the vehicle the app shows you how far you can get on a charge through this map and also shows you where charging stations are one neat thing.
Customize Your $20K EV with Slatelets and Control It via Your Phone?
to diagnose problems in the vehicle yourself this is a really unusual thing for any car and especially for an EV but the app will tell you what’s wrong with your car and suggest ways to fix it whether that’s by yourself or by bringing it to a service.
partner some other options that I should mention about this interior you can actually add steering wheel buttons. over here that control your volume or control the track and those will also connect
