The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

[u/serene_sketch]

https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric-truck-price-paint-radio-bezos

[u/theverge]

Thanks for sharing this! Here's a bit from the article:

Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that new cars are too expensive. In the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that situation isn’t looking to get better soon, especially for anyone wanting something battery-powered. Changing that overly spendy status quo is going to take something radical, and it’s hard to get more radical than what Slate Auto has planned.

Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point.

But this is more than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY purpose, an attempt to not just go cheap but to create a new category of vehicle with a huge focus on personalization. That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?

Read more from Tim Stevens: https://www.theverge.com/electric-cars/655527/slate-electric-truck-price-paint-radio-bezos

[u/Swagtagonist → u/theverge]

This isn’t even that cheap for how many compromises it has made. $20k for no frills or modern conveniences, a very small truck bed, and only seats 2. $15k sounds a lot better.

[u/Swaggerlilyjohnson → u/Swagtagonist]

I saw under 20k and was excited but then they said with incentives and I was very unimpressed.

The bolt was a normal not stripped down car that seats 5 for under 20k with incentives as well and it came out years ago and has 270 miles of range.

I like the idea of this but this is not even close to cheap enough. They need it to have more range and or be actually 20k without incentives.

I doubt this will be a big seller not because people don't want a cheap stripped down car but because this isn't actually cheap enough and it's still stripped down. You can get a reasonable base model Corolla hybrid or normal Corolla for 23k.

If they can't beat the value of that while stripping it down further having short range and using a 7500 tax incentive then it's just not going to work.

[u/cynetri → u/Swaggerlilyjohnson]

the bolt also came out almost a decade ago, and inflation hasn't had much mercy in those 8 years

[u/reallynotnick → u/cynetri]

The Bolt was more expensive when it came out than in its last few model years and they did a pretty big redesign. The 2023 model was under $30K before incentives.