Slate ‘Aspires’ To Launch Extra Automobiles After Its Two-Door Pickup Truck, CEO Says

Slate Auto is a really totally different form of automotive startup. Its electrical pickup is positioned as a stripped-down antidote to right now’s overly difficult autos, that includes no display, no radio and crank home windows. As a substitute of choices packages, there will likely be over 100 equipment—from leather-based seats to stereos—that homeowners can combine, match and DIY set up. The focused price ticket is virtually unheard-of for a brand new electrical automobile: someplace within the mid-$20,000 vary.

After which there’s the title—or lack thereof. Slate’s two-door truck is not known as the Slate Truck, or the Slate One, or the Slate something, for that matter. It is simply known as the Slate. Which raises a elementary query in regards to the startup’s enterprise: Is that this it?

I put the query to Slate CEO Chris Barman this week: Will there be extra Slate fashions of various styles and sizes sooner or later? With out going into specifics, she mentioned the intention is to make extra Slate autos down the road.

“We’re actually centered on the automobile we’re taking market right now,” she mentioned. “We aspire that there will likely be extra sooner or later. However proper now, we’re centered on the Clean Slate, the truck configuration that we’re providing right now, that may be modified into an SUV.”

The Slate automobile might be both a pickup or an SUV.

Photograph by: Slate

In fact, it makes excellent sense that Slate is eyeing extra fashions. Somewhat than constructing a whole firm round one product, providing extra physique types and worth factors would assist the automaker forged a wider web over time and create an enduring enterprise. That is why Toyota’s 2026 lineup consists of greater than 10 totally different crossovers and SUVs, not two or three. Folks like choices.

However that is additionally one thing we have not heard from Slate earlier than. In its advertising supplies, the automaker stresses that it is all about promoting a single mannequin.

“Slate is a single mannequin—by design. Whereas most automakers create sprawling lineups, our philosophy is about doing one factor exceptionally effectively: constructing a automobile that’s sturdy, adaptable, and future proof,” the corporate says on its web site. “Conventional automakers usually upsell patrons into new autos each few years. We’re flipping that mannequin on its head by making a automobile that’s upgradeable, customizable, and extendable.”

The Slate’s inside is as bare-bones because it will get, with no radio and guide home windows.

Photograph by: Slate

Certainly, as Barman alluded to in our dialog, the Slate truck is not a single automobile within the conventional sense. It is extra like a modular platform, and that permits the startup to play in a number of automobile segments with out rolling out distinct fashions.

The corporate’s manufacturing facility in Indiana will churn out one uniform variant, which Slate says goes a good distance towards decreasing manufacturing price and complexity. The so-called Clean Slate is a gray, two-door pickup with no added gear, aside from the bigger battery choice if the client chooses it.

From there, patrons can buy a bolt-on equipment that transforms the pickup into three several types of SUVs, or a van-like cargo provider. It is an ingenious proposition. Nonetheless, none of these add-ons essentially change the Slate’s diminutive measurement or the truth that it solely has two doorways. Auto business analysts have instructed me prior to now that the Slate’s two-door design particularly will restrict its enchantment.

Slate provides a fundamental platform with practically limitless customization mixtures.

Photograph by: Slate

Future variants that observe the identical shapeshifting blueprint may broaden Slate’s attain. I believe a Slate that is extra of a midsize truck, like a Toyota Tacoma or a Ford Ranger, may promote effectively. People snapped up a document 275,000 Tacomas final 12 months. That Slate may have 4 doorways, more room for passengers, a bigger mattress and perhaps even a bolt-in third-row.

I do not see any cause why Slate could not adapt its modular method to a full-size truck both. However it is smart that the producer is beginning out with a compact pickup; that is the place there’s the least competitors and the very best alternative to come back in at a low worth.

For now, Slate has its work lower out. The entire principle that folks need a fundamental, extremely customizable automobile is intriguing however nonetheless unproven within the market. Slate has racked up 150,000 refundable reservations, which is an effective signal.

Manufacturing is about to start by the tip of this 12 months, and that should go off and not using a hitch too. Barman mentioned that Slate’s physique store gear is generally put in, that equipment will go into the final meeting space within the coming weeks, and that it is on the brink of construct its subsequent prototypes within the spring.

She mentioned she’s extra centered on near-term execution than any future plans. Following our interview in San Francisco, she was off to take part in cold-weather testing in Minnesota.

“2026 is vital to us, and that is what we’re staying centered on,” Barman mentioned.

Contact the writer: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com