Autobayng News Team
Slate Auto’s big bet is that Americans, fed up with overly complicated, $50,000 vehicles, are clamoring for a more basic and affordable way to get around. The culmination of that theory is the Slate truck, a two-door electric pickup with manual windows, no radio and 150 miles of driving range—plus hundreds of customization options to spruce things up.
Whether or not buyers will bite hinges on the Slate truck’s ultimate price tag—and that’s still a question mark. The company itself still hasn’t landed on a number as it works to deliver a lower price, Slate CEO Chris Barman told InsideEVs in an interview on Tuesday. The Slate truck is extremely basic in its Blank Slate configuration. Photo by: InsideEVs
“We’re still having discussions on that,” she said on the sidelines of the BloombergNEF Summit in San Francisco. “We’re still working really closely with our suppliers to see what opportunities we have to continue to bring costs down, to see what we can do to pass along to the customer before we announce final pricing.”
The company says it’s targeting a “mid-twenties” price for the Blank Slate, its name for a truck without any accessories. When Slate first came out of stealth in April of last year, it pitched a price of under $20,000 after federal incentives. That suggested a maximum MSRP of $27,499, since the EV tax credit (RIP) was worth $7,500.
Slate expects a starting price in the mid-$20,000 range. But it hasn’t settled on a final number.
Photo by: Slate
Add-ons will also factor into the final price for a Slate. They include vinyl wraps, new wheels and—the Slate’s signature offering—a kit that transforms it into a five-seat SUV. Barman has said that will cost around $5,000. The price of a larger battery that boosts range to 240 miles is also still TBD, Barman said.
Slate’s CEO told InsideEVs the truck’s price is going to be a key topic at a gathering of Slate’s suppliers scheduled for next week. 
“A big part of that is going to be talking about, are there more opportunities for cost reduction? And the way we’re looking at that is we want to pass it on to the customer,” she said.
Slate plans to kick off production of its debut truck at a former printing plant in Indiana by the end of this year. And even with some question marks remaining, there’s clearly a great deal of interest in what Slate is building; the company said in December that it had logged over 150,000 refundable reservations.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com More EV News We want your opinion! What would you like to see on Insideevs.com? – The InsideEVs team
