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Perhaps you've heard of a no-frill supermarket
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If you happen to be shopping for a new truck and are in the market for an electric vehicle at the same time
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a company backed by one of the richest men has come out with an inexpensive option
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Slate Auto, an EV startup funded partially by Jeff Bezos, has unveiled its first pickup truck
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It has a boxy exterior that Engadget calls a K-like truck, meaning a small, lightweight vehicle with very few features
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In other words, a base or bare bones model. The company calls it a plug and play
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The Slate pickup has two seats, a truck bed about the size of a piece of plywood
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body panels made of plastic, and one color, gray. By comparison, it is about two feet shorter than the shortest Ford truck, the Maverick, introduced in 2022
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The good news is there appears to be less chance of distracted driving than your typical truck
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There is no stereo or touchscreen up front, just a phone mount and USB port
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The list price is that with a government tax credit for buying an electric vehicle brings the price down to an even or what the company told ABC News is quote a radically affordable and customizable vehicle By comparison Cox Automotive says the average
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price for an electric vehicle in March was a bit more than $59,000. A promotional video released
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by Slate actually promotes what the Slate pickup does not have. It boasts no fancy screens
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colored seats, cooled seats, self-driving, self-parking, or even automatic cup holders. However, Slate, like a restaurant menu, offers customers a chance to add-on amenities
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such as screens, open air kits, speakers, a spare tire holder, and you can wrap it in any color
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Here's another catch or attraction. You can buy an accessory that turns it into an SUV
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The added features will raise the price by about $10,000, and the motto is
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We built it, you make it. Or as CEO Chris Barman says in the video, it's like a potato head, as in Mr. Potato Head, the children's toy
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In other words, once you have the main body, then you can add the parts
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Production of the Slate Pickup is set to begin in late 2026
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For Unbiased Updates, I'm Craig DeGrelli
