There’s a deliberate design simplicity to electrical truck start-up firm Slate, which is hoping to fill a spot within the American EV marketplace for one thing environmentally acutely aware and reasonably priced.
Slate may be each life-style automobile and sensible work machine
(Picture credit score: Slate)
Beginning at $20,000 for an unpainted ‘clean slate’ automobile – which explains the model’s title – the thought is to supply clients the prospect to customize by way of an enormous choice of flatpack equipment that may flip the essential and small, 4434mm (or 174.6-inch)-long two-seat pick-up right into a extra spacious five-seat boxy or fastback SUV, whereas additionally providing a choice of vinyl wrap kits straightforward sufficient for consumers to DIY-apply to personalise every automobile’s look.
The inside of the Slate truck is stripped down and easy
(Picture credit score: Slate)
However the imaginative and prescient stays easy, sturdy and low-cost. Metal reasonably than fancy alloy wheels sit beneath the physique, manually wound home windows substitute for electric-powered ones and the infotainment display is the client’s smartphone, common mount and USB port.
Slate’s minimal sprint is supplemented by the client’s smartphone – or iPad
(Picture credit score: Slate)
The usual 52.7kWh battery pack and 150kW rear-wheel drive electrical powertrain ought to be good for 150 miles earlier than recharging. However an 84.3kWh battery pack accent can present as much as 240 miles. There’s no scrimping on security although, with lively emergency braking, ahead collision warning and as much as eight airbags.
A render of the Slate electrical pick-up
(Picture credit score: Slate)
First deliveries of the Indiana, US-made full-electric truck are due on the finish of 2026 and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is without doubt one of the start-up’s massive title backers, however meantime, Wallpaper* had a chat with Slate’s head of design Tisha Johnson – a former Volvo veteran, who has additionally labored for Polestar, Herman Miller and Whirlpool – on what’s driving her staff ahead to make this reasonably priced dream occur.
Tisha Johnson, head of design at Slate
(Picture credit score: Automobile Design Occasion, Munich 2025)
Wallpaper*: What attracted you to Slate?
Tisha Johnson: I had gotten to a degree the place I used to be extra reflective about my path as a designer and what I had wished to perform when in design faculty. There was this cornerstone of why I had change into a designer within the first place: to ship an reasonably priced automobile to a market that wasn’t addressed.
My pupil contemporaries would usually give attention to luxurious or premium choices, however what reasonably priced automobiles have finished for individuals’s lives is tremendous significant, but they’re not available, definitely not within the US. In my profession I actually hadn’t addressed this essential matter so after I discovered about Slate asking these massive questions it was simply one thing I needed to do.
Slate can be a well-proportioned and easy SUV
(Picture credit score: Slate)
W*: What kind of designers are engaged on the mission?
TJ: Slate had fewer than 20 workers after I joined in December 2022. Now now we have a number of hundred, however nonetheless only a handful of designers, who got here primarily from the automotive business, together with Rivian and Ford.
Physique kinds and hues are successfully limitless
(Picture credit score: Slate)
W*: How can you provide the low $20,000 beginning value?
TJ: Slate’s manufacturing course of is about simplification, lowering complexity and, the place we are able to, leveraging off-the-shelf [parts] however at all times fascinated about affordability with excessive desirability. We noticed it will make sense to ‘delete’ a paint manufacturing facility in order that’s a large value discount.
W*: What’s your bodywork made from?
TJ: The automobile will not be fashioned of metal panels however plastic polycarbonate which is injection-moulded and capable of have color embedded.
(Picture credit score: Slate)
Extra choices from the Slate web site
(Picture credit score: Slate)
W*: How are you serving to clients wanting completely different exteriors?
TJ: With injection-moulded components it turns into considerably simpler to create ‘coach traces’ across the automobile. We create patterns and minimize wraps to pre-fit shapes that work on our automobile utilizing these ‘coach traces’ as a result of they’re an enabler for a greater end result for anyone who’s by no means wrapped a automobile earlier than. We apply that form of pondering throughout.
It is a wrap: Slate is designed for simple buyer customisation
(Picture credit score: Slate)
W*: Will you will have permitted individuals to suit equipment too?
TJ: The automobile is DIY-friendly. However for those who don’t wish to do it, we’ll have a community of service suppliers. And it’s not simply vinyl wraps, there are a ton of equipment. For example, the SUV equipment has a rear bench so the automobile can go from a two-seater to a five-seater. Or it might change into a individuals mover with an SUV high.
The Slate is a huge equipment of components
(Picture credit score: Slate)
W*: What stage is the automobile’s growth now?
TJ: We’re within the prototype section and early pre-production. We’re working to get to the top of 2026 to have our first automobile rolling off the road.
W*: How will you promote the automobile?
TJ: Direct to the patron, tremendous easy. There’s no distinctive mannequin. We would like the method to be simple for individuals to personal for a very long time and proceed to personalise to maintain particular.
The Slate electrical pick-up truck
(Picture credit score: Slate)
The Slate electrical pick-up truck in its most simple configuration
(Picture credit score: Slate)
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Supply: Wallpaper
