In an echoing Long Beach studio, an ambitious team of designers is trying to reinvent how electric vehicles are made.
Slate Auto has assembled a team of EV engineers from Tesla, Rivian and elsewhere to develop America’s least-expensive EV truck. In the warehouse space near construction supply shops and a Western-themed bar, designers have built clay models and prototypes of a customizable EV truck that could cost half as much as the competition.
The company, which has raised more than $700 million from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and others, says it will have a truck on the market next year for roughly $25,000.
Various customization options for the Slate truck are shown.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
How does it plan to keep its sticker price so low?
Buyers will start with a blank slate — a basic truck without power windows or even paint — and can then customize it however they like.
They can pay extra for power windows, speakers, colored wrap or paint. A $5,000 kit even converts the truck into an SUV.
Squeezing out as much cost as possible while making it as easy as Legos to snap on different options has required complex engineering, which is why the company decided to set up its design studio in Southern California.
The region is full of experts.
Although Slate’s headquarters is in Troy, Mich., and its vehicles will be manufactured in Indiana, much of how they will look and be assembled came together in the Los Angeles area, said Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s chief commercial officer.
“The design presence on the West Coast, specifically in Los Angeles, has been a huge part of the automotive industry for a very long time,” he said. “Having that pool of talent that resides here was super important.”
A Slate SUV is among of the configurations available.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
If the idea clicks with enough consumers, company executives are hopeful that their unique business model will bolster widespread EV adoption.
Skeptics say it has yet to be proved that American consumers really want a vehicle broken down to the basics, but thousands of potential EV owners already have shown interest.
More than 150,000 potential buyers put down $50 deposits to reserve their place in line to buy the truck once it is on the market.
A large slice of that demand is coming from Los Angeles, Snyder said.
“Los Angeles has played such a critical role in the zero-emissions auto industry,” he said. “I think that it is going to play a very important role in the roll-out of Slate vehicles.”
The company’s first deliveries are expected in late 2026.
Slate is entering the EV market at a difficult moment, as demand for green cars has cooled under the Trump administration. The president ended many tax breaks and regulations that were created to nudge more consumers and companies into EVs.
Slate is an EV startup that makes electric trucks and SUVs, where customers buy only the features they want. A manual window crank comes standard in the Slate truck. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The EV company Rivian laid off more than 600 workers in October, and Tesla sales have slid this year.
Tesla has shown how tough it is to build a business around an affordable EV by putting its own affordable vehicle plans on the back burner.
These days, Elon Musk seems more focused on developing humanoid robots for the masses than on an affordable EV.
Slate thinks that for a radically reduced price, there will be demand. It is imagining that there are customers who don’t need four doors, the size or the power of a standard truck or the autonomous driving tech of a Tesla.
Slate’s big bet is that a radically reduced sticker price and a new kind of business model can rekindle excitement about the industry. The company is hoping that customers will be thrilled to save the money and then splurge only on the features they want.
“We’re going to make the truck, and then after that, you make it yours,” said Slate’s head of communications, Jeff Jablansky.
Slate trucks have a steel frame and external plastic panels that can be wrapped in any color. If customers want to paint their vehicle, they can do it themselves or take it to a partner shop.
The standard version will have an electric range of 150 miles. That can be increased to 240 miles by paying more for a bigger battery.
And those are some of the most obvious options.
Slate’s online customization tool gives customers the freedom to design their EV however they want. Jablansky said potential customers have created more than 10 million different configurations of a Slate truck online.
Slate hopes that if it can make EVs more affordable to buy, a new group of consumers will get to experience that EVs also often cost less to own and maintain.
“The entire company was built around this idea of the affordable vehicle,” Snyder said. “We scrutinize every accessory in the same way that we scrutinize the vehicle to keep prices as low as possible.”
Slate trucks have a steel frame and external plastic panels that can be wrapped in any color. If customers want to paint their vehicle, they can do it themselves or take it to a partner shop.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Although only about 25 of Slate’s 500 employees work out of the Long Beach studio, it has a disproportionate effect on the company’s product.
To trailblaze and succeed in the harsh EV market, the company decided it needed a presence in California, as well as near the traditional heart of car building in and around Detroit.
“We knew we needed to have a presence in both places to really understand what people wanted,” Jablansky said. “Some companies say they’re a California company, some say they’re a Detroit company. We need to be an American company.”
