I drove the Slate Truck — there’s more to it than EV minimalism

With its new pickup, Slate Auto is making a simple bet: price matters more than almost anything else. The company announced today that the American-made electric truck will start at $24,950, placing it squarely in the mid-$20,000 price range it had originally promised and making it the least expensive pickup truck and EV available today. At a time when the average new vehicle costs nearly twice that amount, Slate is pitching something that has become increasingly rare in the modern auto market: a genuinely basic new vehicle that doesn’t look that way.

To hit that price point, Slate stripped away features many drivers now take for granted. The truck doesn’t come with a touchscreen, stereo, or even speakers. Instead, it includes a dash mount for your phone. The windows use manual hand cranks. And unlike many new vehicles marketed around increasingly autonomous features, a Slate requires you to do all the driving yourself.

The timing may be right. The average new vehicle sold for $49,220 in May, according to data from Cox Automotive — a price that’s been heading ever upward. Small and midsize pickups averaged $43,044, while new EVs averaged $54,532. Slate’s truck is even cheaper than the average used vehicle, which goes for $26,918. Its closest pickup competitor, the Ford Maverick, starts at around $30,000, while the Chevrolet Bolt EV begins at roughly $29,000.

For decades, automakers have competed to add more features, bigger screens, and increasingly sophisticated software. Slate is doing the opposite. The company believes at least some buyers would rather have a cheaper truck than a premium sound system, massive infotainment display, or suite of driver-assistance technologies. I recently drove the truck in Southern California. While its lack of a touchscreen and roll-up windows attract the most attention, the more surprising part is how normal the vehicle feels on the road.

The vehicle runs counter to a broader trend in the auto industry sometimes referred to as “trimflation” — the push to increase margins by bundling vehicles with more technology and luxury features. As infotainment systems have grown larger and software has become a bigger selling point, truly bare-bones vehicles have become increasingly difficult to find.

In some ways, Slate is reviving a segment of the market that largely disappeared. For decades, compact pickups such as the Toyota Pickup, Ford Ranger, and Nissan Hardbody served as inexpensive, utilitarian vehicles for young buyers, tradespeople, and anyone who simply needed a truck. But as automakers chased higher margins, pickups grew larger, more luxurious, and substantially more expensive. Today, even many entry-level trucks come loaded with luxuries. Slate is betting there is still demand for a truck that prioritizes affordability over amenities.

That’s not to say buyers can’t customize the vehicle. Slate offers more than 200 accessories, ranging from speakers and seat covers to roof racks and trailer hitches. Eighty percent of them cost under $500. For roughly $5,000, owners can even convert the two-seat pickup into a five-seat SUV. The variety of accessories makes it possible for one Slate to look markedly different from the next.

Slate wants to sell a simple base product and let customers decide which upgrades are worth paying for. The company is also encouraging a do-it-yourself approach as a way to keep costs down. Customers can install wraps, interior accents, lighting upgrades, and other accessories themselves using online video tutorials it’s branding as “Slate U,” or have many upgrades installed for them through a network of more than 3,000 RepairPal-affiliated shops. The car is sold direct-to-consumer, with a fixed manufacturer-set price rather than dealer-negotiated pricing.

For around $500, buyers can add one of the company’s vinyl wraps, dramatically changing the appearance of the vehicle without the cost of a custom paint job. Other accessories, including headlight covers, interior trim pieces, and trailer hitches, are priced closer to what consumers might expect to pay for aftermarket upgrades than factory-installed options.

The nuts and bolts are there, too. Slate’s battery and powertrain warranty runs 10 years or 110,000 miles, putting it at the higher end of the industry standard. It’s engineered for a five-star safety rating and Top Safety Pick. The truck also includes air conditioning, power locks, old-school cruise control, and a back-up camera, suggesting not everything was deemed expendable in the pursuit of affordability. It also has a frunk with a drain in the front for added storage or a makeshift cooler just because.

Whether Slate’s strategy succeeds depends on a simple question: Have automakers spent years adding features consumers don’t value as much as they value lower prices? The signs are encouraging.

According to Deloitte’s 2026 Global Automotive Consumer Study, the most important factors influencing Americans’ choice of a new vehicle brand are quality (58 percent), performance (51 percent), and price (46 percent). Other considerations, including brand familiarity and feature sets, rank much lower. When it comes to the purchase process itself, consumers place an even greater emphasis on value, with nearly two-thirds saying getting a good deal is a top priority.

Slate’s philosophy is reflected in who it believes its customer will be.

Chris Barman, Slate’s President of Vehicles, described the target buyer to me as an “everyday American” looking for value rather than luxury. Many prospective customers, she said, have continued driving older vehicles not because they dislike new cars, but because they have been priced out of the market. Others already rely on their smartphones for navigation, music, and communication, making the absence of a built-in infotainment system less of a sacrifice than it might have seemed a decade ago. “It’s an ecosystem they already know, so they don’t have to learn anything new,” she said. “Why pay for a second screen that’s embedded in the car?”

The truck itself feels surprisingly coherent once you spend time around it. Rather than feeling cheap, it feels intentionally minimal. In both pickup and SUV configurations, its boxy proportions and simple lines evoke the compact trucks and utility vehicles that were common on American roads before pickups ballooned in size and price.

I drove the truck with Barman in the passenger seat around Gardena, California, near the company’s new design studio. On the road, it felt much more like a compact crossover than a traditional pickup truck. In other words, it was closer to my new hybrid Honda CR-V than my aging Toyota Tundra.

Part of that comes from the vehicle’s electric architecture. Despite being rear-wheel drive, the battery pack helps distribute weight more evenly than in front-heavy gas trucks. The result is a vehicle that feels planted and predictable rather than cumbersome.

The performance won’t challenge a Tesla, but it doesn’t need to. The truck accelerates from 0 to 30 mph in about three seconds and reaches 60 mph in roughly eight. For someone used to gas cars, it feels exceptionally peppy. Its turning radius felt tight, visibility was good, and the relatively short wheelbase made it easy to maneuver. Parallel parking didn’t feel like the logistical exercise it can be in many larger, modern pickups.

The hauling capabilities also came in ahead of the company’s earlier projections. The truck can carry up to 1,550 pounds of payload and tow as much as 2,000 pounds. That’s enough for landscaping materials, furniture runs, motorcycles, small utility trailers, or a modest fishing boat. It won’t replace a heavy-duty work truck, but Slate isn’t trying to compete for those customers.

The vehicle’s estimated range is 205 miles, an improvement over the company’s initial 150-mile target but still below what buyers will find in many higher-end EVs. Charging can be done through a standard household outlet, a Level 2 charger, or a DC fast charger capable of adding substantial range in about 30 minutes.

So far, consumers appear interested in the experiment. Slate says it has accumulated roughly 180,000 reservations ahead of production, which is scheduled to begin at the company’s Warsaw, Indiana, factory before customer deliveries start in the fourth quarter. The company expects annual production to reach 150,000 vehicles by the end of 2027.

Whether those reservations ultimately turn into sales remains to be seen. But with new vehicle prices hovering near $50,000 and automakers continuing to load cars with screens, sensors, subscriptions, and software, Slate is testing a surprisingly simple idea: maybe what many Americans want most isn’t more technology. Maybe it’s a new vehicle they can actually afford.

Photography by Rani Molla