WRITTEN BY ALEX HALVERSON – The Seattle Times (TNS)
An electric truck maker with deep Amazon roots is going to try and shake up the market next year.
Electric vehicle startup Slate, which emerged from stealth mode this week, announced on Thursday it had developed a light-duty truck that was both high-tech and simple. It’s a customizable electric truck without power windows.
The price comes with a small caveat. With an electric vehicle tax credit, Slate expects it to come under $20,000.
“The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” Slate CEO Chris Barman said in a news release. “Slate exists to put the power back in the hands of customers who have been ignored by the auto industry. Slate is a radical truck platform so customizable that it can transform from a 2-seat pickup to a 5-seat SUV.”
A regulatory filing from 2023, first reported on by TechCrunch, shows the company raised $111 million for the project under the name Re:Car Inc. The project was spun out of Re:Build Manufacturing, an incubator for new-age industrial companies.
Re:Build is chaired by Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s longtime retail CEO who retired in January 2021. Wilke was listed as a director for the Slate project’s funding round in 2023 along with Melissa Lewison, who heads Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ family office.
Wilke spent 22 years with Amazon, helping the company build its logistics empire. In what was a nod to his industrial roots, Wilke was well known for wearing a flannel shirt during the fourth quarter of every year — Amazon’s busy holiday shopping season. His companywide memo in August 2020 announcing his decision to step away was titled “Hanging up the flannel.”
In a departure from modern vehicles, both electric and gas-powered, Slate is marketing the truck as “radically simple.” Aside from a base model offering crank windows, it also eschews a screen installed in the dash.
“Rather than learn a new interface, use the one you love,” the news release said. “Add a dedicated tablet if you want to.”
The company projects 150-mile range on a full charge with an optional battery pack that could go as high as 240 miles. Slate doesn’t expect to deliver vehicles until late 2026.
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