Can Slate's $24,950 electric pickup truck win over EV skeptics?

Slate Auto is aiming to execute what Ford Motor couldn't — to get drivers to swap their gasoline-powered pickups for an electrical truck.

Slate connected Wednesday began taking $300 preorders for its basal $24,950 electrical pickup truck, a terms that is little than fractional the roughly $57,000 average outgo of a caller electrical conveyance and good beneath the mean $49,000 terms of a caller car. 

Deliveries of the Slate motortruck are expected successful precocious 2026.

EVs person had a rocky clip successful caller years, with request dropping aft a taxation subsidy for electrical vehicles ended successful 2025, prompting much consumers to opt for lower-priced fuel-injected cars. 

In December, Ford ended production of the electrical mentation of its fashionable F-150 pickup truck, with CEO Jim Farley saying it didn't marque consciousness to proceed investing successful a merchandise that wasn't profitable.

Slate, which besides makes an electrical SUV, is betting that its debased terms constituent tin triumph implicit EV skeptics.

"A Slate Truck is $24,950. Because America asked for an affordable caller truck," the institution said Wednesday connected societal media. 

Startup automaker Slate, backed by Amazon laminitis Jeff Bezos, is present beryllium taking preorders for its $24,950 electrical pickup truck. Slate

Still, the Slate Truck is apt to look superior hurdles. For an EV, its driving scope is comparatively short, astatine 205 miles, which could deter immoderate customers astatine a clip erstwhile different electrical cars connected the marketplace connection acold greater range. The motortruck besides has a towing capableness of 1,000 pounds, acold little than that of different pickup trucks.

The Slate Truck "is a existent trial of however overmuch affordability inactive matters to today's buyers," said Ivan Drury, Edmunds' manager of insights, successful an email. "The basal pricing is the headline, but the entry-level terms constituent is paired with an unconventional physique and a powertrain that is proven harder to merchantability today."

Drury added, "The existent question is whether the enticing terms unsocial tin flooded that." 

Edited by Alain Sherter

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• Electric Vehicles