Slate Auto, the EV startup sponsored via Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has raised $650 million in a Sequence C investment spherical that may lend a hand release its inexpensive, modular pickup truck in past due 2026.
TWG International, a conglomerate co-run via Los Angeles Dodgers proprietor Mark Walter and previous Mythical Leisure leader Thomas Tull, led the spherical. Slate has raised about $1.4 billion because it used to be based in 2022, together with from Jeff Bezos’ personal place of job, former Amazon Senior VP Diego Placentini, and undertaking capital giants like Slauson & Co. and Common Catalyst.
Slate additionally has former Amazon executives in its management, together with new CEO Peter Faricy (previously Amazon’s Market VP) and co-founder Jeff Wilke (in the past Amazon’s client department leader).
What’s the Slate truck
Low-price pickup comes as affordable EVs appear out of succeed in
Slate is launching with only one car: a stripped-down electrical pickup truck whose modular design means that you can select how a lot you if truth be told want.
You’ll acquire SUV, fastback SUV, and “outdoors” kits if you wish to have rear seating, and insert a pill mount or audio system if you wish to use greater than the device show and your telephone. Fairly than portray each and every truck, Slate gives wraps that allow you to choose between quite a lot of colours for the frame and roof.
The minimalist means is helping stay the associated fee down, with Slate making plans to show a worth in June that it says will have to sit down within the “mid-$20,000s.” The usual SUV equipment will have to price about $5,000.
Production will get started at a repurposed printing manufacturing unit in Warsaw, Indiana, giving it the similar made-in-The usa declare as fellow EV learners like Rivian and VW’s Scout Motors.
Essentially the most inexpensive EV that delivers 300 miles on a unmarried rate
Say good-bye to fluctuate nervousness — 300 miles comes same old right here.
Slate objectives to stick inexpensive
Shopper passion is robust
The debut comes at a a very powerful second. EV gross sales are shedding sharply within the U.S. for many manufacturers out of doors of Tesla, due in large part to the government finishing its $7,500 tax credit score. As many EVs are mid-range or luxurious fashions, the verdict has made electrical vehicles not possible for some patrons.
The Slate truck probably avoids this downside with a beginning charge low sufficient to stay inexpensive, even with the add-ons essential to check typical cars. Early passion has been robust with the corporate recording over 160,000 reservations as of April 2026, even supposing the ones shoppers are not obliged to shop for the truck when pre-orders start.
What the long run might cling
Slate is not assured to prevail even after the Sequence C investment spherical and Jeff Bezos’ involvement. A couple of high-profile EV corporations have failed, together with the revived Fisker, Detroit Electrical, and Lordstown Motors. In contrast to the ones manufacturers, then again, Slate has each in point of fact distinctive promoting issues and backers which might be much more likely to stick although the release is not a direct luck.
