Jeff Bezos-Backed Slate EV Pickup Goes on Sale — Half the Price of a Typical New Truck

A $25,000 new truck sounds like a headline from 20 years ago — but it's happening right now, and it's electric.

Slate Auto, a startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, just opened preorders for its bare-bones electric pickup truck at $24,950. To put that in perspective: the average new car in America runs about $49,000, and the average new EV costs around $57,000. So yes — this thing is priced at roughly half of what you'd normally pay.

Here's the catch: "bare-bones" is not a metaphor. The Slate truck comes with hand-crank windows, no radio, no infotainment screen, and one color option — gray. You get a phone mount instead of a built-in nav system, and the body panels are injection-molded plastic rather than painted metal. That's how Slate keeps the sticker price so low — the company doesn't even have a paint shop or metal-stamping plant, which are two of the most expensive things any automaker can own. The truck has about 800 individual parts, compared to 2,000+ in a similarly-sized conventional pickup.

That said, it's not completely spartan. You get air conditioning, automatic emergency braking, and access to Tesla's 29,000+ Supercharger network. The estimated range is 205 miles — not class-leading, but enough for most daily driving. Towing is rated at 2,000 pounds and payload at 1,550 pounds. It won't haul a boat, but it can handle a weekend's worth of lumber or camping gear.

Want more? That's kind of the whole point. Slate sells more than 175 accessories — roof racks, stereos, seat covers, colored wraps — most of them under $500. You can even convert the two-seat pickup into a five-seat SUV for around $5,000 extra. The SUV version starts at $29,950 if you want it pre-configured. The "build it your way" idea is the core of Slate's business model — and likely where they plan to make most of their profit.

Preorders are now open at a $300 deposit (or $250 if you already put down the earlier $50 reservation). Deliveries are expected in late 2026. The trucks will be assembled in Warsaw, Indiana, where Slate says it's investing nearly $400 million and creating over 2,000 jobs.

Now, here's the context that matters: the EV market is rough right now. New EV sales fell 27% year-over-year in early 2026, largely because the $7,500 federal EV tax credit was eliminated. Ford actually killed off the electric F-150 last December. Slate is betting that making EVs dramatically cheaper is the way to break through where others have failed.

The big open question is whether affordability alone will be enough. Industry analysts are cautiously optimistic but point out that the truck's unconventional design and limited range are real headwinds. More than 180,000 people have put down deposits — but as the history of EV reservations shows, soft commitments don't always turn into sales.