Preview: Bare-Bones All-Electric Slate Truck or SUV Starts Under $25,000

Although American consumers seem to vote with their wallets for big trucks and big screens, we often hear from readers who long for simpler, smaller vehicles. We’re glad to see that Slate is giving those buyers an option. The Slate will never be able to tow a horse trailer and it doesn’t offer all-wheel drive, but it’s well-suited for weekend warriors, companies that operate fleets of maintenance vehicles, and drivers looking for less-expensive new wheels. 

Whether buyers actually opt for a basic Slate over a better-equipped used car remains to be seen. Slate says it’s aiming for top safety ratings and making automatic emergency braking (AEB) standard equipment on every vehicle. However, we wish it also had blind spot warning (BSW), one of the safety systems proved to prevent crashes, especially since it seems to have very wide roof pillars.

The base Slate looks a lot like the truly compact pickup trucks that were popular in the ’70s and ’80s, like the Chevrolet LUV, Ford Courier, and Datsun 620. It’s a two-door, two-seater that’s just under 70 inches tall and just over 174 inches long—about as long as a Mini Countryman and as tall as a Ford Maverick. The bed is 5 feet long and 42.9 inches wide between the wheel wells, but at least 50 inches wide above them, so it would be possible to fit plywood or drywall with some maneuvering. There’s a 7-cubic-foot frunk for enclosed storage under the hood.

The styling is extremely basic. It comes with 17-inch steel wheels, and the only available paint color is black. There’s a lot of plastic cladding, too. It’s low to the ground, which makes for easy loading, although a lift kit is available. The 5-foot bed is longer than the bed on many current midsized trucks, which have compromised bed length for crew cab configurations. 

The Squareback is a traditional boxy SUV, the Fastback has a slanted rear window, and the Open Air kit looks like a Wrangler with the doors and roof off. Every Slate only has two doors, so passengers will have to scoot behind the front seats. There’s a front trunk, or "frunk," for storage, which comes in handy for a pickup truck.

Just as Volkswagen Beetle owners customized their cars in the ’60s and ’70s, turning them into everything from open-air dune buggies to fake Rolls-Royces, Slate has shown several unique configurations for its pickup truck. With enough money and enough accessories, you can build a low rider, a beach cruiser, a work truck, or a family hauler.

The interior is extremely spartan. You’ll be impressed by the Slate’s creature comforts only if you currently drive a delivery van for UPS or the U.S. Postal Service. There are knobs for climate control (air conditioning comes standard), crank windows, a traditional turn signal indicator, a column shifter, buttons for cruise control, and a spot to put a phone or tablet. Beneath the infotainment holder is a space for a Bluetooth speaker. The only screen is a gauge cluster with a speedometer. Thankfully, it’s behind the steering wheel and not in the center of the truck.

If you add the SUV kit, you’ll also have to add roll bars that improve strength in a crash but visibly intrude into the rear cargo space. As boxy as the Slate SUV is from the outside, the interior is a bit more curved.

A single 135-kilowatt electric motor drives the rear wheels. All-wheel drive is not an option. Towing capacity is only around 2,000 pounds, and the bed can hold about 1,550 pounds. Acceleration from 0 to 60 mph should take a respectable 8 seconds, according to the company’s estimates, and the top speed is 90 mph.

The 63-kilowatt-hour battery pack is claimed to deliver about 205 miles per charge. The Slate comes with a standard Tesla-style NACS charging port. Its maximum charging acceptance rate is only 120 kW, which is slower than many newer EVs, and the company says the battery can go from 20 percent to 80 percent charged at a DC fast charger in under 30 minutes.

Slate says its new EV is designed to achieve five-star safety ratings in NHTSA’s crash tests, which is an admirable goal. However, we’re more interested in how it performs in stricter crash tests from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Front and side curtain airbags come standard, and additional curtain airbags are included in the bolt-on SUV kit.

There’s a difference between technology that claims to make driving less stressful and technology that actually prevents crashes. We wouldn’t mind if the Slate eschewed features like lane centering or adaptive cruise control, which some of our members say can beep relentlessly or steer too aggressively.

However, other features have actually been proven to prevent crashes and injuries. We’re very glad to see that one of these features—AEB—is standard on the Slate, likely due to anticipated federal safety rules. Similarly, a mandatory backup camera is displayed on the screen behind the steering wheel. But blind spot warning is not available.

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