America's car market keeps smashing records, and not the good kind. These are not the sorts of uplifting achievements that are fun to read about in the Guinness Book. Like the world's smallest living dog (Pearl, the 3.5-inch-tall Chihuahua). Or the fastest time to eat a whole raw onion (just shy of 30 seconds, a number I've always thought I could beat if I put my mind to it). The milestones we're seeing in American car-buying today are no fun at all.
This year, the average monthly payment for a new car purchase hit a whopping $773. The typical amount financed reached $43,899. Nearly a quarter of shoppers are now signing up for 84-month-or-longer car loans. These are all all-time highs, according to Edmunds. Meanwhile, the average new car will run you close to $50,000, up about $10,000 from 2019. All the data points to the same stubborn affordability problem.
Slate Auto is betting that people are fed up enough to consider something radically different. On Wednesday, the Michigan-based EV startup revealed the final pricing and specifications of its first model, a staggeringly basic pickup truck shipping later this year. At $24,950, the Slate will be both the country's cheapest new electric vehicle and its lowest-priced pickup. But will it be an automatic slam dunk? Featuring crank-up windows, modest electric range, and virtually limitless customization options, the vehicle will test just how far outside of their comfort zone Americans are willing to go in the name of a cheaper set of wheels.
View Price on AmazonFull disclosure: Slate covered my travel to a media event in LA so I could check out the truck in person.
"Slate is making a $25,000 bet that drivers still want something simple," said Ivan Drury, Edmunds' director of insights. "Our data show the market quietly walked away from that price years ago, so this is a real test of how much affordability still matters to today's buyers."
That base price buys you what the company calls the Blank Slate, a stubby pickup with two doors, two seats, steel wheels, and, well, not a whole lot else. There is no touchscreen, no radio, no speakers, and not even paint. Every Slate comes from the factory in Indiana with the same gray hue, which is dyed into its plastic body panels.
The Slate is also far punier than today's usual steroid-injected truck, in a good way, I think. At 174.6 inches long, it's about two feet shorter than a Ford Maverick, the current short king of the pickup world. Still, it packs a five-foot bed and a spacious 7.0-cubic-foot trunk under the hood.
I spent some time poking around the Blank Slate at an event the automaker hosted this week, and I found it refreshingly basic and petite. Yes, there's a lot of hard gray plastic everywhere, but there's also a satisfying simplicity and authenticity to it all. It's not trying to be more than it is. And while it's no F-150, I'm a little over 6 feet tall and had plenty of headroom and legroom. Will others be just as charmed? Time will tell.
The Slate seems plenty competent on the road too, based on a brief test ride I took with one of the automaker's engineers. It felt quick and punchy zipping around LA's streets, with lots of low-end torque. Of course, the Slate shares that quality with most EVs. But I was still pleasantly surprised given the pickup's price and modest 181 horsepower from a rear-mounted motor. Ride quality was solid too—a little firm at times, but still wholly comfortable on LA's, shall we say, inconsistent roads. I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of fun ripping around in this thing, especially if they're coming from a gas vehicle.
How people react to the range on tap will also help decide the Slate's fate. A 65-kilowatt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery delivers an estimated 205 miles on a charge, which should be plenty for most daily driving needs. But it's worth noting that this range estimate is based on the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) test cycle, and real-world results may vary.
Source: insideevs.com
