- Slate plans to sell a single vehicle (albeit in countless customization combinations) but it will likely need more to survive.
- The company intends to ramp up production to 150,000 vehicles annually.
- Our exclusive rendering depicts a four-door Slate wagon with a stretched wheelbase and longer body to anticipate what’s next for the company.
The Slate electric truck makes a lot of sense as a second car for people who want a cheap, no-frills EV. However, even with a plethora of customization options including a small five-seat SUV add-on, the vehicle’s scope is ultimately limited by its compact size and capabilities. With a wheelbase shorter than a current BMW 3 Series, you will never be able to fit more than five people inside a Slate (or six, if the manufacturer comes out with a front bench seat).
Offering the Slate with a stretched wheelbase and two more doors would greatly expand the spectrum of potential body styles (and the buyers they could bring in). It could be made into a crew cab pickup, a sedan and even a wagon. The latter is what I quickly made to illustrate what a stretched Slate wagon could look like, and, for me, it’s considerably more appealing than the two- or three-door.
The vehicle in the rendering features a wheelbase stretched by about eight inches, and I’ve also lowered the entire body by about three inches to make it more like a traditional wagon (albeit lifted) instead of an SUV. It still has a rugged, outdoorsy look, but it is far more practical with three rows of seats and/or a big trunk.
We don’t know if Slate’s platform can be extended to accommodate a longer body, but the company has likely thought of this and future-proofed the architecture to make it suitable for more uses. You can only order the Slate truck today with a single rear-mounted motor, but there’s definitely space on the front axle for a second drive unit that would make it all-wheel drive.
Slate hasn’t said anything about dual motors yet, but all-wheel drive is a feature many buyers look for, and it would increase the truck’s off-road capability. It would also make sense for Slate to offer a lower-slung body that would reduce the vehicle’s air resistance, thus increasing its range. That was part of my thought process for lowering it.
Stretching the wheelbase would also allow the manufacturer to add a larger battery pack with more capacity and increased range. Right now, the optional 84.3 kilowatt-hour pack is expected to get a 240-mile EPA range rating. That’s pretty good, but it’s another potentially limiting factor for the truck’s usefulness.
A bigger truck would be more expensive, but I bet even a three-row wagon like this wouldn’t be much more than $35,000 before any incentives were applied, even with a bigger battery. That said, Slate’s current two-door truck won’t start production until late 2026. That’s a lot of time for markets to change. Achieving its planned $20,000 starting price (with tax incentives) could be tricky.
But as far as startups go, Slate seems to have a solid plan in place. Several prototypes have already been built, and it will make production models in a repurposed factory in Indiana. Once up to speed, the company hopes to build 150,000 vehicles annually. That’s a lofty goal, which makes our proposed four-door version even more relevant to the cause.
