The elimination of the electric vehicle federal tax credit may end up becoming a benefit to some of the newer players trying to compete in the market, according to the CEO of the affordable electric truck startup Slate Auto.
“It’s opened up some opportunity for us,” Chris Barman, CEO of the emerging EV company, said on stage on Tuesday at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Park City, Utah. Slate Auto had been “very focused” on making sure it could offer that rebate, she said, which required the company to meet certain mineral and manufacturing location requirements.
“What we’ve done is we’ve stepped back and surveyed multiple battery suppliers, and what we’re seeing is there are others in the industry that are pulling back as well on their EV launch plans—so it’s opening up capacity,” Barman said. “So we’re going out and seeing…taking survey on what’s there, and see what we can do to look at pricing.”
Of course, the elimination of the federal credit, which allowed buyers of qualifying new EVs to get a $7,500 tax credit, also means the Slate truck won’t look as inexpensive as it might have compared to similar sized gas-powered vehicles. The Slate truck will have a sticker price in the “mid-20s” Barman said on Tuesday, with deliveries to customers expected by the end of 2026.
Based in Troy, Mich., Slate Auto is a spin out of Re:Build, a combination investment fund and holding company dedicated to rekindling manufacturing in the U.S.
“We think a strong thriving democracy depends critically on an industrial economy. I don’t think you can have a services-only base,” said Jeff Wilke, the former Amazon worldwide consumer CEO who cofounded Re:Build during the pandemic and is its chairman.
Wilke, who spoke alongside Barman on-stage at Brainstorm Tech Tuesday, noted that the average price of a used car in the U.S. is $25,000, which will make a new Slate truck very competitive, even without the EV credit.
Slate Auto, which is also funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and General Catalyst, aims to bring modular, fully customizable electric trucks to market. The truck, which will be manufactured at a plant in Indiana beginning next year, has only around 600 parts, versus what Wilke said was typically 4,000 parts of a typical car assembly operation. The “majority” of the Slate truck’s parts will be made in the U.S., according to a Slate spokesperson.
Each Slate truck that rolls off the assembly line will be exactly the same, in slate gray color, with manual window openers, and no radio. The vehicle is intended to be a “blank slate,” that customers can customize to their tastes and specifications through a combination of Slate produced add-ons and third-party add-ons. Customers can wrap the truck’s exterior paneling in a color or print of their choosing, as well as customize lighting and tires, and even convert the two-passenger flat bed truck into a 5-person SUV.
Barman said that the company internally refers to their bare-bones truck as “FN,” which stands for “freaking nuts.”
But Barman and Wilke noted that despite the goal of creating a low-cost, customizable vehicle, the company did not want to compromise on value. To that end, the Slate will have an electronic key fob, even though an old-fashioned bladed key would have been the least expensive option. A lot of people would have felt unsafe at night with the old key, Barman said.
And after an internal debate within the company, the Slate Truck will have air conditioning, she said.
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