Slate Auto, a start-up backed by Jeff Bezos, plans to sell a small, spartan electric truck that comes with no paint, stereo or touch-screens.
When Slate Auto, a start-up, unveiled a roughly $25,000 electric pickup truck last month, social media lit up with comments. Many people saw the no-frills vehicle, with an easy-to-repair body and nostalgic hand crank windows, as a refreshing antidote to today’s overstuffed and increasingly unaffordable cars.
How unaffordable? Average monthly payments on new cars have soared to $739 in March from $537 in January 2019, according to Cox Automotive. The average new car costs $47,400, with electric models around $59,200. High interest rates, now around 9.4 percent for a 72-month loan, have made cars even more of a financial stretch.
“Prices and interest rates are both high and stuck,” said Mark Schirmer, director of industry insights for Cox Automotive. “If you haven’t been in the market since 2018, it’s got to be shocking what a car costs.”
President Trump’s tariffs of 25 percent on imported cars and parts have consumers scrambling to buy before prices rise even more. Cars that cost less than $30,000 are especially vulnerable — nearly 80 percent of those are subject to tariffs. They include consumer staples like the American-made Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, which rely on imported parts. Supplies of budget models are expected to shrink, and automakers may stop importing certain models entirely.
Enter Slate, a company based in the Detroit suburbs backed by venture capital firms and Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder.
Chris Barman, a former Fiat Chrysler engineer and Slate’s chief executive, said the Slate Truck was expressly designed to ease sticker shock, although it won’t be available until late 2026. The company plans to produce the pint-size truck at a retrofitted printing plant in Indiana, with a capacity for 150,000 a year.