A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

Slate is financially backed by Bezos [1] and Eric Schmidt [2] so it's not like they're going to run out of money unless they choose to do so. And it's staffed by a bunch of Detroit automotive engineers, so it's not like they're going to be surprised to learn that building and selling automobiles is harder than launching a CRUD app or SAAS.

I do expect a steep price jump when they realize that all this customization (especially post-purchase) makes crash testing really difficult and expensive, $20k is not going to happen but hopefully it will be under $30k MSRP and under $40k with typical options, at least targeting a different market than Rivian.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/inside-the-ev-startup-secr...

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/91322801/bezos-backed-slate-auto...

Why would post-purchase customization be crash-tested at all? It’s not currently. If I buy an F-150 and jack it up, it’s not Ford’s responsibility to crash-test my work. Even if I use genuine Ford parts I buy from Ford.

Being backed by Bezos and the appearance of infinite funding isn't necessarily a good thing. You need someone at the helm that is driven and in control. Don't know who's running the company or if they have the proper mentality to get through production issues, but it's certainly not Bezos.

Either way, I'm rooting for their success. The low end car market is pretty much non-existent. I've heard people blame the cash for clunkers program that got rid of a ton of low end supply in 2009, but haven't looked into it too much.

"Slate is financially backed by Bezos"

This is too bad. I'm not buying anything from people who showed up January 20th. It hasn't been difficult. And luckily there is plenty of competition in the electric car space.

If they get somebody else at the helm (not Elon), I'll root for them like crazy.