Slate is the proper EV pickup truck for PC builders like me

PCWorld isn’t a web site about automobiles or vans, so I thank my editor and also you for indulging me on this story. To be clear, I’m a Texan who’s been raging at gigantic 20-foot-long F-150 pavement princesses for a greater than a decade now—and but, my desktop PC-building coronary heart goes thump-thump-thump for the Slate electrical pickup truck.

Slate is an American electrical automobile (EV) startup, and it’s removed from the one one. We’ve seen nearly each firm that attempted to observe within the footsteps of Tesla stumble and fall, coping with the realities of a massively aggressive market that’s very troublesome to interrupt into. However Slate has the attention of the car-buying press as a result of it’s taking pictures for a small, low-cost pickup truck, one thing that American patrons have been desperately lacking for a very long time. It in all probability doesn’t damage that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a high-profile investor—that’ll get you some headlines.

The Slate pickup, with a reputation the identical as the corporate, is aiming low. And I imply actually low. The bottom mannequin is anticipated to debut at $27,500 or so when it hits the streets in 2026, which might make it $20,000 if the US federal EV tax credit score holds. (That appears fairly optimistic at this level.) However even with out the credit score, it might be cheaper than the Ford Maverick, the least costly pickup truck on the US market proper now. (Miss me with the “it’s not a truck” arguments. Once more, the positioning is known as PCWorld.) And it might be the most cost effective electrical pickup by far, with the F-150 Lightning beginning at round $50,000.

How does Slate plan to do that? Properly, once more, it’s a really small pickup truck. By size it’s shorter than the Maverick, solely slightly longer than the 2-door Jeep Wrangler. That is the sort of teeny pickup People haven’t seen for the reason that 80s, and lovers have even taken to importing teeny-tiny “Kei vans” to get their repair when all they’ll purchase at sellers are large gasoline guzzlers. Slate is properly conscious of this gap available in the market and leaning into it, combining it with electrical guts for optimum attraction to small truck followers, tech nerds, and those that simply need one thing reasonably priced.

However Slate is greater than only a title. It’s a philosophy. See, the Slate is sort of just like the truck model of an ATX desktop or a Framework laptop computer. While you purchase the bottom mannequin, it’s certainly a base mannequin. It has handbook, wind-up, wind-down home windows. It has no inside leisure system and no audio system. It solely has a tiny LCD display screen for the speedometer and instrument cluster. It does have a telephone holder, as a result of it expects you to navigate and get your tunes from the telephone in your pocket. This factor doesn’t even have paint—it solely is available in slate grey (ha) and can wrap its massive, flat exterior panels in order for you one thing else.

There’s the rub. Slate is each rejecting the automotive pattern of upselling you tons and tons of extras, and embracing customization choices on the identical time. You may configure the Slate in near-endless methods. You may add a rear roof and an additional row of seats to make it an SUV. You may order a raise equipment to make it extra succesful off-road (although sadly there’s no AWD or 4×4 possibility at launch). You may add further vary with a much bigger battery. You may add in all the additional little creature comforts within the exterior that’ll deliver it as much as trendy requirements, together with audio system and energy home windows.

And right here’s the essential factor that will get me excited: you may add all of those parts to the truck your self. Slate will promote the components on to you and provide you with movies on methods to set up them. Whereas this was typically an possibility for contemporary automobiles, it’s removed from straightforward, and loads of installations require some superior data or instruments. Slate plans to make it straightforward for anybody with a primary residence software field and entry to YouTube, and it’s calling the educational movies “Slate College.”

Slate

Whereas Slate will probably be comfortable to promote you all these customizations pre-installed, you too can purchase them and set up them your self at any time, even swapping them out to reconfigure the truck for particular functions. All of a sudden bought a brand new member of the family and want an additional row of seats? Simply order the SUV equipment and get away the ratchet set. And because it’s all designed to be as accessible as potential, even for non-greasemonkeys, I think about that the aftermarket components makers (particularly these which are already promoting gear for pickup vans and Jeeps) are going to have a feeding frenzy.

Once more, the variability and invitation to tinker remind me of the wide-open potentialities when constructing a desktop PC. And this “customise it nonetheless you need” strategy is just about precisely what Framework is doing with its wonderful laptops, proper all the way down to the modular USB-C ports that may be swapped nearly immediately. Granted, shifting a bog-standard Slate pickup to a full SUV would take much more effort and time. But it surely wouldn’t make a journey to the dealership, and that’s the attraction for me.

Slate

Slate is at present taking reservations for its preliminary deliveries, deliberate for late 2026. A refundable $50 deposit saves your spot, and within the meantime you should utilize Slate’s very enjoyable customization software to tweak your little dream electrical truck to your coronary heart’s need.

There’s loads that may occur within the subsequent yr and alter—simply ask anybody who’s attempting to run a US-based PC enterprise proper now. I wouldn’t wager greater than fifty bucks on Slate making that timeline within the present chaos, or retaining to that low beginning value. However for the primary time in a very long time, a brand new automotive has me genuinely excited. Simply get me that AWD possibility earlier than too lengthy, please, as a result of a rear-wheel drive pickup just isn’t going to rise up a gravel driveway in 5 inches of snow.