Slate crosses 150,000 reservations despite waning EV truck enthusiasm
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Slate Auto, the electric truck startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has now collected more than 150,000 refundable reservations for its low-cost EV due out at the end of 2026. The company shared the figure in a new Q&A video with CEO Chris Barman, where she answers questions from those reservation holders about the company’s plans for self-driving (there are none), or whether owners will be able to affix a car seat to the optional rear seats (they will). Reservations are a somewhat helpful metric for gauging general interest in a new car, but they are by no means a signal of sure success. Time and again over the last few years, we have seen EV companies tout reservation figures only to go bust, either because they weren’t able to get through the difficult process of standing up production, or because they weren’t ready to have cars on the road. For Slate, it’s promising that the number has continued to climb, meaning that new reservations are coming in faster than any attrition the company might be seeing. That said, Slate crossed the 100,000 reservation mark all the way back in May, right after it came out of stealth, so it took a good seven months to grow the list by 50%. And looking forward, Slate plans to make 150,000 of these EVs per year at the factory it’s refurbishing in Warsaw, Indiana, so it will need to attract far more buyers if it plans to succeed in the market. Inside the EV startup secretly backed by Jeff Bezos Any continued enthusiasm for Slate’s EV has to be a reassuring sign for the company, given the state of electric trucks overall these days. Just yesterday, Ford announced it is ending production of the all-electric F-150 Lightning, the first major battery-powered pickup truck to hit the U.S. market a few years ago. (It’s being replaced by a version with a gas generator attached.) The company said the Lightning simply wasn’t making enough money — a fact exacerbated by how Ford was never able to sell more than a few thousand per quarter. Sales of other electric trucks, like Tesla’s Cybertruck and General Motors’ Silverado EV, have also struggled to stay above that mark. Of course, the Lightning was a sort-of Frankenstein’s monster of a vehicle, with Ford shoehorning EV technology into a design that was originally meant for gas powertrains. Slate’s truck has been designed from the ground up to be an EV, and the company is hyper-focused on selling it for a price tag in the mid-$20,000 range. The decline of offerings from Ford and others may help clear the way for Slate to find early success — that is, until Ford’s real shot at a low-cost EV hits the market in 2027. Topics electric vehicles, EVs, slate auto, Transportation Sean O'Kane Sr. Reporter, Transportation Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane. You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing sean.okane@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
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