Maybe you remember the time before the “basic economy” fare. A ticket on a major airline like Delta or United used to come with a few automatic amenities, like the ability to choose one’s seats — or, before 2008, even to check a bag without a fee. In the 2010s, facing rising costs and competition from the likes of Spirit and Frontier, the big airlines began to embrace the a la carte approach of the budget airlines: Passengers could buy an uber-cheap fare, but anything beyond a seat on the plane and a Diet Coke became an upsell.
The trajectory of air travel was on my mind this week as the world learned more details about Slate. The EV startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others, revealed its compact electric pickup to the world, and the world was struck by the vehicle’s simplicity. The little truck represents a kind of bare-bones transportation not seen at American car dealerships in decades, with power windows and plain metal panels coming standard — and everything else as an add-on.
Its success or failure will tell us something about Americans’ appetite for the kind of truly compact trucks that disappeared from our roads when bloat came for the pickup. It will tell us even more about whether Americans, faced with a lousy economy and skyrocketing car prices, are ready for the Spirit Airlines model to come to the automotive world.
Slate’s name is a clear reference to the idea of a blank slate. The base version of the little electric truck comes with manually adjustable rear view mirrors, no built-in infotainment system, and an uninspiring 150 miles of range. The exterior comes in any color the customer wants, as long as it’s the hue of plain, unadorned metal.
The little truck’s pitch is about the power of customization. Buyers will be able to choose from more than 100 add-on features, including roll bars, more airbags, and extra seats. There will be kits to lower the truck, kits to raise the truck, kits to turn the truck into an SUV. Most of these additions are advertised as DIY, though once the truck arrives in 2026, Slate promises there will be service professionals to install these add-ons for those who are not weekend garage mechanics. You’ll even be able to put on a vinyl wrap to make your truck something other than gray. Just how much these additions will raise the price is not yet clear.
It’s a compelling case, and one meant to be the antithesis of the car industry’s modern approach. A typical new vehicle comes in a handful of trim levels, where each successive trim represents another tier that adds a new group of luxury or technology features. (This is what the alphabet soup on the back of a car means, if you’ve ever wondered just what Toyota RAV4 “XLE” is.) The Ford F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the country, comes in eight trim levels that take the truck from a base price around $38,000 to nearly $80,000 for the fanciest, most capable trucks. You can do some customization outside of those tiers, sure. What you can’t do is buy a brand-new F-150 for $25,000 because it comes with the best in-car amenities 1995 had to offer, even though such a vehicle would do a perfectly good job of transporting people and cargo from A to B, the thing a truck is supposed to do.
Today’s cars come in mostly neutral colors because buyers have been taught to maximize resale value and it’s easier to sell a silver truck than a teal one; Slate’s encouragement to customize the exterior is a reaction against this aesthetic staleness. And EVs, in particular, haven’t been built with the hacker or tinkerer in mind. With Tesla (led by Bezos rival Elon Musk) at the forefront of the industry and legacy automakers following its lead, electric vehicles have become smartphones on wheels — closed boxes of intimidating hardware and proprietary software. Slate is a welcome change.
One could, of course, pay for upgrades to make the flight aboard Spirit Airlines a little more tolerable. But the cheap fare is the point. Spirit may be the butt of “Weekend Update” jokes, but basic economy is a lifeline for people who need cheap air travel. The test for Slate, then, isn’t whether buyers will embrace its DIY model and get excited about configuring their own trucks, though some definitely will. It is, instead, whether the rock-bottom, dirt-cheap, simple version of the truck is enough to convince a lot of people to go electric.
Incentives will go a long way to providing the answer. With a sticker price in the mid-$20,000s, a barebones Slate truck is a tough sell compared directly to other new vehicles; its spartan interior and inferior range don’t compare well to the kinds of entry-level gasoline cars a person could buy in that price range, all of which offer at least a taste of the latest in automotive technology. But if the $7,500 federal tax credit were to stay in place despite the EV antagonist living the White House, then the basic Slate will be a new car that can be had for less than 20-grand.
That’s a tempting number for the many Americans who see their car as an appliance, not an extension of their personality, and who generally make automotive decisions with their wallets. It’s also a powerful example of how much difference incentives could make once EVs approach the affordable end of the car market. A Rivian with $7,500 knocked off is a slightly cheaper expensive car. A Chevy Equinox EV at $7,500 off is cost-competitive with combustion rivals. A Slate truck marked down by $7,500 goes from an ugly duckling to an economic lifeline for the countless Americans who need an affordable ride.
MTA
