March 10, 2026 - Changes At Slate Auto

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for March 10, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

It's not often that a cheap vehicle gets a lot of attention from enthusiasts. But in spring 2025, that's exactly what happened when a startup called Slate Auto came out of stealth mode and revealed its first product. With significant backing from Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, Slate aimed to introduce a highly customizable, compact electric pickup truck and sell it with a starting price under $20,000.  However, achieving that starting price relied on a number of factors that have changed significantly in the past 12 months. For example, the actual sticker price is about $27,000, but at the time of the announcement, the federal government still had an EV purchase incentive program in place that would knock $7,500 off that price. The Trump administration's war on all things electric killed that. 

The truck is configured as a two-door compact pickup with no infotainment, manual windows, mirrors and everything else. To achieve that low price point, the body would be unpainted, and instead, Slate would offer $500 wraps that customers could apply. There were also options to turn it into a small SUV by removing the rear bulkhead, adding a second row seat and a topper on the back. These were all interesting ideas that took a lot of money out of the up-front manufacturing cost. But while 150,000 or so reservations have come in at $100 each, it's unclear how many of those will get translated into actual sales. Two-door trucks and SUVs used to be quite popular until manufacturers started offering four-door models, and consumers realized how much more convenient they were. 

In August of last year, Ford also announced its new universal EV program that would launch at the end of 2026 with a compact, four-door pickup truck that is expected to have twice the 150-mile range of a Slate and a starting price of just $30,000. This week, Slate has made a change in its executive lineup in hopes of converting those reservations into actual sales. Chris Barman, who has served as CEO since 2022, will now become president of vehicles, focusing on development, validation, and manufacturing of the product. Peter Faricy is taking over the CEO slot. Faricy spent the past 13 years at Amazon, where he was most recently vice president of market place. His job will be running the business and finding a way to actually get butts into seats. Slate is expected to make an announcement in June about pricing updates and hopefully start deliveries before the end of the year. It's always tough starting a new automaker, but Slate is coming into a particularly tough market. 

Thanks for listening.