Slate Auto ditches 'under $20,000' price tag for its pickup EV after Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' passes

Business Insider

11 hours ago

Slate's plan to sell its no-frills electric pickup for under $20,000 appears to have hit a speed bump.
The Jeff Bezos-backed EV startup previously said its modular Slate truck was expected to start at under $20,000 after federal incentives, but has now changed its website to say the electric truck will be priced in the "mid-twenties."
Slate's website featured the "under $20,000" expected price as recently as Wednesday, according to Internet Archive screenshots viewed by Business Insider. TechCrunch first reported the change.
It comes as the US House of Representatives passed a final version of President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," which is expected to kill the $7,500 tax credit for new US-built electric cars from September.
When it unveiled the utilitarian truck in April, Slate said it would cost $25,000. However, the company had been banking on federal incentives, such as the $7,500 discount, to push the price of its first EV under the $20,000 mark.
The company did not respond to a request for comment from BI, sent outside normal working hours.
A lack of affordable options has hampered EV adoption in the US, and Slate Auto's CEO previously told BI the company aimed to help fill that gap.
The startup made a big splash with its first vehicle, with the back-to-basics pickup truck amassing 100,000 refundable reservations in its first three weeks on sale.
Although the base version of the truck, which is set to be built in Indiana with deliveries beginning in 2026, will lack frills such as screens, radios, or power windows, Slate says it will be heavily customizable.
Buyers will be able to buy over 100 accessories, ranging from personalized wraps to an "SUV kit" that transforms the Slate truck into a five-person people carrier.
The average price of an EV in the US is already almost $10,000 more expensive than its combustion-engine equivalent, and experts have warned that the scrapping of the $7,500 tax credit will make electric cars even more unaffordable.
A report by Harvard University's Salata Institute in March found that removing the tax credit would result in a 15% hit to expected EV sales by 2030, and 20 million metric tons extra of CO2 emissions over the same time period.