Slate Auto, a Jeff Bezos-backed electric vehicle startup, has stopped encouraging future pickup trucks to launch “under $20,000” after President Trump’s tax cuts bill passed. The bill, which is scheduled to be signed into law by Trump on July 4th, will end the federal EV tax credit in September. This is the $7,500 incentive Slate has resorted to to help Slate clear that mark.
When Slate came out of stealth mode in April, the startup strongly touted that its all-electric pickup would start at “less than $20,000” with a $7,500 federal EV tax credit. The language was still on Slate’s website, just like yesterday, according to the web archive.
This change is a potential blow to the young companies’ attempts to make fundamentally affordable electric vehicles.
Slate did not offer accurate prices for the EV at its launch event. And it hasn’t yet said what the actual starting price of the vehicle is, sans-credit. A Slate spokesman declined to comment on the change.
The company will not begin construction of the trucks the earliest until the end of 2026. Slate’s business is built around making this vehicle highly customizable. In other words, few people buy the base model from the start.
The $20,000 price was a major attraction point for the brand new company’s products and was a major focus following the launch event in April.
The automotive industry is “promoting prices where most Americans simply can’t afford,” said Jeremy Snyder, the top commercial director, during the event. “But we’re here to change that.”
“We are building affordable vehicles that have been promised for a long time, but have never been delivered,” CEO Chris Berman added at the time.
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