June 24.
Mark it down.
That’s the day Slate Auto stops dancing around numbers and actually announces the price for its electric vehicle. Along with that? Preorders start taking off. Not refundable ones this time. We’re talking non-refundable cash.
The goal? To get those first units out the door later this year.
### The reservation game
The company already nudged potential buyers on Thursday. Get a $50 reservation down now, they said, before the real preorder cost of $300 hits next month. Why? To guarantee a spot in an earlier delivery window. Skip the early bird special? You wait.
Simple incentive structure. Does it work? Maybe.
Slate emerged from stealth last April, largely after TechCrunch exposed its secret plans. The pitch was seductive in its brutality. A basic, no-frills EV. Hand-crank windows. No paint. You can configure it as a two-seater truck or stretch it into a five-seat SUV if you want.
They originally claimed the base price would sit under $20,00.
Then they added a $7,50 federal tax credit to the math. It made the headline look pretty. But that credit got killed by the Trump administration and late-year Congress maneuvers. Poof.
So the sub-20k promise evaporated. Slate kept its mouth shut after that, only hinting the new reality sits in the “mid-$20,0” range. Tight-lipped doesn’t build confidence, but it doesn’t kill hope entirely. Not yet anyway.
### Amazon blood and billions
Here’s the thing that’s hard to ignore. Slate isn’t some garage project with a dream and a welder. This is heavy metal financing.
The startup announced a $650 million Series C funding round back in April. That puts total fundraising around $1.4 billion. A staggering sum for an EV company that still doesn’t have a single car in driveways.
Who’s writing the checks? Mostly TWG Global, the financial firm owned by LA Dodgers owner and co-backer Mark Walter. Jeff Bezos backed the initial rounds, sure. But his current role is fuzzy. His family office manager left the board in May. Is Bezos still hands-on? The silence suggests he’s checking the dashboard, not touching the steering wheel.
The leadership is just as corporate, though in a very specific way. In March, Slate swapped CEOs for Peter Faricy. Former VP at Amazon Marketplace. He’s surrounded by other ex-Amazon execs. It feels less like a startup culture clash and more like a corporate transplant.
### 160k reservations vs. reality
Since going public with the car last year, over 160,0 prospective customers dropped $5 refundable reservations. That number looks huge. Until you remember the graveyard of EV startups behind them.
Reservations are easy. Preorders are hard. Delivering a functional car is brutal.
Can a team of former Amazon managers and deep-pocketed backers pull it off? Or will Slate join the list of companies that promised the world and delivered press releases?
Time will tell. For now, wait until the 24th. The price tag might finally speak for itself.
