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Slate Auto, The electric car startup backed by Jeff Bezos has now taken more than 150,000 pre-orders for its low-cost EV that is expected by the end of 2026.
The company shared the photo new Q&A video and CEO Chris Barman, where he answers questions from owners about the company’s plans for self-driving cars (there aren’t), or whether owners will be able to install a car seat in the back seats (they will).
A reservation is a useful way to gauge interest in a new car, but it is not a sure sign of success. From time to time over the past few years, we have seen the EV industry total booking figures to to explodeeither because they could not go through the difficult process of standing production, or because they were not ready to have cars on the road.
For Slate, it promises that this number will continue to rise, which means that new bookings are coming faster than the company can see. That said, Slate passed the 100,000 booking mark all the way back in May, just after sneaking out, so it took a good seven months to grow the list by 50%. And looking ahead, Slate plans to produce 150,000 of these EVs a year at a factory it’s renovating in Warsaw, Indiana, so it should attract more buyers if it wants to succeed in the market.
Any continued interest in Slate’s EV should be an encouraging sign for the company, given the current state of electric vehicles. Just yesterday, Ford announced that it is ending production of the all-electric F-150 Lightning, a large battery-powered vehicle that hit the US market a few years ago. (It is replaced by a version with a gas generator attached.) The company said that Lightning was not making enough money – the point was increased by the way Ford could not sell more than a few thousand per quarter. Sales of other electric vehicles, such as Tesla’s Cybertruck and General Motors’ Silverado EV, also struggled to top the mark.
Of course, the Lightning was a kind of Frankenstein’s monster of a vehicle, with Ford shoehorning EV technology into the original design for gas-electric vehicles. The Slate is designed from the ground up to be an EV, and the company is focused on selling it in the mid-$20,000 range. A drop in offers from Ford and others could help pave the way for the Slate to find early success — that is, until Ford’s real shot at an affordable EV hits the market in 2027.
