Slate Vs. Ford’s $30,000 EV

• Slate’s pickup truck is expected to launch in late 2026, whereas Ford’s is expected to launch in early 2027.
• Both Slate and Ford are very early in their retooling/production build for either truck.
• Slate doesn’t see itself as a competitor to Ford’s forthcoming affordable EV truck. 

The buzz around EV startup Slate has been nothing short of electric, pun intended. Similarly, whether intentional or not, the brand name forms an anagram of Tesla—but it stands to be the polar opposite of an electric brand whose crown is slipping in the face of rising competition and a CEO mired in controversy.

Tesla’s cars are highly sophisticated iPhones on wheels that come in one form with little to no alterations. Slate’s spartan, tech-averse, button-filled compact pickup could be thought of as the anti-Tesla. Considering the truck’s promised mid-$20,000s price tag, the Slate truck seems like a slam dunk in a world full of hyper-complicated, hyper-expensive cars.

Add in the focus on American-made construction, and Slate looks to be doing everything that other manufacturers said was impossible.

Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs

Until, that is, Ford came around. Ford CEO Jim Farley has openly feared that his company (and the U.S. car industry) will be left behind China if it doesn’t get its act together around building reasonably priced EVs.

It looks like the secret “skunkworks” project aimed at doing just that is nearing completion. A few weeks ago, Ford announced its intention to convert a Kentucky plant from making internal-combustion crossovers to a whole new kind of electric vehicle, assembled and designed differently than any other Ford ever before. The platform would be modular, and Farley said Ford’s program would lead with a truck, priced at about $30,000—and “not stripped down.”

Ford officials wouldn’t claim it, of course. But this felt like a clear jab at Slate’s bare-bones ethos.

At least to me, this sounds like war. Slate and Ford are now in a race to get their trucks on sale, with both targeting a similar buyer, with what feels like a similar product on paper. Slate’s idea may be palatable to some buyers, but Ford is a longstanding automaker with loads of capital and experience in establishing factories and building and selling cars. 

There’s real fear that Ford’s cheap EV truck could eclipse the efforts of Slate before it ever gets off the ground, especially since both are targeting similar on-sale dates: late 2026 for Slate and early 2027 for Ford.  

One top Slate executive doesn’t see it that way, though. 

“I don’t really see what we’re doing as competition with the rest of the industry, because our approach is so different,” said Jeremy Snyder, the startup’s chief commercial officer, during an interview at its factory in Warsaw, Indiana. “I think the major differentiator [of the Slate truck] is that it’s personalizable…People want to be unique. They want to be their own. They want to show off their style in their vehicle, and we’re facilitating that in a far more streamlined way than the industry ever has.”

Snyder said that he sees Slate as being in a class of one, not comparable to anything from other manufacturers, including Ford. 

Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs

“I mean, all cars today are built for the top 30% of the market, right? And [Slate] is so focused on the other 70% of the market, [other manufacturers] aren’t really building for it,” Snyder said. 

Is he right? I don’t know. For what it’s worth, almost every automaker would say the same about its products. I think that, for a lot of people, the Ford and Slate trucks will inadvertently be direct competitors due to the fact that they’re both going to be cheap electric trucks. The question is, which will actually hit the target and get on sale?

I had driven to Warsaw, Indiana, to take a gander at the progress of Slate’s factory. The 1.4 million square foot site was once home to the R.R. Donnelley printing company, which started in 1958. By 2023, the company had closed down its Warsaw plant, but its large size and dedicated rail line to the rear of the premises made it the perfect home for Slate. At max capacity, the Slate factory will be capable of 150,000 units per year.

Right now, there isn’t much to Slate’s presence there. An old ink tank room that once held gallons of ink for printing has been turned into a meeting hall and will soon be the home of the brand’s customer experience center. Other than that, the Slate factory is mostly an empty room, albeit with some torn-down walls and markings to make way for future manufacturing equipment. 

Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs

To the uninformed, this means Slate is clearly behind on its target. But Ford is actually repurposing an existing car plant that already makes two popular crossovers; production on those models must stop at some point while Ford gets its factory ready to build its new truck. In reality, Slate and Ford seem to be at the same level of factory development.

However, Slate could have an advantage here; the truck’s construction may make it easier to get up and running compared to Ford. Slate’s composite body panel is injection-molded plastic that requires no big body stamping machines or paint shop, since the color is injected right into the plastic.

Ford’s promise of a software-driven truck may be tantalizing to many, but Slate’s user-installed radio and modular construction could make things easier to get up and running. By comparison, Ford’s new zonal architecture is new for the brand; can it really get this done right and on time when so many similar efforts have seen big delays?

Sam Abuelsamid, the vice president of market research at the automotive research firm Telemetry, doesn’t see the two in competition, either. “The timing of the two trucks is not that far apart. Slate might make it to market a few months earlier than the Ford truck, but I really don’t think that lead will have a significant impact on the success or failure of either vehicle,” he said in an e-mail.

Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs

Abuelsamid said that the real pain that Slate is facing is the execution of the product, and not as much how quickly it can get on the road. He thinks that Ford’s potential truck may offer more value and comfort than Slate’s for not much more money—which could be the real trial by fire for Slate. 

Whatever the case, Slate doesn’t see itself in competition with Ford—but like Ford, it’s got a long road ahead of itself before production starts. We’ve got time to see which vision will win out. 

Contact the author: Kevin.Williams@insideevs.com

Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to Jeremy Snyder as Slate’s chief operating officer. He is the company’s chief commercial officer.