2027 Slate Pickup First Ride: We Ride Shotgun as Slate Confirms Pricing, Preorders, and a Delivery Timeline
Key takeaways
- Slate’s affordable electric truck gets more range, more towing capacity, and a clearer pricing picture as pre-orders open.
- We can now attest that the Slate truck is a real, actual, drivable thing.
- It’s pretty much what we were expecting, which is a good thing, as we at MotorTrend have high hopes for this cute, inexpensive electric truck.
Why this matters: an automotive development that could shape industry direction or buying decisions.
Slate’s affordable electric truck gets more range, more towing capacity, and a clearer pricing picture as pre-orders open.
We can now attest that the Slate truck is a real, actual, drivable thing. On the eve of its latest string of announcements—pricing, accessory availability, new range and capacity figures, and the opening of pre-orders, all of which we shall discuss shortly—the Slate engineers took us for a brief ride in one of their early-build prototypes.
What’s it like? It’s pretty much what we were expecting, which is a good thing, as we at MotorTrend have high hopes for this cute, inexpensive electric truck. The Slate has plenty of verve, more than we expect from a single-motor EV, especially when that motor delivers a modest 181 hp and 195 lb-ft of torque (recently revised from 201 hp/195 lb-ft). It certainly felt quicker than Slate’s own 0–60-mph estimate of 8.0 seconds would lead us to expect. (It’s worth pointing out here that at 4,050 pounds, the Slate pickup is a relative featherweight by electric-truck standards.)