America’s Cheapest New EV Is a Tiny Electric Pickup That Starts at $24,950

For years, an affordable electric truck felt like a promise that never quite arrived. Slate Auto just put a real number on it, and that number is $24,950 before destination. Suddenly the idea of a brand-new EV pickup for around the price of a loaded compact car stops being a thought experiment and starts being something you can actually reserve.

• The Blank Slate pickup starts at $24,950, making it the least expensive new EV and the cheapest new truck you can buy in the United States.
• A 63-kWh LFP battery delivers up to 205 miles of range, with a standard NACS port that opens up Tesla Supercharger access.
• Slate already claims more than 180,000 reservations, with deliveries set to begin in the fourth quarter of this year.

What You Get for Twenty-Five Grand

The base price buys you a truck, and that word means something different here than it usually does. You get four wheels, seats, basic climate controls, and not much else. There’s no infotainment screen. No speakers. No armrest unless you pay for one. Slate is honest about the bare-bones starting point, and that honesty is sort of the whole point. You’re not subsidizing features you didn’t ask for.

Factor in the destination fee and you land just over $25,000. For that money you drive away with a new electric vehicle, which is a sentence that simply did not exist on the American market until now. It does not hit the sub-$20,000 figure some people hoped for, but it is still the lowest-priced truck and EV you can buy new in the country.

The Numbers Under the Skin

A single electric motor sits at the rear and sends 181 horsepower and 195 lb-ft of torque to the wheels. That puts it in roughly the same performance bracket as a Ford Maverick Hybrid. Nobody is buying this thing to win stoplight races, but you’re also not paying for that kind of speed, so the math works out.

The 63-kWh lithium iron phosphate battery is rated for up to 205 miles. Charging tops out around 120 kW on a fast charger, which Slate says gets you from 10 to 80 percent in about half an hour. Plug into the onboard 11-kW Level 2 charger at home and a fully drained battery refills in roughly four hours, assuming you’ve got a proper home unit installed.

Suspension is a MacPherson strut setup up front with a De Dion axle in the back. That rear design uses half-shafts with the differential mounted to the frame, which is a cut above a plain solid axle for ride quality without getting expensive.

Small Truck, Serious Capability

For something this size, the work numbers hold up. The base pickup carries a payload of 1,550 pounds, packs a five-foot bed, and tows up to 2,000 pounds. Step up to the SUV body and payload drops to 1,263 pounds. None of that replaces a full-size hauler, but it’s plenty for hauling mulch, bikes, or a weekend’s worth of gear.

That phrase affordable electric truck has been thrown around for a long time, and Slate’s spec sheet is the first one that backs it up with usable capacity instead of just a low sticker.

One Truck, Many Shapes

Slate skips dealers and showrooms, selling straight to buyers with a long options list. The pickup is the baseline. Want an SUV instead? The boxy Squareback starts at $24,950, while the sloped-roof Fastback runs $31,950. Wraps, tires, lift and lowering kits, and even an open-air setup are all planned, though some option prices are still pending.

The business side is interesting too. CEO Peter Faricy has said every vehicle Slate builds will be gross-margin positive, with the company aiming to be cash-flow positive by 2027. Faricy didn’t rule out a public offering somewhere down the road either.

Should You Toss Your Name In

The 2027 Slate rolls out in the fourth quarter of this year, and a reservation runs $300. With 180,000 names already on the list and a goal of building up to 150,000 units a year, demand clearly exists on paper. The real test comes when those reservations have to convert into actual orders with real money attached. If even a healthy slice of them do, you’ll be spotting these little trucks on the road soon. And for anyone who has waited years for an EV that doesn’t require a luxury budget, that’s a genuinely exciting place to be.