willautoannounce
Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos and LA Dodgers owner Mark Walter, will announce pricing and start taking non-refundable preorders for its low-cost electric vehicle on June 24, ahead of the first deliveries late this year. The company sent out emails to prospective buyers on Thursday that encouraged them to make a $50 reservation now ahead of the $300 preorders starting next month, in order to get a “delivery window before non-reservers.” Slate had previously said it would announce pricing in June. An FAQ section of the preorder page that went live Thursday shows the company will announce pricing on June 24. The company did not respond to a request for comment. The four-year-old company came out of stealth in April 2025 after TechCrunch revealed its secretive plans to build a low-cost, no-frills, customizable vehicle. Slate once touted that the base version of its EV — which can be converted from a two-seater truck to a five-seater SUV, for a price — would start at “under $20,000” with a $7,500 federal tax credit. But that credit was killed by the Trump administration and Congress late last year, and Slate has remained tight-lipped about pricing, only saying the vehicle will start in the mid-$20,000 range. The idea of a simple EV with hand-crank windows and no paint has resonated with consumers. More than 160,000 potential customers have made refundable $50 reservations with the startup since it revealed the EV last year. As other EV startups have shown over the last decade, though, it is not easy to convert reservation holders to actual customers. To help tackle this problem, Slate named a new CEO in March. The company is now led by former Amazon Marketplace vice president Peter Faricy. (Many of Slate’s leadership positions have been filled with ex-Amazon executives.) Slate has also lined up some serious financial firepower to tackle the difficult task of building and shipping an EV. In April, the company announced it closed a $650 million Series C funding round, meaning it has raised roughly $1.4 billion to date. It appears that much of that funding has come from Walter’s financial firm, TWG Global. While Bezos was involved in Slate’s initial funding, his level of involvement in successive rounds has never been pinned down. In May, TechCrunch revealed that his family office manager had stepped down from her position on Slate’s board of directors. This story has been updated to reflect that Slate Auto will announce pricing on June 24.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane. You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing sean.okane@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal. View Bio
