this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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As Canadian…
American company?, nope
Owned by Bezos?, hell nah
It's never going to be released. Zero prototypes and being pushed by a billionaire.
At this point I think there's a high likelihood that production will start close to their plan of late this year. As the other commenter said, you can go watch multiple videos of test drives. Pre-orders opened yesterday. But what do I know?
They've been promoting it recently and have several working prototypes that they've been driving influencers around in. There was one video with Marques Brownlee and they even let him drive it himself.
Bezos was one investor, not the owner
source
Bezos was seed money AND part of the owner conglomerate that raised all the capital the company started with in 2024. That is enough for me to avoid this like the plague as it will, certain as the sun is hot, be enshitified to the core
If you do not believe me, here is an article explaining how this is all a big Amazon initiative
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/inside-the-ev-startup-secretly-backed-by-jeff-bezos/
I would truly not be surprised that this would be an attempt to take over there ev truck market, but manufacturers should have been paying attention. There's a huge market for small ass trucks, no one is catering to it
While I'm sure they'll try to enshittify, the downside to that plan is that they need to make sure no one takes their place and they need to have something people want that they can enshittify. The benefit of simplicity is that it makes it simpler for another manufacturer to pick up the slack.
I drove a small truck at one point. Think a late 90s Tacoma, Ranger, or something like that. I don't want an F250. I don't want a Ram 3500. I just want to be able to haul a bed full of bikes to the MTB trail and help my friends move a washing machine.
Exactly mini-truck FTW! They used to be everywhere. Now you can't find one.
Slate has a size comparison widget on their website. You can show it with the silhouette of a current full size pickup and a circa 1985 small pickup. It's almost exactly the same size as that generation.
That's cool. 99spokes does that for bicycles and I've found it useful in that respect. Would be cool to compare all of the cars I ever had like that.
I really love my hybrid Maverick. It is still bigger than I want, but it works really well and averages about 40mpg. I can also fit it in a normal parking spot, which is nice.
I wish the Maverick was body on frame and had better tow capacity. It’s almost what I want.
Absolutely correct. The American car makers keep on saying "we only want big trucks" but that is complete BS, there is plenty of demand for smaller trucks which is why they have lobbied the gov to all but ban any possible import
While this is true in theory, in practice it rarely shows up. If these trucks do deliver a good, simple experience at $25K, others would not be able to just copy it and catch up. It would be easier for any of the big guys to just buy the company.
If the company is not for sale, then they would have the monopoly on small trucks and thus, freedom to enshitify
Blame a 62 year old law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
I had this badboy in the 90s and it was the most practical vehicle.
I agree, but without the complications of a combustion engine, it makes it a lot easier. You can buy ev conversion kits for around $15k, so there's also an "I'll make my own, with blackjack, and hookers" option.
Always the best option! hahahaha
Ford is. The Maverick is selling like hotcakes (not the 60s coupe). And they have an electric small truck coming soon as well. There's also Tello.
That's incorrect. The Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz exist and are very popular.
Toyota is about to release one to compete with the Maverick, and Dodge has a small and a mid sized truck in the works.
Neither are small.
I'm guessing you've never seen them next to a regular pickup. They're 20-40in shorter than a Ram 1500 (depending on cab configuration).
My Santa Cruz is shorter than their engine compartment. When I park between two regular trucks mine looks like a hotwheels truck.
Shit, it's even smaller than a Toyota Helix.
Those are midsized. I would say Hyundai is the only one with the Santa Cruz, and that's not really a truck.
Edit: I stand corrected, I had assumed the maverick was rwd/awd, not fwd/awd. I'm going to amend my statement and say the maverick is also not really a truck. I consider having the drive wheels under the payload to be an important aspect of a truck. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things.
The Santa Cruz is absolutely a truck. It even has a 3500lb towing capacity. Plus it's only 4in shorter than the Maverick.
The Santa Cruz is exactly as much as a truck as the Ford Maverick is (which is to say, they're both unibody vehicles).
And they are still inefficient monsters compared to what a real small truck should be:
Ford Maverick (2022+):
Length: Approx. 199.7 inches (5.07 meters) almost 1.7 meters larger, 6 feet or so
Width: Approx. 72.6 inches (1.84 meters)
Height: Approx. 68.7 inches (1.75 meters)
Bed Length: 4.5 feet (approx. 54 inches / 1.37 meters) 45% LESS cargo space than a kei truck
Typical Kei Truck (e.g., Suzuki Carry):
Length: Max legal limit is 3.4 meters (133.9 inches / 11.15 feet).
Width: Max legal limit is 1.48 meters (58.3 inches). Often around 1.4 meters.
Height: Varies, but typically around 1.9–2.0 meters (75–79 inches) including the cab/bed height, though the cargo bed side walls are very low (often ~1 meter total height from ground).
Bed Length: Typically around 2.0 meters (78 inches / 6.5 feet), which is actually longer than the Maverick's bed in some configurations relative to the vehicle length, though the total footprint is much smaller.
Kei trucks are power limited and speed limited for urban use only.
yes. they are small so they can work best in urban areas… nobody wants a kei truqk to work a farmein texas
You gotta add a normal US truck to your stats.
The Santa Cruz and Maverick are 2-3.5ft shorter than a Ram 1500.
I have a Santa Cruz, and it looks like a toy truck next to the normal ones. Especially next to duallies.
oh yes most others are way bigger… but I was comparing the "small" trucks that are actually available in the USA to make the point they are not in the same level the real small trucks are
For the life of me I don’t know why we don’t develop something like this in Canada. It’s so frustrating, we have the people, the manufacturing space, the materials, we could do this.
Whenever something about Canada making vehicles gets brought up, all the nay sayers climb on immediately saying how it can’t be done. I’m sick and tired of them. Nothing worth doing comes easy, if left to these naysayers we’d all be still living in squalor.
We need to move away from the U.S. entanglement, the American public can’t be trusted to elect a proper government.
Building our own low cost, modest feature vehicles would be an excellent start. How many features of a car do people use for a normal commute to work, or such? I’d love a truck like the Slate, except it has to have 4 wheel drive ability. After having Hondas with all wheel drive, I’ll never go back to an older 2 wheel drive vehicle.
Ive had TWO vehicles that were manufactured in Canada. They were both fine. What weirdos are saying canada cant build cars?
We don't do R&D in Canada. All we do is assemble shitty vehicles for export.
4WD is unnecessary if you use proper winter tires.
Before the current political chaos, you would have made a mint. A little ingenuity and affordable value, along with the worlds second biggest car market next door would have been huge
100000000% agree
Same as a European, I do hope it succeeds though and as much as I hate bezos if he's backing shit like this my opinion of him has increased by about 3.83%.
Hmm? We have much better options available in Europe
New Chinese EVs will be hitting the streets soon. Much cheaper and higher quality.
Higher quality from CCP run China. Nope. If the EV was from Taiwan, then yes.
Wow, people really are this dumb.
Lol.
I heard that Bezos left the company as an investor. I don't blame you for disliking anything American, but Slate Auto seems alright so far...
He was never "in it"; but he put up the seed money, then participated in the main round of fund raising and placed a ton of his people in the company. So even if his is not personally involved, he has all the strings he needs to pull it where he wants it to go (which, IMO, means Slate will be enshitified to the full the moment those little trucks start selling)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/08/inside-the-ev-startup-secretly-backed-by-jeff-bezos/
What I wonder is how exactly are they going to enshittify it? It's extremely barebones and modular in a way that anyone can design add-ons and accessories for it. I can see them doing subscriptions and the like for various add-ons but you can always just get the base model and get add-ons elsewhere.
They can betray the customer in many different ways... I am not willing to pay $25K to find out