Credit: Roberto Baldwin

WARSAW, INDIANA—The Blank Slate pickup scratches a particular itch for some, fulfilling the desire for an EV powertrain without all the bells and whistles associated with a modern vehicle. Gone is the infotainment screen, the lane-keeping assistance, and, for those concerned about surveillance, a modem. Instead, it's an unpainted modular pickup and can be configured post-production into nearly anything the owner wants. Oh, and it's cheap.

This Old Factory

For decades, the RR Donnelley & Sons printing plant in Warsaw, Indiana, pumped out catalogs. Glossy shopping books from JCPenney, Sears, and—my personal favorite—Radio Shack left the plant and were shipped all over the country to eager shoppers looking for their next mail-order delight. Then the Internet broke all of that.

The last employees clocked out in 2023.

A room formerly used in the printing process is filled with locals, elected officials, and journalists. The plan is to use this room in the future as a customer center and potentially a delivery location. The company is toying with the idea of allowing customers to take delivery of their pickups at the factory. No word on if that would eliminate the delivery fee.

Slate Auto CEO Chris Barman addresses the attendees at the factory open day.
Credit: Roberto Baldwin

For now, it's a meeting place, a way for Slate to meet with an audience at its factory. A chance in a post-EV tax incentive world to remind people that its vehicle is coming to market in "the mid twenties" which is likely in the upper portion of that spread. ($27,500 seems like a good guess.)

Slate CEO Chris Barman took the stage and reiterated the company's plan to start production at the 1.4 million square-foot (130,000 m2) site beginning in the fourth quarter of 2026. Barman noted that unlike traditional pickups built with up to 6,000 parts, the Slate will be assembled with just 600 parts. Also, there's no need for a paint shop or large stamping. The size of the facility is relatively small for vehicle assembly, but it's apparently perfect for Slate.

The automotive startup expects to employ over 2,000 individuals. Some of them are returning to the site, including Don Stoneburner. A former employee of RR Donnelley & Sons printing, Stoneburner, is now a senior electrical engineer for Slate.

"We found a great partner in the community here in Warsaw," Barman told me.

The wrap definitely says SLATE and not another automaker with a name that happens to be an anagram of slate.
Credit: Roberto Baldwin

Give a little respect

A vehicle's production is more than a building and is only as good as its parts and the companies that supply those parts. Since the truck's Los Angeles unveiling in April, Barman says it's been easier for Slate to find suppliers.

"We found a lot of really good partners that wanted to partner with us at that time (ahead of the unveiling), but we did see that there were some individuals who were, you know, hesitant. After we announced, and within a little over two weeks, we had over 100,000 reservations. It then opened more doors for us than what we had seen previously."

Suppliers need assurances that a customer will take delivery and pay for ordered parts. Slate's partnership with SK On to deliver batteries and its reservation number that's north of 100,000 gives them some additional assurance that Slate is more than a flash in the pan.

EV pickup wars

Since the unveiling, Ford has announced a $30,000 electric pickup, a potential Slate competitor that will launch sometime in 2027. Slate has a head start and has shown off its vehicle, while all we know about the Ford is that it's roughly the same size as the Maverick and it will have four doors.

Making electric pickups gives a new lease of life to a former catalog maker.
Credit: Roberto Baldwin

"Well, we've been working to solve the affordability problem but in a very different way and in a very different approach," Barman said. "We think what we're bringing to offer to the market is different than what Ford is doing. We think that there's going to be a lot of people out there that love the fact that they can get into the Blank Slate, and over time, they can accessorize it to become what they want it to be."

Modification is the big selling point for Slate. Outside of a few accessories and the ability to change the suspension, no automaker is offering the aftermarket bonanza that Slate is. Sure there's no paint, but Slate will print wraps for the vehicles and ship them to owners. Want your truck to become an SUV? Order the rear top, seats, and rollcage, and you have room for more passengers.

Slate doesn't have the cash cow of the Ford F-Series to absorb financial mishaps. Ford is also "disrupting" production with a three-to-one production line that abandons the single production line popularized by founder Henry Ford.

Slate has its DIY modular (let's just say it—nerdy) pickup that can be modified years after purchase. Ford will change the way it builds but will likely stick within the traditional boundaries of a modern EV.

The loss of the EV tax credit hurts, but the Blank Slate should still be the cheapest electric pickup you can buy.
Credit: Roberto Baldwin

Slate is the underdog in the small electric pickup war that is heating up and will begin to play out in about a year. But this skirmish started years ago on a drawing board with a different idea about what people want from a vehicle.

Engineering blank

The Blank Slate seems to be a very simple vehicle: no radio, no screens, no modem, only two doors, roll-up windows, only 600 parts, and no paint. That's sort of the weird genius of the vehicle. Compared to other vehicles on the market, it's bare. Yet creating simplicity is more difficult than it might seem.

"The team definitely had a different mindset and took a different approach in knowing that we wanted it to be accessorized. So you had to be very thoughtful about designing in accessory points or access points where you can very easily install the accessories because we're working to make it as Do It Yourself as possible, so that people can work on their vehicle," Barman told Ars. "It's a lot of creativity, a lot of thinking about what the future use of the vehicle may be and how people may want it."

The design also required determining how to take an assembly that could have been multiple parts and make it into a single component, and then work out how to integrate it into the whole. Then there are considerations about tooling and suppliers: designing using fewer parts has an economic snowball effect on costs. There are fewer parts to purchase, which means there are fewer parts to inventory and invoice for, and quality control is easier because there are fewer parts to test.

Who needs a paint shop and all the environmental regulations that have to be followed if you can just sell wraps instead?
Credit: Roberto Baldwin

So, less is more (savings).

Barman says that the fact that the Blank Slate is an EV is in some ways the least interesting thing about it, although it's why the vehicle can be as modular as it is. Barman and team target everyone who wants a simple, low-cost vehicle without the bells and whistles. In a little over 12 months, we'll see how many of those people actually show up.