Why The Leaked $24,950 Slate EV Truck Just "Broke" the Internet With a Message for Tesla and Others

[00:00:00]The excitement surrounding the Slate EV trucks price leak may actually reveal something broader. Car buyers aren't searching for the cheapest electric vehicle truck, but for any car they can realistically afford. Welcome back everyone. This is Armin Harry on from TorqueNews.com. If you are here for first time, please subscribe to our channel and like this video if you like the story which I'm about to tell you.

[00:00:25]So, yesterday we were looking at a single number that was absolutely breaking the automotive internet, you know, figuratively speaking. And it has nothing to do with maximum horsepower in same battery range or many [clears throat] tons of gravel you can tow.

[00:00:42]We're talking about a simple price tag.

[00:00:45]According to massive breaking reports over at The Autopian and Car and Driver, a sharp-eyed tech fan was digging deep into the hidden metadata and background source code of a new car company's website, Slate. And what did they find?

[00:01:03]A buried line of code explicitly stating that the highly anticipated Slate electric pickup truck is going to launch with a starting price of $24,950.

[00:01:16]Very affordable price. Now, the company pulled that webpage down faster than speeding bullet and they haven't officially confirmed the number, but the leak instantly exploded across every social media network and enthusiast forum on the planet.

[00:01:34]And look at the sheer irony here. This isn't a high-performance Ferrari. It isn't a sleek new Corvette. This is a that simple bare-bone electric pickup truck from a brand new startup that hasn't even delivered a single production vehicle to a retail customer yet. So, why is this entire world kind of quote unquote very interested into hidden piece of a website code. The answer reveals a massive, painful truth about the state of the modern car market. Before we look at the nuts and bolts of what you actually get for this money, let me ask you a very honest question, friends. If you were shopping for a brand new vehicle today, would you be more excited about the car because it has the latest self-driving AI technology or simply because it's one of the few vehicles these days on the market that you can actually afford?

[00:02:32]Think about it carefully and share your answers, please, in the comment section below for our discussion. So, let's look at the real automotive facts. So, why is why a $24,950 price tag is a national headline? The price tag that Slate was leaked from Slate.

[00:02:53]To understand why this leak is such a monumental deal for an electric vehicle truck or we have a look let's we take a look at the brutal economic reality facing every driver. Vehicles keep getting better every year, but they also keep getting widely more expensive.

[00:03:11]Look at the data tracked by us at talknews.com. The average transaction price of a brand new vehicle in America has climbed well past $45,000.

[00:03:22]If you want an electric vehicle, get ready to pay even more. For years, major car manufacturers have stood on big stages promising affordable entry-level electric vehicles for the working men only for those cars to arrive at dealerships with massive inflated price tags that push them completely out of reach for regular families. Then came the massive blow last year when the federal EV tax credit completely expired under the new legislative bills.

[00:03:53]Overnight, the predicted price of basic electric vehicle jumped up by $7,500.

[00:03:59]Basically, buyers felt completely left in dark.

[00:04:04]That is exactly why the slate price leak has captured so much emotional attention. If this leaked $24,950 figure holds true when official pre-orders open on June 24th, which is just this week, this machine immediately becomes the single most affordable electric vehicle available in the United States. It completely changes the conversation. Now, let's do reality check. What does a bare-bones truck actually mean?

[00:04:37]Now, let's do um let's look at the $25,000 EV truck actually can look like under hood and inside the cab. The base model of this truck is literally called the blank slate. And folks, they may they mean that entirely literally. This is a prime primitive no-frills tool built tool built for pure utility. If you visit torque news.com and search slate and see my today's article, or if you visit torque news.com and on the front page you will see today's article, the link of which I will have in the description of this video, you can see the image of the interior. It's bare-bones.

[00:05:17]So, no paint. The truck ships with unpainted rugged composite body panels panels. You don't worry about scratches because there is no clear coat to ruin.

[00:05:29]No power windows. It comes standard with manual crank windows and manual side mirrors. You know, a lot of people are comfortable with this. Let's Let's move our muscles, okay? No screens or speakers. The dashboard doesn't have a giant infotainment screen or a factory stereo system. I mean, who who needs that much? Instead, it features a basic physical mount where you clip in your own smartphone. Now, when the internet saw this, the community split right down the middle. Traditional truck guys are looking at this and saying, "Hey, my first truck had crank windows and a basic cab, and it worked flawlessly for 15 years. This is a real maintenance-free work tool." But, critics are looking at the compact competition. Ford has been heavily teasing a mid-size electric pickup of its own built on their new structural platform, which is expected to start right at around $30,000, and I've covered that at talknews.com with a very interesting insight. Take a look at that as well. And for that extra five grand, the Ford gives you a full four-door crew cab, power windows, and actually radio, and a zero zero to 60 time that matches a Ford Mustang. However, 5,000 grand is a lot of money for a lot of people. $5,000 is a different demographical area. So, the big question is, will everyday car buyer actually be willing to give up every single modern comfort just to save $5,000, or is the blank slate just a little too primitive for a modern-day driver? What do you think? So, can an electric vehicle startup honestly deliver on this promise?

[00:07:18]This brings us to an ultimate hurdle that every single automotive startup has to face, the production kind of difficulty. It is one thing for a startup backed by big-name investor to design a cool prototype and type a low price tag into their website metadata. It is a completely different ballgame to actually manufacture tens of thousands of these vehicles at scale, ship them to all 50 states, set up functional warranty service network, and actually make a profit on every every unit, every car sold. The automotive landscape is littered with the graves of ambitious startups, companies that made massive pricing promises only to get completely crushed by the physical realities of battery material cost, factory tooling expenses, and supply chain inflation of once the assembly lines started moving.

[00:08:15]I've seen them even in auto shows. If Silex can actually pull this off without raising the price at the last second, they will become the ultimate disruptors of the electric vehicle era. They will open up the market to millions of buyers of electric vehicles who have felt completely ignored and priced out of the new car market for the last 5 years. I mean, look, why don't you why do you have to pay $80,000 for a fancy vehicle?

[00:08:44]But until those trucks are physically rolling off the line in Indiana and landing in car buyer drivers, smart buyers are right to remain cautious.

[00:08:55]So, here's my verdict.

[00:08:57]Here's the bottom line truth about this entire situation in my opinion. The hidden story here isn't actually about the Silex truck itself. It is about the overwhelming hungry reaction from the public who are looking for affordable vehicles these days. Affordable transportation has become some incredibly rare, so incredibly rare in our country that everyday citizens are actively digging through the raw background code of corporate website just to find the shred of financial hope. You see these things?

[00:09:29]That doesn't happen because people love looking at website metadata. It happens because people are desperate for a vehicle that first that actually fits a normal household budget. Whether Slate succeeds or fails on this execution, they have already proven a massive point. Price and affordability are the single most powerful features any automaker can offer right now.

[00:09:56]What do you think? Now it's your turn.

[00:09:58]If Slate officially confirms a starting price of $24,950 on June 24th, is a bare-bone, no-frill electric truck enough to make you seriously consider buying an EV? I think for a lot of people it will be.

[00:10:13]Or do you think a startup com- uh company simply cannot survive selling a truck at that price point once real-world manufacturing challenges set in? I don't know. It's interesting to see. We'll see um how things go. Please check the description of this video because I will have um the links there for your uh referral, and you can see the interior image of Slate's truck.

[00:10:38]And keep an eye on TorqueNews.com because we will keep an eye on Slate and see what they exactly announce on June 24th, or I expect in the next few days before June 24th some other news will also come from the company. We'll look forward to that and we'll report. God bless you everyone, and I'll see you soon in our next report. And if you like this story, please give us thumbs up, subscribe to our channel, and come back tomorrow for more.