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Slate Auto hopes its modular stripped-down bus will be the future of affordable EVs The startup backed by Jeff Bezos got attention earlier this year when it unveiled a two-seat two-door electric pickup truck that can also be converted to different body styles of SUVs But key hurdles remain for the company to ramp up production bring in capital and keep costs down LAKE ORION TOWNSHIP Mich In a nondescript supplier park in suburban Detroit an electric conveyance startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is building what it hopes will be America s newest automaker The facility is filled with dozens of prototypes crash-tested vehicles a crude lab carriage skeleton adorned with wires and preponderance importantly a busy beta assembly line that has been building electric vehicles since December for the startup Slate Auto Slate is using the location a stone s throw away from a massive General Motors assembly plant to produce more than vehicles for internal testing certification and everything else a company necessities to prepare to produce and sell vehicles in the United States The beta production line features roughly a dozen labeled stations for things such as the conveyance s doors tailgate and front ends that sit in bins or on surface areas made out of wood and steel parts Employees move back and forth between the bins tables and assembly line as songs such as Whitney Houston s Saving All My Love for You and Pat Benatar s Love is a Battlefield echo throughout the lively facility The largely hand-built vehicles being made are bare-bones two-seat two-door electric pickup trucks that can also be converted to different body styles of SUVs such as a five-seat fastback or into a squared-off look like a Jeep Wrangler Michael Wayland CNBCA Slate Auto employee walks into the startup s beta manufacturing facility on May in Lake Orion Township Michigan The vehicles have injected-molded composite exteriors crank windows no infotainment systems and a litany of do-it yourself options The plan is for every motorcycle coming off the line to be the same to reduce complexity before adding any additional features or different covers tops Auto executives have tossed around the idea for such a modular stripped-down motorcycle amid the rise of connectivity and affordability concerns but so far the challenges have outweighed the expected opportunities or companies have struggled to keep prices down Slate believes it can succeed where others have failed through simplified manufacturing and lower costs two areas where other EV startups have failed in new years This one s going to be different for a number of reasons Eric Keipper an auto veteran and Slate s head of engineering informed CNBC after a tour of the company s manufacturing facility We took the back-to-basics only-the-essentials approach and really we re building a absolutely new category of product Slate exited its stealth mode in late April by revealing its first vehicles several two-door electric pickup trucks and converted SUVs that it expects to begin deliveries of by the end of next year It s in the process of building out a full production facility at a former printing plant in Warsaw Indiana where it expects to have quota for up to vehicles a year It s a daunting timeframe even for an established automaker let alone a new startup that s establishing its supply chains production processes and workforce among other things Hand-building vehicles at a small facility is one thing mass producing them is another We ve put together a really solid plan and we re working to achieve the plan Slate CEO Chris Barman informed CNBC It doesn t mean that we follow the plan exactly We gotta pivot when different information comes but we understand what we ve got to do to ultimately get to the goal of having vehicles that meet all of our requirements Courtesy Slate AutoThe Slate Truck Slate revealed its unnamed carriage the company is telling customers to name it themselves to notable fanfare attracting more than reservations that required a deposit For other companies however vehicles reservations have fallen significantly short of actual sales The company mentioned it is conducting a Series C round of financing after raising million in its first two rounds of financing TechCrunch first revealed the Series A round in raised million from investors including Bezos Other EV startups have needed significantly more funding and have expeditiously blown through billions of dollars annually attempting to get a wagon into production But Slate believes it can be far less capital intense thanks to the engineering and production of the bicycle We are building the affordable automobile that has long been promised but never been delivered Barman stated during the April debut But with a twist it s a car people are in fact going to love and be proud to own The company declined to discuss future targets such as sales and profitability as well as expected capital requirements other than that it plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in its Indiana plant A blank Slate Barman and Keipper veterans of Stellantis predecessor Fiat Chrysler among other companies met nearly three years ago to discuss the car and Slate s business plan as the first employees of the startup It started with a blank slate announced Keipper The CEO and I sat together on the fifth of July in and looked at a blank whiteboard and I filled it I mentioned Here s the plan Let s do this ' Courtesy SlateSlate Auto CEO Chris Barman During the reveal the company positioned itself and its bicycle as a a radically simple radically affordable radically personalizable car The carriage which has a targeted starting price of under with an up to EV credit features a great number of off the shelf parts from suppliers lowering costs Its body also is exclusively injected molded composite instead of steel or aluminum bringing down cost and weight It does not feature any connectivity such as a modem or large screens just a small driver information screen Instead of a center infotainment system drivers can use their own devices such as a smartphone or tablet for navigation and music Speakers also are optional The exteriors of the Slate vehicles also won t be painted The company says it was engineered to be wrapped with a vinyl film eliminating the need for a costly paint shop a massive outlay for automakers The basis for the company is for consumers to be able to easily change the truck themselves or add whatever they d like to it after purchase through the removal or addition of bolts The company plans to offer several services such as the van wrapping but customers aren t required to do those things through Slate and can purchase add-ons later Slate says the truck about the length of a two-door Ford Bronco features roughly a fifth less parts compared to a typical car including only to end items or parts for final assembly That compares with a Slate estimate of -end item parts for other competitors and thousands of more overall pieces Fundamentally there s no new system because machinery costs money to develop explained Jamie Standring formerly with Karma Automotive and Stellantis Fiat Chrysler standing by the beta assembly line Standring disclosed the initial idea was to have the wagon s frame that everything is built upon be bolted together almost like an erector set to remove the need for a full body shop much like it s attempting to not use a paint shop But the drawbacks eventually outweighed the benefits he mentioned The Slate truck is expected to ship with a standard -kWh battery with an estimated range of around miles or a -kWh pack with a target of miles of range Its battery supplier is SK On according to the company Its top speed is only miles per hour I m really proud of the company for how they really thought out of the box Barman announced We ll have kits and we re doing it in a way that s lean as well but we want to offer people plenty of choices Important hurdles remain But more choices for consumers mean more complexity On the company s website there are categories for customers to customize with a combined options excluding customizable exterior colors for wraps That s a lot of options ranging from dozens of decals to lighting audio and tires and wheels for a customer to pick and a company to store and offer Slate executives say the point of the customization is for customers to be able to make the bus their own and easily upgrade or change it when they d like but auto analysts see it as one of several anticipated matter areas Courtesy SlateSlate Auto reveal In addition to traditional startup challenges such as capital profitability and scaling up other hurdles include A limited realm for two-door vehicles slower-than-expected adoption of EVs and regulatory uncertainty regarding federal tax credits that Slate is relying on for the automobile s affordability among other things They have an captivating idea declared Stephanie Brinley associate director in AutoIntelligence at S P Global Mobility The question is how a multitude of people really want to do that much themselves and how big is the adjustable industry The sale of two-door regular cab pickup trucks like Slate s debut wagon only accounted for less than registrations in That compares to more than million registered four-door crew cab trucks Brinley who attended Slate s reveal event in California disclosed if the company wants to be sustainable it would need to expand its product lineup to four-door models which the platform seems to be able to assistance as well as additional vehicles in the future Just like every other startup before it their sustainability is not going to be determined by the first product in the first six months Brinley revealed The first product just gets you in the door A handful of auto startups such as Lordstown Motors Electric Last Mile Solutions Fisker Canoo and Nikola all made it into various forms of production but went bankrupt Even better capitalized EV startups such as Rivian Automotive and Lucid Group have continually had to raise capital to stay afloat Industry insiders also have raised concerns about the affordability of Slate s bicycle once customers add options or a new SUV top which can be installed and uninstalled using bolts Courtesy Slate AutoThe Slate Truck interior I think it s super enthralling The idea behind it we ve talked about that idea a million times Tim Kuniskis CEO of Stellantis Ram Truck brand stated just now when solicited about Slate Now what s it going to in fact transact at in the marketplace when people start to option them up it s not going to be It s going to be and by the time you get to you re in midsize truck territory Slate has not released pricing for customizations or exact pricing of the carriage without a federal tax credit that s in jeopardy under President Donald Trump Slate is an example of why and how hard it is to produce a cheap EV mentioned Karl Brauer a veteran auto analyst with iSeeCars com They are producing an electric bus with only two seats -mile range manual windows no touch screen and it s still To me it s not a competitive truck at that point Brauer commented there are other EVs close to that price as well as smaller pickups such as the Ford Maverick hybrid with a lot more features that could be a better buy for consumers Both Brauer and Brinley gave Slate credit for trying something new and attempting to address affordability concerns but the auto industry isn t an easy busy to break into even when starting from a blank slate It s modular It s cool It s a really clever idea Brinley revealed The question for me comes down to how plenty of people want to do that And we ll find out but I don t know that it s as high as they think it is