The running joke about Slate's electric truck is that nobody will actually buy the bare base version, and the Batteries Included podcast spends a good chunk of episode 145 arguing the opposite. The hosts run through Slate's now confirmed pricing, a 24,950 dollar starting point for a stripped truck the company expects buyers to build up later, and make the case that fleets, municipalities, and businesses are exactly the customers who want it plain. Alongside Slate, the roundtable covers harder news: a fresh round of layoffs at Lucid and a quiet trim change at Rivian that raises the entry price of its R1 lineup. Taken together, the episode is a snapshot of an EV market splitting into very cheap, very practical machines on one end and squeezed premium players on the other.
Slate's specs were covered when the truck was revealed, so the value in this discussion is the demand question rather than the numbers. One point the hosts make is one every buyer should internalize: a low base price is rarely the out-the-door price, and the configurator fills up fast once you add a phone mount, a console, or a wrap. One host describes building one online and watching it climb into the low 30,000s with options that are not even priced yet. That is the trap with build-it-up pricing, and it is also why the hosts think the genuinely bare trucks will sell to buyers who do not care about options at all, namely commercial fleets. They point to auto parts chains, delivery operators, municipalities running short daily routes, and city inspectors as natural customers, where a cheap, plain, easily repaired vehicle beats a feature-rich one. They also raise a practical wrinkle worth watching, which is how insurers will treat a truck built largely from bolt-on composite panels, since a fender that unscrews could be far cheaper to replace than a painted one. It is a more convincing demand story than the consumer hype around the launch.
On the figures, the podcast cites a 24,950 dollar base, an LFP pack listed around 63 kWh usable, roughly 205 miles of range, 181 horsepower, a payload near 1,550 pounds, towing of about 2,000 pounds, a NACS port, and 120 kW charging, with pre-orders open at 300 dollars. The hosts also note Slate's marketplace of more than 200 accessories, most under 500 dollars, and wraps starting around 500 dollars. On Lucid, the show reports the company is cutting about 18 percent of its workforce, roughly 1,500 roles, under new chief executive Sylvio Napoli, following an earlier reduction in February, and frames it as a painful reset for a brand the hosts otherwise praise on driving and engineering. They add that Rivian has dropped its cheapest dual-motor R1 configuration, pushing the entry point up by around 7,000 dollars to a longer-range version, which they read as Rivian protecting the R1 as a premium flagship above the coming R2.
Bottom line: The skeptics have the headline and the hosts have the better argument. The base Slate is not really aimed at the enthusiast who will spec it to 32,000 dollars anyway, it is aimed at the fleet manager who wants 50 plain trucks that are cheap to run and cheap to fix, and at the municipality replacing aging gas runabouts that never leave town. If that demand shows up, Slate's volume problem largely solves itself. The Lucid and Rivian items point the other way, a reminder that the premium end of this market is still hard, expensive, and unforgiving even for good products. Cheap and practical is having a better year than fast and luxurious, and that is the real story under the slate-gray paint.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.