Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos and LA Dodgers owner Mark Walter, has announced that it will officially begin taking orders for its low-cost electric vehicle on June 24, ahead of first deliveries later this year.
The company sent emails to prospective buyers on Thursday encouraging them to book now ahead of “pre-orders” starting next month in order to get a “pre-booking delivery window”.
However, Slate has not announced a starting price for its EV. Previously, Slate said it would reveal final pricing in June. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The four-year-old company came out of stealth in April 2025 after TechCrunch revealed its secret plans to build a low-cost, no-frills, customizable vehicle. Slate once said the base version of its EV — which can be converted from a two-seat truck to a five-seat SUV, for a price — would start at “under $20,000” with a $7,500 federal tax credit. But that appropriation was killed by the Trump administration and Congress late last year, and Slate has remained silent on pricing, saying only that the vehicle will start in the mid-$20,000s.
The idea of a simple EV with crank windows and no paint resonates with consumers. More than 160,000 potential customers have made $50 refundable reservations with the startup since it unveiled the EV last year. As other EV startups have shown over the past decade, however, it’s not easy to turn reservation holders into actual customers.
To help address this problem, Slate named a new CEO in March. The company is now led by former Amazon Marketplace VP Peter Faricy. (Many of Slate’s leadership positions have been filled with former Amazon executives.)
Slate has also lined up some serious financial firepower to tackle the difficult task of building and shipping an EV. In April, the company announced that it had closed a $650 million Series C funding round, meaning it has raised about $1.4 billion to date.
It appears that much of this funding comes from Walter’s financial firm, TWG Global. While Bezos participated in Slate’s initial funding, his level of involvement in successive rounds has never been determined. In May, TechCrunch revealed that the director of his family office had resigned from her seat on Slate’s board.
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