Slate Auto 发布 2.5 万美元模块化汽车，接受预订

We're here at Slate Auto's new design Center in Los Angeles, and the company's having a coming out party this week, where it's releasing its $24,950 starting price. And with that, it's also allowing reservation holders to actually be able to place their orders. We really want to offer all these reservation holders and many more that are hearing about site for the first time to be able to place preorders. And then preorders are just the beginning of this fun process playing out.

These orders are expected to start shipping in the fourth quarter, and then Slate is planning to scale up from that. Our full year capacity in down in Warsaw, Indiana, is about 150,000 units. Our break even, you know, rough order of magnitude is 80 ish thousand units. This company kind of came out a year ago, and it has heavy backing from many Amazon executives, including Jeff Bezos and former executives, as well as the major owner of the LA Dodgers.

And the whole business plan for this vehicle is it to be a bare bones vehicle, the most minimalistic vehicle I can imagine in decades, actually, and that includes the crank down window and crank up, as well as a very small, very limited driver information screen. You can take your iPhone in there and put it right in the phone holder. You can do an iPad, and you can even connect it to the speakers that are also optional in the vehicle, or you can have it just playing on your phone.

So it's a very different type of vehicle than we're used to seeing nowadays. We're actually going to make money on every car we sell, because we've really sweated the details on how to architect the car and truck differently than others have. We've sweated the details on how to, you know, make the manufacturing process much simpler and much more efficient. Once you do the wrap the SUV kit, the wheels, you can get something like this for, let's say, low 30s.

Everything is meant for someone to be able to kind of style and do yourself. You've got a plastic composite on the exterior, which is lighter weight. It's not as durable as metal or aluminum, which a lot of vehicles are, but it's meant to be able to you can actually take these off if you'd like, and replace them very easily. We have a different cost structure and a different business model than other automakers have.

The fact that people will have a chance to customize their vehicle, but that's not a one time opportunity. It isn't just they have to make the final decision about what their truck looks like at purchase. They can change the wrap every quarter. They can add new accessories for years to come. There's never been a business model like this before in automotive. And because it's so customer driven and customer choice, and because it allows us to make money in multiple ways on the truck, on accessories, on wraps, and all the other traditional ways.

I think those two pieces together give us a really great chance to be successful. There's no truck out there that can start as an SUV and go to a pickup, or start as a pickup and go to an SUV. Behind me is a version of the SUV, which actually has capacity for five passengers. As you can see, it has a rear seat just like any other vehicle would have with five passengers. But one of the things that might be challenging for the company in general is that it is two doors.

However, this vehicle, you actually have to do it on the passenger side. The two door market in general has literally diminished in sales quite a bit, and four door variant isn't out of the realm of possibility. They said not yet, and that they are launching with this vehicle, but having a four door variant would open it up to a lot more buyers and a lot more accessibility for people trying to get in and out the vehicle.

Our goal, you know, it's an ambitious goal, would be that we are free cash flow and EBITDA positive before the end of 2027, if we're able to pull that off. No other automotive company has been able to do that before. So it's ambitious. It's going to take a lot of work. We're really excited about the balance sheet. We have the investors we have. We feel like we're in a great position. I think we're going to constantly take a look at what our options are.

Certainly going public will be one. I think 2027 you know, is probably is probably too soon in my book. I think we'll want to really make sure that we're launching and scaling the business well. But yeah, beyond that, I think we'll have a number of options in going public is definitely one of them.