The Slate Auto $25,000 EV pickup: This is allegedly it

As we recently reported, a startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is preparing to ship an electric pickup truck for the starting price of just $25,000 U.S. dollars. The scoop from TechCrunch highlights that the company was working in secret for years to get things together to make this product a reality. Now, today, thanks to a keen-eyed observer on Reddit, we have a photo of the truck.

TechCrunch again says its sources confirm the truck is real. Being a slate gray in color — get it? — it’s as described; a short-bed, single cab pickup truck. It appears to be running on steel wheels, and is relatively boxy in shape. We wouldn’t say there’s much design to it, per sé, but rather the definition of “an pickup truck.” In some says, it kind of looks just like the pickup truck (🛻) emoji.

We took the Reddit photo and used some upscaling magic to get a better look at it. Because of the shadows, it’s hard to see anything inside (other than a person behind the wheel), but it does look like the charging door is on the driver’s side in the rear of the truck. That means owners will be backing into charging spaces. For a charging door, it looks a little small, which lends us to believe that it’s hiding a NACS port underneath. The wheels themselves are also pushed quite far out to the edges of the truck, which will improve handling and ride quality as much as possible for a vehicle so small.

To our eyes, it’s maybe the length of a compact crossover. In some ways, it doesn’t look much bigger than a plus-sized Fiat 500e. It appears to be ultizing a unibody design, much like the Ford Maverick, and that’s to be expected.

It doesn’t look like the hood opens at all. It might not even have one at all. But we’ll know more when the truck is officially revealed. There’s also a small spoiler on the back of the top of the cab to help with airflow and improve efficiency. It doesn’t appear to have a tonneau cover, but this is also very likely an early prototype, and that’s one of the accessories that the company may offer to help recoup some of the losses of selling a truck for the lofty goal of just $25,000.

Is the world ready for potentially the Amazon Basics of compact pickup trucks? We’ll see.