[freebeard]

The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point.

But this is more than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY purpose, an attempt to not just go cheap but to create a new category of vehicle with a huge focus on personalization. That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?

Any color you want, so long as it's a vinyl wrap.