The Blank Slate will have a curb weight of 3,600 pounds, with a payload capacity of 1,430 pounds. Rated towing capacity is listed at 1,000 pounds—significantly less than the 4,000-pound maximum towing capacity in the new 2025 Ford Maverick Hybrid AWD, which has a smaller cargo bed but four doors for the larger cab.

Visually, the Slate follows the upright, horizontal, square-edged profile of the classic two-seat American pickup truck—though rendered in miniature when compared to the full-size US pickups from Ford, GM, and Ram that collectively sell almost 3 million units per year. It looks something like a retro Ford Ranger from the 1980s, versus the more car-like styling of the Hyundai Santa Fe, the only other small pickup offered in the US besides the Ford Maverick.

Dimensionally, the Slate is smaller than the Maverick: It’s 175 inches long, 71 inches wide (not including the mirrors), and 69 inches tall. That compares to the Maverick’s 200-inch length, 73-inch width (again without mirrors), and 68- or 69-inch height. Slate offers a full 60-inch (5-foot) bed, versus the Maverick’s 54 inches. (Both measurements are with the tailgate raised.) While the Maverick has no front trunk (it has an engine instead), the Slate’s front trunk offers 7 cubic feet of storage on top of the 37 cubic feet in the cargo bed (or 34 cubic feet in the SUV’s load bay).

Customer Satisfaction

Barman said Slate will target retail buyers to establish the brand and get as many personalized trucks on the road as possible to boost public awareness. Slate’s EVs will also be sold to corporate customers purchasing the vehicles for fleets, Barman says, though she declined to offer a breakdown of what percentages of sales Slate estimates will go to those two sectors.

We also didn’t talk about this, but it’s worth mentioning: Slate trucks may conceivably also be sold to Amazon. The connection makes sense, since Slate Auto emerged from a startup lab partially funded by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos. The online retailer already deploys tens of thousands of Rivian EV delivery vans, but a smaller EV could serve its purposes for specific uses as well.

Echoes of the Past

As Mark Twain once quipped, perhaps apocryphally: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Anyone who’s been following the auto business for about 20 years may have read Slate’s news and sensed a faint echo, a distant and long-forgotten memory tugging at the corners of their minds.