Bezos-backed EV-maker unveils $31,000 electric ute, upping war with Musk
Jeff Bezos has upped the ante with rival Elon Musk, backing an auto start-up that has launched a no-frills ute priced at a fraction of the cost of the polarising Tesla Cybertruck.
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Jeff Bezos has upped the ante in his rivalry with Elon Musk, backing an auto start-up that has launched a no-frills ute priced from $US20,000 ($31,300) – a fraction of the cost of the much-polarised Tesla Cybertruck.
The space race between the pair has now descended onto the roads. Mr Bezos is one of biggest backers of Slate Auto, a Michigan-based company aiming to “redefine personalised transportation” while adhering to Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra.
“Slate will manufacture the truck at a reindustrialised factory in the US alongside a customer experience centre,” the company said.
Chief executive Chris Barman said Slate was founded on a disruptive business model of “simplifying the manufacturing process and removing unnecessary content to reduce cost and increase reliability”.
“The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” Mrs Barman added. “Slate exists to put the power back in the hands of customers who have been ignored by the auto industry. Slate is a radical truck platform so customisable that it can transform from a two-seat pick-up to a five-seat SUV.”
A flat-pack accessory SUV kit turns the Slate Truck – which is about a quarter of the price of the $US80,000 Cybertruck – into a five-seater, with a roll cage, airbags and rear seat. Mrs Barman said the ute was designed to “achieve the highest safety ratings”, featuring active emergency braking forward collision warning, and up to eight airbags.
The Slate Truck has a range of more than 240km versus 563km for the Cybertruck. Slate said it could fast-charge to 80 per cent at 120kW in less than 30 minutes. This compares with the Cybertruck delivering a range of up to 237km in about “15 minutes of supercharging”.
Mr Bezos has been one of the biggest backers of EVs, with his e-commerce empire Amazon launching more than 20,000 electric delivery vans across the US. Amazon has a partnership with EV-maker Rivian to buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2030.
Slate Auto’s move comes as Tesla sales have cratered, with Chinese-owned BYD overtaking the company as the world’s top-selling EV-maker.
Mr Musk is scaling back his role at Mr Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency to focus more on Tesla after its stores and vehicles were targeted by “organised protests”.
Tesla is also recalling more than 46,000 Cybertrucks over the potential for an exterior panel to fall off. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a cosmetic applique along the exterior of the vehicles, known as the cant rail, can delaminate and detach, which the agency said could create a road hazard.
Tesla sold almost 39,000 Cybertrucks in the US last year, according to estimates from Cox Automotive, but overall reported its first year-on-year sales decline, delivering 37,845 fewer units.
And despite a Cybertruck cruising on Australian roads, under dealer registration plates, Tesla has no plans to sell the vehicle, which is priced from $US80,000, in this country – or elsewhere in the world – given it only complies with US standards.
Tesla’s net income dived 71 per cent in the first quarter in a horror start to the year as the company struggles to compete with Chinese EVs and suffers a reputational hit from Mr Musk’s political antics.
The billionaire says he has done the right thing backing Mr Trump and seeking to slash government spending at DOGE.
“I believe the right thing to do is to fight the waste and fraud and try to get the country back on the right track,” Mr Musk said. “Those who were receiving the wasteful dollars and the fraudulent dollars will try to attack me and our team and anything associated with me.”
In the past week, Tesla shares have rebounded almost 24 per cent after Mr Musk declared the company would deliver driverless cars by June, initially in Austin, Texas. But its shares are still down almost 25 per cent since January.
Mr Musk said autonomous cars would move the “financial needle in a significant way” for Tesla by mid next year.
“The reality is that in the future, most people are not going to buy cars,” he said. “If you continue on that phone metaphor, I can remember the days of flip phones. There were 100 different flip-phone designs. The mistake manufacturers made was to try to make different variants of a flip phone. They should have made an iPhone.”
“Nokia, I think, at one point was the most valuable company in the world, or close to it. They kept making flip phones – trying to find another mom, somebody who wants a different style, maybe this different colour or whatever it is. Nope. They just wanted a superintelligent phone.
“In the not-too-distant future, buying a gasoline car that is not autonomous will be like riding a horse using a flip phone.”
Originally published as Bezos-backed EV-maker unveils $31,000 electric ute, upping war with Musk
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