Electric Suzuki Jimny ute rival? Jeff Bezos enters the electric car game with the tiny customisable Slate pick-up truck people can 'build' themselves

Slate Auto, a new electric car company backed by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, has just launched its first vehicle in the United States.

Dubbed the Slate Truck, it's a fully customisable tiny pick-up truck with a relatively tiny price tag to match. 

Pricing for the Slate Truck will start at about A$31,000 with the US’s EV incentives factored in and for that you’ll get a very basic electric pick-up with not much in the way of luxuries.

But it can be modified and personalised in a multitude of ways, including turning it into an SUV.

The base price gets you what is effectively a blank canvas.  A little electric pick-up truck with steel wheels, grey painted body, two grey fabric-upholstered seats, grey coloured interior trims, roll-up windows and nothing in the way of media screens or the plush touches you’d find on most new utes and cars these days. But this is where the fun starts.

Once you've purchased the Slate Truck, you can then buy everything from alloys wheels, all-terrain tyres and electric windows to media screens, stereos and the pick-up can be wrapped in bright colours.

That’s the way Slate Auto hopes to make money on top of the low retail price for the base truck. 

You can even turn the two-seater single-cab pick-up into a small, five-seater SUV by adding a bench seat in the tray and a canopy to cover it all.

“The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” said Slate CEO Chris Barman. 

“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 customizable that it can transform from a two-seat pick-up to a five-seat SUV.”

Measuring 4435mm long, 1793mm wide and 1760mm tall the Slate Truck is about 450mm longer than the five-door Suzuki Jimny XL and has a tray measuring 1524mm long and 1394mm wide.

A single 150kW/264Nm electric motor powers the rear wheels and it comes standard with a 52.7kWh battery offering up to 241km of range.

Like everything about this truck, even the battery capacity can be customised and for extra money buyers can get a 84.3kWh unit offering up to 386km of range.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was part of a funding drive in 2023 to raise money for Slate when it was in its start-up phase, however, it's not known how much money the billionaire contributed.

Slate Auto plans to have the little pick-up on sale in the United States by the end of 2026.

While there are likely many Australians keen for one, too, there’s no news on whether it will be offered here.