USA
Slate Auto has confirmed that its electric pickup, and the SUV conversion built from it, will not be sold in Canada. The startup has not given an official reason, but the likely culprit is price: Slate’s entire pitch rests on affordability, and cross-border tariffs erode that math quickly.
In the United States, the Slate Truck starts at $24,950, with the SUV version priced $5,000 higher. US deliveries are scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026. A 25% retaliatory tariff on American-built vehicles would push the pickup’s price to at least $31,100, and once converted to Canadian dollars, to roughly $44,500 CAD.
That figure changes what the Slate Truck is competing against. At $44,500 CAD it would already cost more than a Ford Maverick in Canada and land close to a Chevrolet Colorado, erasing the price gap that is the truck’s entire reason for existing.
Slate has built its identity around stripping the car down to essentials, no touchscreen, no standard audio, hand-cranked windows, in exchange for a price no other new EV can match. That same minimalism is what makes it vulnerable once tariffs and currency conversion are added: there is no premium positioning or feature set to fall back on if the discount disappears.
