Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has announced it will build its affordable $25,000 electric pickup truck at a repurposed industrial site in Warsaw, Indiana.
The company will take over a 1.4 million-square-foot facility previously occupied by a printing company until its closure in 2023. The plant — located roughly 40 miles from Fort Wayne — was originally built in 1958 and last renovated in 2000, according to property records.
Slate CEO Chris Barman told Business Insider the move is part of a mission to “reindustrialize and revitalize” American towns by repurposing dormant facilities. “We want to bring life back to places that have seen jobs disappear,” he said ahead of the truck’s recent unveiling.
Slate expects the site to create over 2,000 new jobs, significantly more than the roughly 500 lost when the plant shut down last year.
The company’s approach mirrors that of other major EV players — like Tesla, which took over the former NUMMI plant in California, and Rivian, which now operates out of a shuttered Mitsubishi factory in Illinois. However, unlike those, Slate’s Warsaw site was not a car factory, but a large-scale printing operation.
Production is expected to begin in late 2026, with customer deliveries starting soon after. The Slate Truck will debut with a starting price of around $25,000 and an estimated 150 miles of range, positioning it as the most affordable new electric pickup on the U.S. market.
The factory includes two production wings — each approximately 600,000 square feet — plus dedicated office space. Slate has not disclosed how much of the space it plans to utilize. Local economic officials declined to comment due to a nondisclosure agreement.
With an ambitious price point and a focus on reusing existing infrastructure, Slate Auto aims to make a major mark on the electric truck landscape — and breathe new life into America’s industrial heartland.
