Slate Could Have A Powerful New Friend In Carvana

One online car dealer may have quietly secured its place in making Slate's dreams come true, according to a report.

Photo by: Slate

Rob Stumpf

By: Rob Stumpf

Jun 5, at 10:01am ET

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After a $650 million funding round, Slate's electic pickup is closer than ever to market.
One of Slate's investors could be one of the industry's biggest names in used car sales, TechCrunch reports.
It's not clear if Carvana has taken a stake in Slate, or if the companies are exploring deeper partnerships.

Slate—the underdog startup with a plastic-bodied electric pickup—is getting closer to launching its low-cost EV. And as any of the many failed EV companies can tell you, building a brand new car from scratch is very, very expensive.

Thankfully, investors exist for this very reason. Tesla had Elon Musk in its early days, Rivian had Amazon, and Slate? Well, Slate has Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a growing slate of other partners. One of those investors could be Carvana, according to documents uncovered by TechCrunch. Paperwork filed with Delaware's Division of Corporations around the time of Slate's recent $650 million Series C funding round reportedly grants Carvana a warrant to buy an unknown number of shares in the EV startup.

Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs

Just like the exact price of the Slate truck, how much Carvana would pay for the stock (or if it even exercised the purchasing option) is unknown. Both Carvana and Slate didn't respond to a request for comment on the matter when approached by TechCrunch.

To be clear, this doesn't mean that the relationship between Carvana and Slate is anything other than one potentially involving a monetary investment. But there are clear synergies.

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Slate, like other EV startups, doesn't plan to sell its cars through conventional dealerships, opting instead for direct-to-consumer sales. For repairs, it's enlisted RepairPal, a network of independent auto shops across the country. And Carvana just happens to have built an entire business out of shipping cars directly to consumers (and selling them out of giant vending machines). Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia III also recently told its own investors to "stay tuned" during a recent earnings call when asked if the company planned to dabble in new vehicle sales.

Slate plans to reveal the price of its no-frills EV and officially open its order books on June 24. As of now, all we know is that it will cost in the "mid-twenties" for the most basic model. The startup says production and customer deliveries will begin by the end of this year.