Slush pits and snowball fights: Slate’s upcoming pickup endures winter testing [Video]

Young American EV startup, Slate Auto, has shared its latest video update, and it’s a chilly one. The company’s development prototypes were recently put through extreme winter testing in Northern Michigan, where, in true Slate fashion, the team had some fun while making great progress. See the video below.

I love getting updates from Slate Auto, don’t you? The young EV startup only burst onto the scene a year ago and is ever closer to delivering its flagship “Bare Slate” electric pickup to customers by the end of 2026. That’s a lightning fast turnaround, but its made possible in part by the core of the Slate’s design – simplified and built tough, without any frills, bells or whistles.

Hell, the truck doesn’t even have a sound system, although future owners will be able to install a bluetooth speaker in the dash. Anyways, aside from its streamlined design, its Slate’s team that appears to be at the root of its early developmental success.

The winter testing video below, posted by Slate this week, is a perfect example of how the startup functions. The team works hard toward a common goal, but has plenty of fun along the way. If you’ve seen any of Slate’s content, it’s clear the startup is unlike any other automaker. You don’t see Ford showcasing how much French onion dip can be mixed together in the frunk of its pickups.

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As you may recall, an Electrek reader spotted a Slate EV in Northern Michigan last month and sent us some images, presumably for winter testing. That appears to have been correct, and Slate itself has shared an in-depth look at the winter testing process, which includes trips through a slush pit, negative degree cold chambers, and a friendly snowball fight amongst engineers.

Last month, we noted that the winter images of the Slate vehicle were taken in Hancock, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. That tracks with the winter testing footage recently shared by Slate, which took place at the Keweenaw Research Center in Calumet, MI, just about ten miles north of Hancock.

I want to share the email text Slate sent with the video because it perfect captures the brand’s voice:

SLUSH PIT, ANYONE? 
Why are our engineers driving the Slate Truck through a slush pit and parking it in a giant deep-freezer? For the love of the game, obviously. But also for cold weather testing—a critical validation process that ensures your Slate won’t freeze its bolts off. With the first Slate Trucks set to be delivered at the end of this year (and the pricing announcement coming in late June), we’re making sure they’ll start right up on a freezing morning.
Go behind the scenes with our team in the frigid north to see how the Slate performed in extreme cold.

The video below not only showcases Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, getting pelted with snowballs, but the vehicles themselves being slushed, frozen, and monitored in extreme winter testing conditions – all of which seemingly passed with flying colors. Keipper spoke in the video:

We passed. So now we’re looking at the nitty gritty details of things that would concern us and starting to figure out are those design characteristics of things we want to adjust or not. So, it came out (of the cold chamber) on its own power, the brakes released, and nothing broke. Those are the criteria in general. I’m happy.

You can check out the full winter testing video from Slate below: