IT'S OFFICIAL: Slate announces truck to be built in Warsaw, Indiana 💪 [MORE DETAILS]

[Tran]

Slate has officially announced that the Slate truck will be built in its Warsaw, Indiana plant.




More details via https://www.theverge.com/news/658223/slate-factory-electric-truck-location-indiana

• Because the Truck doesn’t have paint, Slate Auto’s factory doesn’t need an expensive paint shop. (Mercedes-Benz recently spent a reported $1 billion building a new one.) And, because the body panels are made of a form of plastic, that factory can skip the massive presses typically used to stamp metal body panels into shape.
  
  
• Slate will build out their production hub at the former R.R. Donnelly facility in Warsaw, Indiana, a printing press that was once responsible for stuffing your mailbox with catalog pulp from retailers. It shuttered in September of 2023, putting over 500 people out of work.
  
  
• When it opens next year, Jeff Jablansky, Slate Auto’s head of public relations and communications, says the plan is to employ 2,000 people at the facility.
  
  
• Slate wouldn’t confirm the total investment the facility’s retrofit will require, or the terms of Slate’s use of the property, only that renovations will cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
  
  
• All that will need to be completed before the Truck can begin production, which is currently scheduled for Q4 of 2026.
  
  
• At 1.4 million square feet, Slate’s facility is roughly one-quarter the size of Tesla’s Fremont Factory, which currently produces approximately 650,000 vehicles per year. Again, Slate hopes to produce upwards of 150,000 Trucks annually at this facility, an annual production rate that took Tesla more than five years to achieve in Fremont. Given its simplified manufacturing process, Slate will surely be hoping to move more quickly.
  
  
• Slate is committed to not only manufacturing the Truck in the U.S. but to using domestic suppliers as well. “The vehicle is designed, engineered, and manufactured in the U.S., with the majority of our supply chain based in the U.S.” Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s Chief Commercial Officer, told us ahead of the Truck’s debut. As global trade wars only escalate, that’s looking like a sound move.

 

[MavStangVa]

What about those massive presses to injection mold the panels. Or are you going blow mold route? Or the old RIMM machines from Pontiac?

 

[E90400K]

What about those massive presses to injection mold the panels. Or are you going blow mold route? Or the old RIMM machines from Pontiac?

Maybe Webasto is going to make them. 🤣🤣🤣

 

[MavStangVa]

Maybe Webasto is going to make them. 🤣🤣🤣

Not sure the have the presses for body panels. The press to mold the top of a John Deere combine uses 6600 tons of force to keep the mold closed while injecting. It wouldn't fit in the building Slate is using. Bumpers for a Toyota Camry is in a 4000 ton press. There are suppliers out there and Slate has already negotiated the production and done test shots and fittings. I will wager they will be molded in either China or India but assembled here.

 

[E90400K]

Not sure the have the presses for body panels. The press to mold the top of a John Deere combine uses 6600 tons of force to keep the mold closed while injecting. It wouldn't fit in the building Slate is using. Bumpers for a Toyota Camry is in a 4000 ton press. There are suppliers out there and Slate has already negotiated the production and done test shots and fittings. I will wager they will be molded in either China or India but assembled here.

I was making a joke about Webasto, seeing if anyone would get it. Though I do think Webesto's plant in Michigan may have tooling big enough to make the body panels for the Slate truck. None of the panels have that complext of a shape. I'm not sure Slate has said what forming process will be used for panels nor even specifically what type of plastics will be used. Let's hope they keep the panel manufacturing in the US.

 

[Daley]

I was making a joke about Webasto, seeing if anyone would get it.

Totally got the joke and was actually thinking the same thing lol. Please no Webasto! Or maybe someone will want the honeycomb, cardboard edges look.

 

[TheShark]

Totally got the joke and was actually thinking the same thing lol. Please no Webasto! Or maybe someone will want the honeycomb, cardboard edges look.

Being a fellow hard top Bronco owner I got the joke as well, can you imagine a Slate with Webasto panels? The fit and finish would be comparable to a Cybertruck!

 

[cvollers]

Warsaw is my favorite live music venue in New York City. It’s in a great neighborhood in Brooklyn.

 

[cvollers]

Maybe Webasto is going to make them. 🤣🤣🤣

Webasto is a German heater and auto supply company.

 

[MavStangVa]

I was making a joke about Webasto, seeing if anyone would get it. Though I do think Webesto's plant in Michigan may have tooling big enough to make the body panels for the Slate truck. None of the panels have that complext of a shape. I'm not sure Slate has said what forming process will be used for panels nor even specifically what type of plastics will be used. Let's hope they keep the panel manufacturing in the US.

Doubt they have the type of press needed. I spent 47 years in the plastics molding business, machinery side and production. Since Slate is a low volume vehicle they will have already locked in molders. Each mold for a body or under body panel could cost 250k and up. If they need 2 shot molding for flexible sealing edges that mold goes up to a million. You would be surprised how many little places you drive past makes bits and pieces for the automotive industry. I used to service a plant that made nothing but windshield washer nozzles. The plastic will likely be a pvc base for the body panels.