Q&A with CEO Chris Barman (Dec 16, 2025). Slateforums gets a shout out 🙌

[E90400K]

I’d doubt if it’s a crash thing, lay flat seats are pretty common these days.

I was discussing of the rear seat in the YJ Wrangler. It easily folded together and slid out of its mounts and was completely removable from the vehicle (without tools), which made for an open cargo area. In vehicles where the seat backs fold forward (and lay flat or mostly flat) they soundly lock into the frame of the car at several points. My 2-door Bronco for example, the seat bottoms flip up and the seatbacks fold nearly flat into the cavity. The Bronco's rear seats have numerous contact points with the chassis. The Slates (original) pickup bed orientation makes it difficult for Slate to inexpensively make a fold flat seat since the chassis contact points are in the pickup bed area and would get in the way of the flat bed of the pickup box and walls. Having a dual-configuration chassis comes with compromises.

 

[AZFox]

The 60/40 seats of this prototype look like they're designed to fold.

 

[RequiredInfo]

I was largely disappointed by the Q&A, the tone did not come across well. Slate initiated the Q&A, chose the time, place, and particular questions. Many of the questions might've been answered in a previous video, but which one(s) of the hundreds cover things like the backup cam location, and when in the video? Videos are terrible for finding info in. The slate auto website FAQ hasn't been updated in the week since the video with any of the info. How many new reservations does Slate predict to make, and how many did they predict to lose? I'm keeping my reservation, but if this is the kind of information and company attitude I can expect going forward, I'm certainly not going to be making any recommendations, and keeping my options open.

 

[SichuanHot]

I was largely disappointed by the Q&A, the tone did not come across well. Slate initiated the Q&A, chose the time, place, and particular questions. Many of the questions might've been answered in a previous video, but which one(s) of the hundreds cover things like the backup cam location, and when in the video? Videos are terrible for finding info in. The slate auto website FAQ hasn't been updated in the week since the video with any of the info. How many new reservations does Slate predict to make, and how many did they predict to lose? I'm keeping my reservation, but if this is the kind of information and company attitude I can expect going forward, I'm certainly not going to be making any recommendations, and keeping my options open.

I echo your sentiments and also think reserving and preordering stuff is a fool's errand. I don't like putting money into something if it doesn't exist yet. If I'm gonna be investing in a company that doesn't have a product to market, it better be in their stocks.