Slate raises another $650M in Series C funding. Preorders sales begin June!

[KevinRS]

I can't help but wonder. What does "preorder" mean in this context? Surely they don't expect people to pay for the truck 6+ months prior to delivery...

Probably going to mean putting down a real deposit, making more of a commitment to buy. Doing the digital paperwork for financing, etc. Might involve some kind of date range for delivery. Once people made that much commitment, Slate will be able to plan out where and when to actually deliver how many trucks.

 

[AKrietzer]

I can't help but wonder. What does "preorder" mean in this context? Surely they don't expect people to pay for the truck 6+ months prior to delivery...

That is what I thought about, plus we can't even test drive until December.

 

[KevinRS]

That is what I thought about, plus we can't even test drive until December.

Who said December for test drives?
My thinking is June or soon after they will have test driveable units off the line, they won't be at full speed, but will be making those and testing and certification trucks. If so, the first trickle of deliveries may be early 4th quarter, or even 3rd quarter.

 

[IanNubbit]

The nearest Repair Pal location to me is about 120 miles away. I assume more shops will pop up, hopefully closer. I wonder if Slate will offer test drives at Repair Pal locations? Anyway I wouldn't want to order one without a test drive. I made my reservation less than 24 hours after they first started. I am about 300 miles from the factory.

Ask local shops you do work with around you to sign up. Everyone is dead right now, almost no shop is going to deny a program that gets more people scheduled and in their doors.

Doing some very rough math.

~= 150,000 reservations
Assume every reservation buys at $25k target Price.

That is $3.75B in revenue if everyone buys

Investor funding around $1.5B. estimate from previous round + latest round of funding.

So Slate needs about half their reservers to follow through to see profits.

Feel free to correct if you have better numbers. I am probably discounting early funding which probably pushes the need to 60-75% of reservation holders to actually buy.

Let's hope the vehicle makes good on our hope/hype.

Most companies take like 5 years minimum to make profit, some decades (lot's of tech companies are this way). To see an auto manufacturer have the ability to realistically turn profit in just a few years WITHOUT selling your data and making you subscribe to their services (or even have financing/leases) is insane. I hope this get's talked about more when/if it does happen that fast, because that truly is industry changing at a a HUGE benefit to the consumer.

 

[IanNubbit]

Who said December for test drives?
My thinking is June or soon after they will have test driveable units off the line, they won't be at full speed, but will be making those and testing and certification trucks. If so, the first trickle of deliveries may be early 4th quarter, or even 3rd quarter.

My honest and slightly hopeful guess is "production" (off the assembly line) units will be available early Fall, and in reviewers hands, along with demo units for test drives, and media rounds. Then by say December, November if we are lucky, units are ready for customers.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

Who said December for test drives?
My thinking is June or soon after they will have test driveable units off the line, they won't be at full speed, but will be making those and testing and certification trucks. If so, the first trickle of deliveries may be early 4th quarter, or even 3rd quarter.

It varies by OEM, but with the Ford Maverick, they take orders around mid-July for production in mid Nov and deliveries late Dec. At least that's how I seem to recall it has worked most years.

Slate will be interesting, because it's the first vehicle ever built by the company. Often, new OEMs target the initial production of an all-new model to internal employees - really a glorified beta test. This lets the company claim "We delivered on time", while debugging the new production line.

A good example of that is the Rivian R2. We already know the first units will go to employees. And frankly, you don't want them. The last thing any sane person wants is to be debugging an all-new assembly line for an all-new company as their personal vehicle.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

Doing some very rough math.

~= 150,000 reservations
Assume every reservation buys at $25k target Price.

That is $3.75B in revenue if everyone buys

Investor funding around $1.5B. estimate from previous round + latest round of funding.

So Slate needs about half their reservers to follow through to see profits.

Feel free to correct if you have better numbers. I am probably discounting early funding which probably pushes the need to 60-75% of reservation holders to actually buy.

Let's hope the vehicle makes good on our hope/hype.

Whoa there! Revenue <> profit. You can have billions in revenue and still lose billions. Companies do this as far back as memory goes. If I can channel "Boogie Nights", you've got your overhead costs, your operating costs, your material costs, your warranty costs, etc.

And atop that, Slate doesn't magically turn out 150,000 units. There's a long production ramp, usually more than a year, to reach that run rate.

We don't know Slate financials. We don't know the material/labor/other cost of the vehicle itself. We don't know the overhead costs, the operating costs. We don't even know if they'll price the Slate at a loss for a period to build volume (a basic strategy for a new OEM). Don't think people do that? Tesla, Rivian and Lucid all did that. Rivian still loses money as a company, even though they are margin positive on a per vehicle basis, and they've burned through tens of billions. The Rivian loss is due to investment in future product, which you must do to survive long term as an auto OEM.

A rule of thumb in the auto industry is that it takes years of a plant running at 80% or better capacity to turn the first penny in profit on an all-new vehicle program. Now maybe Slate has a magic sauce, and 120 years of auto industry wisdom doesn't apply to them. Could be.

 

[KevinRS]

My thinking is in Summer, they will start getting units off the line. Very slow rate sure, to start, and make sure everything is going well on the line. First will be tested to be sure they are functional, make sure there is nothing wrong before they ramp up speed. Once they know there is nothing big wrong, they will be sending units for official testing and certification, to get that 5 star safety certification and verify things like tow rating. Some number will be consumed in crash testing.
After those they will be producing production demo units to take to events, let both us test drive and journalists test. They may indeed send some number off with employees to beta test, but they aren't going to have that huge of a number of employees. I think they fully intend to deliver vehicles to a real number of normal customers by the end of the year. They may not get far through the reservation list, by now that list may be over 200k. Sometime next year they do plan to reach full production capacity, but that will involve even more hiring, and running multiple shifts at the plant. They will want to make sure the line is fully functional and up to speed before doing that hiring.
I'm sure they have a timeline all planned out for this, with contingencies in place for what adjustments they have to make in case there are issues with just about any part of it.

 

[RetiredOnPaper]

My expectation is for the base Slate w small battery to be between $22500 and $25000. The Large battery between $25000 and $28000. If Slate even paid half attention to the politics, they would have planned on the subsidy going away. Just getting numbers on the road will be worth a little pain up front. Nothing advertises like seeing stuff on the road.

 

[dotcom]

I can't help but wonder. What does "preorder" mean in this context? Surely they don't expect people to pay for the truck 6+ months prior to delivery...

I would assume a bigger down payment (bigger than the $50 reservation... maybe $100 up to a couple thousand) + paperwork + formal cancellation/refund policy. Hopefully even kits and accessories, too. That would give them solid info on what kits to make and accessories to focus on. They likely won't want much unused kit/accessory stock, especially when they start shipping completed Blank Slates.