Slate Will Build a $7.8M Vinyl Wrap Kit Manufacturing Fulfillment Facility In Kentucky

[Luxrage]

Dodge had a similar thing a few years ago. On their fleet site you could pre-build your wrap and they'd ship you your RAM pickup pre-wrapped for your business. Makes sense they'd go this route as it ensures they get priority for customer orders instead of some third party trying to fit in potentially 100K truck orders on top of other clients.

 

[KevinRS]

I really doubt they would ship trucks to Kentucky to wrap then ship on to the fleet customers that's just the most expensive way possible to do it. More likely the Kentucky facility will prep and ship wraps around the country, and if a fleet needs trucks wrapped, the trucks and wraps will meet up somewhere closer to their end destination, and be wrapped by someone contracted to do it.

 

[RetiredOnPaper]

IMHO the big reveal will happen when Slate releases the Slate U videos. Most of those will have to be based on production vehicles. That should give us some detailed information of the build and care of the Slate. The instructions for applying the wraps will be interesting to watch. Will they cover removal? Also note; This is the start of Q2 of '26. We should start seeing stuff happening at the Warsaw plant.

 

[SparkYellow]

In my very simple mind, this is a strong indication that the trucks are definitely coming. Who cares what Doug says? Slate is working on wrappers for the candies. 😍

 

[Mac-Tyson]

I wonder why they would do this. Slate is not a company that is trying to be vertically integrated like Tesla or many of the Chinese manufacturers. I’m sure plenty of wrap makers would be happy to do this custom work for them.

In the long run Slate will want to be as vertically integrated as possible to keep prices down and pass those savings on to the customer. That’s likely why Slate is investing in this since while wrapping is an optional accessory the very design was optimized for wrapping so it’s an integral optional accessory. There likely won’t be any accessory Slate sells more of then their wrap kits. So having that vertical integration allows them have it sold at the most affordable price possible while also maintaining a good profit margin on each wrap kit sold. Finally, $7.8 Million vs $350 Million (for a Paint Shop) in upfront expenses. It still pennies compared to the investment they would have needed to make if they went the traditional paint route.

 

[Mac-Tyson]

Could the Fulfillment Facility part of that be for other things as well, besides wrap?

Maybe third-party suppliers can warehouse unsold accessories there, similar to "Fulfilled By Amazon".

One important word in business is Scaling. Right now it seems this is just a place to make and ship the wrap kits. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the only thing this facility does as Slate grows as a company. They could expand it for other uses as it becomes financially feasible to do so.

 

[Mac-Tyson]

If you noodle some numbers the Wrap Facility seems like a pretty lucrative idea.

Let's say 1/3 get a wrap, the wrap price is $500, and margin is 50% just so we have numbers.

1/3 of 150,000 times $250 is $12.5 million USD gross margin in one year, and that's just for starters.

The fact is also a lot of people here might be fine with Slate Grey Trucks but people like to have choices in colors. As I said in other comments this is an optional accessory but it’s an integral optional accessory to the point that ease of wrapping was a key priority in the exterior of design of the truck. In automotive history not having something integral being made completely in-house can be the death of a company. One example is the AMC Pacer was designed for a GM made Rotary Engine, that GM canceled so they then had to put in a different motor that was more heavier and underpowered. Making the vehicle much worst. That was an integral aspect of the vehicle that AMC had no control over.

It’s why I suspect once Slate scales to being a profitable company one of the first things they will do as soon as it’s financially feasible is invest in a battery plant to vertically integrate this very expensive component of the vehicle to make it even more affordable.

 

[Mac-Tyson]

I really doubt they would ship trucks to Kentucky to wrap then ship on to the fleet customers that's just the most expensive way possible to do it. More likely the Kentucky facility will prep and ship wraps around the country, and if a fleet needs trucks wrapped, the trucks and wraps will meet up somewhere closer to their end destination, and be wrapped by someone contracted to do it.

Yeah this is how I interpreted it to it will be shipped to the Slate Factory in Warsaw, an affiliated service center, or wherever your house is if you want to wrap it yourself. People are going to buy more than one wrap kit if they get them and not everyone is going to have it wrapped at the factory so it makes more sense to have a dedicated location for creating the wrap kits to have shipped out.

 

[AZFox]

The fact is also a lot of people here might be fine with Slate Grey Trucks but people like to have choices in colors.

I speculated 1/3 might wrap because of this:

 

[Mac-Tyson]

I speculated 1/3 might wrap because of this:

Where is this statistic from?

 

[KevinRS]

Where is this statistic from?

This thread https://www.slateforums.com/forum/threads/slate-reservations-pre-order-tracking-list-stats-📊.12645/

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Where is this statistic from?

Those numbers are potentially skewed.
1. Most forum members are individuals, and the survey only includes forum members who bothered to respond to the poll.
2. Commercial orders may be more likely to wrap their truck and may not be properly represented in the poll, if at all.

This reminds me of some sage advice years ago:
1. Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see, and
2. Liars figure and figures lie.
lol