Inside the EV starting with the support of Jeff Bezos secretly

Jeff Bezos is funding an EV EV, based in Michigan called Slate Auto, which can start production as soon as possible next year, according to multiple sources and documents linking the billionaire family office to start emerging.

Slate, which has been established in another company connected to Bezos called Re: Build Manufacturing, is quietly since its foundation in 2022. The company has rented hundreds of employees while they were in the ghost-many of Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, and Harley-Davidson.

It also attracted the support of many other wealthy individuals, including Mark Walter, the dominant owner of La Dodgers and CEO of Guggenheim Partners, and Thomas Tulle, a major investor for Re: Build Manufacturing, according to the TECHCRUNCH documents obtained from the Dillauer Company for Companies.

Slate Auto addresses a big target: a two -seat Beck August Electric truck for about $ 25,000, according to two sources who gave not to disclose his identity to talk about the company’s internal discussions. The leaders within the company mentioned the Ford Model T or Volkswagen models as a northern star of the project, according to the people.

I gathered a big war chest in the service of this goal.

The company quietly raised at least $ 111 million in a round of series A in 2023, according to Public file. Bezos participated, and Melinda Louison, the person who runs his family’s office, was included as a manager in the list of papers to the states and the federal government. The deposit shows 16 people investing in that tour; It is not clear how much Bezos put in the company.

Slate told the employees that it closed the B series late last year, according to multiple sources of financing. No papers for the tour with the Securities and Stock Exchange Committee have yet been submitted. Dilayer paper works show that they are authorized by about 500 million shares preferred to the series B at a price of $ 2.37 per share. (Slate also authorized more than 400 million shares of regular stocks last year, although deposits did not mention price).

Delare Paperwork also lists Walter and Tull as members of the new board of directors, indicating that the two investors in the Slate’s Series B. It was recently formed Holding company worth $ 40 billion to make investments. Walter and Tula cannot comment.

Slate hopes to enter its production in production in late 2026 at a manufacturing facility somewhere near Indianapolis, Indiana, according to job ListsGovernment pressure records, and 2024 interview with CEO Rodney Copes. It is not immediately clear whether Slate has currently bought a factory or plans to build one zero point.

The secret project is formed at a difficult time for electric cars.

Growth once for the sector I cool downThe multiple startups designated to build EVS for bankruptcy. Those who survived, such as Rivian and Lucid Motors, did this by combustion through billions of dollars.

Slate plans to supplement the small margins of its low -cost truck by building a set of accessories and clothes that owners can use to customize their cars and appearance, according to the sources and different jobs. Its executive ranks were filled with former Harley Davidson and Silants employees-two historic sides of these types of auxiliary companies (the first with clothes and the last with spare parts and Mobar accessories).

The Slate headquarters is located in TRY, Michigan, and Startup also showed evidence of the concept vehicle for investors in the non -descriptive design studio that it rented in the Long Beach, California, according to the sources. It has targeted members of high value and kept a narrow cover in the process of collecting donations.

The company and many people connected to Slate, Re: Build Manufacturing, and Bezos’s Family Office have not responded to repeated requests to comment on this story. Techcrunch also reached Bezos directly and did not receive a response.

Deep Amazon relationships

A list is filmed with Amazon DNA.

Besides the Bizous family office, the Slate series included financing from Diego Basantney, the former executive of the Amazon His company site.

Slate was initially created as a project called Re: Car in early 2022 within the Re: Build Manufacturing, a local manufacturing incubator of a kind in its establishment by the former CEO of Amazon Jeff Wellk Leaders of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Global Operations Miles colleague Arnion. Many CEOs for a long time from Amazon, including Wei Gao, who was the first vice president and technical adviser to Bezos, are now at Re: Build Manufacturing.

Slate digital threads, e -commerce and cars are Leads Amazon Expats. Even the original Slate name includes “Re:” Prefix Amazon is used for events, such as Re: Mars Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Conference, or Re: Invent Gathering for AWS.

Bezos has invested in more than 30 companies through his family’s office over the years, touching the worlds of artificial intelligence (confusion), robots (shape), defense (Anduril) and even mobility (Uber). Slate is one of the most direct investments he has made in the world of electric cars outside the relationship between Amazon with Rivian.

His investments were largely so. People familiar with the internal business of the company Techcrunch that he had not seen it around Slate’s Michigan or Los Angeles.

Be the direction

All startups that came (and went) almost in the past decade have tried to repeat the approach that Tesla has followed. They designed their first cars to be high -end offers so that they can sell fewer cars for more money. Ultimately, after increasing brand awareness, these companies move to EVS higher than the size and cheaper that generate smaller margins.

Slate flip this by following what you hope will be the “first car” for the buyer, according to the people who spoke with Techcrunch.

The idea is to sell the truck at a price of about $ 25,000, and make the owners allocate or upgrade the car over time because they can withstand its costs.

In late March, I came Slate to get trademark On the phrase: “We have built it. You make it.” There is a long list of goods and services that can be covered, including everything from keys and loudspeakers to USB ports and pets.

Other details can be obtained from many job lists that have been published over the past two years.

one to publish In 2024, the company hinted that the company drafted the “Slate University” customer customization process. The list was originally entitled “Lead University” and was renamed to “Customer Education and Maintenance Head” before the start of the start of acceptance.

“We are seeking an enthusiastic and experienced leader at the University of Salt to build and lead our variable approach to the game of open source of customers to enhance their own ownership experience,” says the list. “As a leadership, the strategy and the development of the ecosystem for educational content and delivery of strong shoppers, customers, technicians and partners will lead.”

Another function existing For “Main Product Manager, accessories” shows that Slate is “exploring opportunities in electrical mobility space and adopting free accessories, clothing and goods ability.” It is also mentioned that the person will oversee the development of “Parts of the Equipment” and “lifestyle and behavior accessories”.

This approach-which supports a low margin manufacturer with upper margin accessories-is an approach used by automobile companies, including Harley-Davidson with the clothing section and Jeep Stelantis maker with the MPAR spare parts and services section.

It is not surprising, that Slate is already withdraws an experience from these two companies because it builds its team.

The CEO of the startup company is Rodney Copes, who spent 20 years in Harley Davidson. Financial Director Ryan Green spent nearly a decade on the financial side of the motorcycle manufacturer. (Cepes and Green also had work periods in Rivian.)

Slate is clearly planning the source of high voltage battery package, electric motors, and other relevant technology from external suppliers, according to the inclusion of one work. The startup is a “challenge to the current position of vehicle design”, according to another listing of the design engineer/version of the windshield. Publishing to the role of the accountant says that the person who has been appointed will have to help implement “the systems required to be a public company.”

According to another role, any potential public relations and communications president: “You must love cars! You will think of cars throughout the day, which is more fun when you love cars.”

The founder was not found

Another way that Slate seems to be in the direction of other startups in EV is that he does not have a founder who works as CEO.

Arnone is the founder of Slate, according to the sources that spoke to Techcrunch, but his daily function works as an executive of the R: Build Manufacturing.

Instead, the CEO of Slate is Christine Parman, an old warrior in Chrysler. I entered the automotive industry through a training period in General Motors after the presence of Bordeaux University, according to 2023 interview.

Then she spent more than 20 years in Chrysler overseeing the Cricice 300 vehicle line program, Dodge Charger and Jeep Cherkee, according to her LinkedIn’s profile. Parman ultimately became a deputy head of electricity and electronics by Krisler, as she led the integration of Android Automotive, and spent time working on the company’s cooperation with Waymo, before leaving the company in 2017.

Parman has not spent the past decade in online publishing like many of its EV’s executives. Instead, it was often advised companies in the field of emerging technology and educational engineering before participating in 2022 with what was at that time the evive EV project within Re: Build Manufacturing.

Parman did not respond to a request for comment.

Kirsten Corosk contributed to this report.