Ford’s Fathom electric truck starts at just $28,350 before delivery. Slate Auto is going to sell its small pickup sooner and for $24,950. Tell us which one you’d pick right now and why in the comments. Ford finally gave its forthcoming affordable EV pickup a name. It’s the Fathom, and it’ll start at $28,350 before destination. Add Ford’s $1,595 delivery charge and the bill climbs to $29,945. That lands it a few thousand above the Slate Truck, which starts at $24,950, or $26,400 once you fold in the $1,450 delivery fee. So say you’ve got around $28,000 and want an electric pickup. Plenty of people will say buy neither, but suspend disbelief for a moment. Which one gets your money? Read: Ford Promised A Sub-$30K Electric Truck, The Fathom Came In At $28,350 Slate looks like the more known quantity at this point. Its 63-kWh battery is good for a claimed 205 miles (330 km) of range, while its rear-mounted motor produces 201 hp (150 kW). It has a five-foot bed with 35.1 cubic feet of cargo space, plus a seven-cubic-foot frunk. Payload is rated at 1,550 pounds, and towing tops out at 2,000 pounds. Those are genuinely decent work-truck numbers for a vehicle that’s only 175 inches long. Unlike the two-door Slate Auto truck, Ford’s Fathom will launch with four doors. The problem is that Slate got there by cutting out nearly everything that isn’t strictly necessary. It has crank windows. There’s no factory touchscreen, infotainment system, or stereo. It comes in gray composite bodywork and only seats two unless you spend more on a conversion kit. Some people will appreciate that. Others will take one look at it and wonder why they’re spending $25,000 on what honestly feels kinda like a truck-shaped starter kit. On the flip side, Ford has released far fewer Fathom details, but what it has said already makes the Slate seem like a very different sort of proposition. Where the Slate is a two-door regular cab, the Fathom launches as a four-door crew cab, so it starts from a more conventional idea of what a truck should be. The base version will be rear-wheel drive with an LFP battery of undisclosed capacity. A bigger pack and an all-wheel-drive model will arrive later, though Ford hasn’t said when. Ford is also targeting a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds, which should make it dramatically quicker than the Slate’s roughly eight-second run. Ford Fathom prototype (Photos Baldauf) Granted, it should also feel more like the kind of vehicle most people expect in 2026. For example, Ford says the cabin will offer more passenger room than a Toyota RAV4. It’ll have a touchscreen, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, navigation, power windows, and an actual audio system. The tough part for now is that we know very little else regarding range, payload, towing, and more. On top of that, we don’t know exactly what the $28,350 version includes. It could be a real bargain. It could also quickly climb past $30,000 once buyers start adding the features they expect. So the decision is yours. Slate or Ford, and why?
