Slate offers look into its Warsaw investment, production of Blank Slate truck

Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at 2:44 PM

By Staff report

Slate has officially announced that the Slate truck will be built in its Warsaw, Indiana plant.

Slate will build out their production hub at the former R.R. Donnelly facility, a printing press that was once responsible for creating catalog pulp from retailers. It shuttered in September of 2023, putting over 500 people out of work.

The R. R. Donnelley and Sons printing plant, known for printing JC Penney catalogs, employed more than 1,800 people at its peak and printed 18 million magazines. When it opens next year, Jeff Jablansky, Slate Auto’s head of public relations and communications, says the plan is to employ 2,000 people at the facility.

The Michigan-based electric vehicle maker plans to build stripped-down gray pickups called the Blank Slate for around $25,000. The Slate Truck doesn’t have paint. And, because the body panels are made of a form of plastic, the factory can skip the massive presses typically used to stamp metal body panels into shape.

Slate's facility is 1.4 million square feet. The company hopes to produce upwards of 150,000 Trucks annually at this facility.

One of the three investors in the company is Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. The $400 million in investment is expected to have a $39 billion impact on Indiana.

Production is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.