Slate has listed a Rand McNally 2027 Road Atlas in its online store for $30, branding the paper book a "Screenless GPS" for its low-cost electric pickup. The item went up on Thursday in limited quantities, and Slate says it works in any vehicle on sale today, not just its own truck.
The product is a joke with a point. Slate's EV is being pitched as a stripped-back machine with unpainted composite body panels, manual windows and no large infotainment screen, which means no factory navigation either. The atlas fills that gap in the most analog way available.
What the $30 atlas actually does
Slate's pitch leans on the things a paper map cannot do wrong: no boot time, no subscription fee and no battery to run flat. It also offers no turn-by-turn directions, so it will never send a driver into an active construction site.
In practice, the atlas is a novelty rather than the primary way Slate expects owners to navigate. The truck will ship with a phone mount so drivers can keep using Google Maps, Apple Maps or whatever app they already know.
Slate framed the decision as a philosophy rather than a cost cut. "When it comes to tech, we believe you should use the devices and solutions you already know and love," the company said on Thursday. "Not because we don't like tech, but because we believe you already have everything you need to get where you're going".
That approach is consistent with how the truck is specified. Buyers get an LFP battery, a bed and wheels, with extras kept deliberately simple: an analog map at one end of the scale, a phone at the other, or an SUV kit that adds seats and a roof for those who want more.
The price the minimalism protects
Keeping the screen and the connected services out has helped hold the pickup under $25,000. Slate has also opened its first showroom, where the truck is listed at $24,950.
The atlas is a small piece of theatre around a serious bet: that buyers are tired enough of expensive, screen-packed cars to pay less for a vehicle that does less. Whether that holds depends on owners accepting their phone as the navigation system, which is exactly what the included mount assumes.
Timing and what is still open
Slate plans to deliver its first trucks later this year. The company has not said how many atlases it will stock beyond describing the initial run as limited, and it has not announced whether the map will be restocked once that batch sells through.
The atlas is not tied to the truck, so it can be bought by any driver with $30 and a use for a paper map. For Slate owners, the practical setup is the phone mount plus a mapping app, with the Rand McNally book as the backup that needs no charging at all.
