There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the Slate Truck. Starting at $24,950 (plus an as-yet unannounced destination fee), the “Blank Slate” with no options is the least expensive new EV on the market, and among the least expensive new cars overall. However, a first ride around the block left our Daniel Golson unimpressed, citing an awkward step-in height, a loud cabin even at city speeds, and an excessively sparse interior with crank windows and hard plastic armrests. These might have been acceptable in, say, a 1982 Toyota Pickup, but one expects more in 2026.
Another major aspect of the Slate experience is DIY customization. We can get behind that. But what if you took it to the next level? What if, instead of buying a Slate Truck, you started with that 1982 Toyota, then turned it into a comparable EV? That’s what YouTuber B_Serious has been working on for the past year, and recently took for its first successful test drive.
The donor vehicle came with a blown 22R engine and a manual transmission. The engine would obviously go, but the transmission would stay. While an EV doesn’t require a transmission, it provided an easy way to connect the electric motor’s power to the existing drivetrain, and to back up without the complexity of reversing the polarity of the power going to the motor. It’s also more fun to row your own gears in practically anything, including an EV.
Out with the old, in with the new
Like the truck itself, many of the parts are secondhand, including the Netgain Warp 9 DC motor he bought off Craigslist. He bolted a clutch to the motor’s “mangled spinny thing,” then bolted the motor to the stock transmission with an adapter plate. Scrap steel secures the motor to the truck’s stock motor mounts.
The custom battery pack uses five cells that originally lived in a Tesla Model S, providing just over 26 kilowatt-hours of capacity and an estimated 75 to 85 miles of range. That’s far less than the Slate’s revised 205 miles, but if you need that much range (and you probably don’t), you could always add more battery cells to get it. I love that the battery pack has “Unleaded Fuel Only” handwritten on the outside, and that you plug it in to a socket located under the original fuel filler door to charge.
There are a lot of electronics involved as well, both to charge and manage the battery, as well a Zilla motor controller to manage throttle input. The old gas pedal is gone, but the new one is still a genuine Toyota part from a 2009 Prius, enabling drive-by-wire control in this old truck. The original ignition still turns the whole truck on and off, including the electric powertrain. It also charges the standard 12-volt battery to power the rest of the truck’s original electrical system when the ignition is on.
Of course, a project like this is nowhere near as simple as the 30 minutes to 2 hours that most Slate DIY upgrades seem to take. The video goes into deeper detail, and earlier videos during the build process dig even deeper. There is no mention of how much this project cost, which I’d be interested in to compare to the price of a Slate. It would take many, many hours in a garage, not 12 minutes like this video, to do an EV conversion. But the work you put in yourself is a priceless part of the DIY fun.
