The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
Had President Trump not thrown a wrench into her plans, GM CEO Mary Barra no doubt would have moved more jobs and production to Mexico, where GM is that country’s biggest auto manufacturer and builds its electric Equinox, Blazer, and Cadillac Optiq models, along with a slew of gas engine vehicles.
Photo from Slate Auto
We know this because just before last year’s presidential election when Joe Biden's Energy Secretary and former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm generously donated $500 million in taxpayer funds to GM to cover some of the costs of retooling its Lansing plant for EVs, Granholm claimed the largesse saved 650 jobs and would create 50 new ones, intimating that GM otherwise would have closed the factory.
Adding insult to injury, Barra last year dissed Michigan-based engineers when she opened GM’s Silicon Valley office, claiming that region was home to better talent.
Ford proudly builds its electric Mustang in Mexico, where it also assembles its recall-plagued Maverick pickup and Bronco Sport SUV. Ford also has a fondness for engineers in Mexico where it operates the biggest engineering campus in Latin America. As well, Ford has more than 12,000 salaried employees in India, where until Trump’s election the automaker planned to build vehicles for export.
Perhaps Barra and Ford CEO Jim Farley were unfamiliar, or couldn’t attract, an automotive executive of the caliber of Christine Barman, CEO of Slate Auto, a Troy-based EV upstart founded in 2022 that thinks so far out of the box the company lost sight of the box. Slate is already accepting orders for an EV pickup allowing so much customization that buyers can transform it into an SUV. I’m dubbing Slate the Burger King of U.S. automotive because its aims to allow customers to enjoy its vehicle their way.
Qualify For Rebate
Ford's Jim Farley and GM's Mary Barra
The starting price for Slate’s innovative EV pickup is less than $28,000. The company says its battery will meet the required domestic content specifications to qualify for the $7,500 rebate that remains in effect from the Biden Administration.
Ready for this? Slate plans to build its pickup in Warsaw, Indiana, just 30 miles south of the Michigan state line. (Sorry Gov. Whitmer, close but no cigar.)
I can’t do justice capturing all the innovations Barman and her impressive team put into the vehicle, but John McElroy, whose encyclopedic knowledge of America’s automotive industry I’ve long admired, put together the video below that does Slate Auto’s pickup justice. One can’t help but become jazzed watching McElroy’s clip.
Unlike GM and Ford, which mooch billions off U.S. taxpayers to subsidize their operations and help pay the obscene $29 million and $25 million compensation packages Barra and Ford CEO Jim Farley were respectively paid in 2024 for their uninspiring performances, Slate’s backers include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and self-made Pittsburgh billionaire Thomas Tull, the former chairman and CEO of Legendary Entertainment and a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Slate CEO Chris Barman (Linkedin photo)
Tull reportedly was the lead investor in Massachusetts-based Re:Build Manufacturing, an incubator whose mission is to revitalize U.S. manufacturing through a combination of advanced engineering, strategic acquisitions, and domestic production capabilities. The company’s other co-founder is Jeff Wilke, the former head of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer business, who serves as Chairman.
National Security
Tull was quoted in a local Pittsburgh publication as saying, “that being able to make things again in this country is extremely important not only for jobs and economic development but, frankly, for national security.”
Slate was incubated by Re:Build and was known as Re:Car before it was spun off as a separate entity.
Barman and her impressive management team aren’t automotive dilettantes.
Barman oversaw the vehicle line program for the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger, and Jeep Cherokee, according to her LinkedIn profile. She ultimately became the vice president of electrical and electronics for Fiat Chrysler, where she led the automaker’s integration of Android Automotive and was involved in the company’s collaboration with Waymo until she left the company in 2017.
Slate’s chief engineer is Eric Keipper, another former Chrysler executive with extensive EV experience who has an MBA from University of Michigan and a master’s degree from prestigious Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The company’s head designer, Tisha Johnson, previously held senior design positions at Volvo, as well as Michigan-based Whirlpool and Herman Miller.
Slate’s chief commercial officer is Jeremy Snyder, who worked at Tesla for more than a decade in a variety of senior business development and sales positions.
According to a report by the trade publication Tech Crunch, Slate’s executive chairman is Rodney Copes, who spent 20 years at Harley-Davidson. Chief Financial Officer Ryan Green spent nearly a decade on the finance side of the motorcycle manufacturer. (Copes and Green also worked at Rivian.) Slate’s heads of service, commercial, accessories product management, and growth marketing previously worked at Harley-Davidson, Tech Crunch reported, citing fundraising documents.
Tech Crunch reported that Slate hopes to get its vehicle into production as soon as late 2026.
Watching Slate’s brilliant promotional video below makes clear that Barman and her team have great senses of humor and don’t take themselves overly seriously. After viewing it, I wanted to apply for a job at the company.
Barman, Keipper, and Johnson have deep Michigan roots and are committed to public service. Barman has spent considerable time advising companies on emerging tech and served as an adjunct professor at Calvin College in East Grand Rapids, MI, where she taught engineering design to freshman students.
Keiper previously served as head coach for Rochester United Varsity Hockey, while Johnson sits on the board of Habitat for Humanity of Michigan.
Slate isn’t the only pioneering company rejecting Barra’s dismissal of Detroit area-based automotive talent.
VW’s revival of the iconic Scout brand is being done in Novi, where the company’s Scout Innovation Center serves as the research and development hub for the design, engineering, and cross-functional teams dedicated to bringing Scout’s electric vehicles online.
Silicon Valley-based Lucid, which manufacturers a luxury EV, last fall opened an engineering office in Southfield that ultimately will include 250 salaried positions.
Best Talent
“We want to track the best talent out there and as we looked at those studies for hardware, engineers in particular, there’s no place like Michigan,” Gale Halsey, Lucid’s senior vice president for people, employee health, and safety and a former Ford executive, told a trade publication.
Legendary Italian automotive design and engineering consultant Italdesign-Giugiaro earlier this year opened an office in Bloomfield Hills with an eye to engineering and design work for locally based automakers, startups and suppliers.
And, of course, Toyota has extensive operations outside Ann Arbor where the design and engineering of some of the Japan-based company’s most popular vehicles are handled.
Michigan has a much brighter future attracting companies like Slate, Lucid, Italdesign, and should stop squandering any more taxpayer monies on GM, whose Michigan commitment is becoming increasingly tenuous, and so is Ford’s, albeit to a lesser degree.
Ford to its credit spearheaded and funded much of the redevelopment of Michigan Central Station and relocated employees there. Barra moved more than 4,000 employees out of Detroit and just laid off 200 employees at Factory Zero because her ambitious EV plans haven’t panned out.
Frankly, if I were Gov Gretchen Whitmer and GM hit me up for one penny more of taxpayer money, I’d reply: “Adiós, Mary — enjoy Mexico!”
Contact Eric Starkman at eric@starkmanapproved. Anonymity assured.
