Manufacturing News
September 19, 2026
September 19, 2026 · Kosciusko County · Story 4 of 5
Slate Auto Warsaw Factory (Kosciusko County): First Deliveries Targeted Q4 2026, With Material Caveats
The Warsaw factory (1.4 million square feet in a former R.R. Donnelley printing complex that went dark in 2023) is targeting first customer deliveries of the Blank Slate truck in Q4 2026. The demand picture is real: more than 180,000 reservations against a 150,000-vehicle annual capacity target. The $650 million Series C closed in April 2026, pushing total capital raised to roughly $1.4 billion.
What the headline misses: Slate swapped battery suppliers from South Korea's SK On to Gotion's Illinois plant (a supplier majority-owned by Volkswagen-linked Guoxuan High-Tech) after the federal EV tax credit was eliminated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That policy change also moved the starting price from the originally advertised "under $20,000" to $24,950. Environmental records show asbestos-abatement work scheduled through October 1, 2026, overlapping the Q4 production ramp on the same site.
If Slate converts reservations at scale, Kosciusko County's labor market tightens, and that pressure arrives on a different timeline than the Saab ramp in Tippecanoe County or construction activity at Crane in Martin County.
From the brief, September 19, 2026
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- NWS Crane Nuclear Microreactor (Martin County): Indiana's First Power-Producing Reactor by September 2028
- Slate Auto Warsaw Factory (Kosciusko County): First Deliveries Targeted Q4 2026, With Material Caveats
- Saab T-7A West Lafayette Plant (Tippecanoe County): Full-Rate Production Pushed to 2029
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