Kosciusko County welcomes Slate Auto with tax abatement package
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Slate Auto’s operations came further into focus this week as the Kosciusko County Council formally approved a series of tax abatements for the emergent EV automaker.
Slate is planning to spend close to $362 million in upgrades to the former RR Donnelly printing plant on the western edge of Warsaw. The company will now have 10 years of local tax relief based on an agreement approved Thursday evening.
The Kosciusko County Council approved 10-year abatements for Slate’s real estate and personal property taxes. The abatements start at 100% for the first year and decrease by 10% each ensuing year.
With the tax schedule, the EV company will pay about $13 million in local taxes over the 10-year abatement period. That’s compared to almost $30 million in taxes the county is waiving as part of its effort to attract Slate to the region.
Slate is also set to receive tax breaks from the Indiana Economic Development Corp., however those have not been publicly announced, with multiple officials telling Inside INdiana Business they’re under a non-disclosure agreement.
Slate expects to start making its flagship EV—the Slate Truck—at the plant sometime next year. The company’s vision is a bare-bones manufacturing process for the truck to keep costs down, leaving customers to only pay for extra features that they want. Slate has announced it raised $700 million in funding, with considerable backing from Jeff Bezos’ investment companies.
The council’s vote on the abatements saw one dissenter—Dave Wolkins, who represents the district where the plant is located. Wolkins is concerned with a lack of transparency with the IEDC and has concerns about the long-term viability of Slate’s EV model given the Trump Administration’s disdain for EVs.
“I think they’re gonna have great sales on the East Coast, West Coast and Bloomington, Indiana. I just am not convinced they’re going to be around in five or six years. And I would like to get some tax money up front and reward them in the second half [of the 10-year abatement],” Wolkins said before the council’s vote.
Slate recently announced they have 100,000 customer reservations for the Slate Truck. The automaker’s head of public relations, Jeff Jablansky, told Inside INdiana Business that Slate was looking for a site where they wouldn’t have to build a new factory.