Yes, from what I recall reading, a partial evac is

Yes, from what I recall reading, a partial evac is necessary, but slide deployment could be simulated on a newly manufactured plane. As they are newly manufactured, the FAA will rely on the manufacturer's Evacuation pass for the particular model of new plane, and they do not require the company looking to certify a new model plane for their fleet to deploy the slides. But simulate their deployment. In the same sense, once a particular model of the plane is certified for a carrier, with the mini, simulated or full, they can just add more of the same model plane to the fleet without a mini for each new plane of the same model.
The manufacturer of the new plane initially does have to do the slide deployment to get the go-ahead to release the planes to the industry. Not that it matters to us, we are not currently buying a new plane. Just a thought that occurred to me when reading BB's post. As I mentioned I read this a few years back, so I could be wrong or things may have changed? But that is my recollection.