We recently wrote about the shortcomings of EV off-roaders and Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson’s comments about how EV trucks just won’t be affordable without a gas motor. Both of these men are a lot smarter than I, so I read the articles and immediately agreed with them. But last night, I went to the launch event for the Telo MT1 — a tiny electric pickup truck promising 350 miles of range, 0-60 in 4 seconds, 2000 pound of payload, 8-passenger seating, and a sub-$50K asking price — and gotta admit, I’m a fan.
Syling is highly debatable, and I honestly flip flop on it. In some ways, the TELO reminds me a lot of the designs The Bishop drew of a UTV/golf cart mashup. The short front end with tires that look like they’re just barely extending past the front bumper is very reminiscent of the UTV/golf cart world, but its front end is also a bit of VW ID. Buzz thanks to its round, almost cab-over design.
From it’s cabin to the back of the truck, I think it’s the spitting image of a Rivian; see for yourself:
Maybe I’m just seeing things and refuse to differentiate EV trucks from each other, or maybe it’s the fact that they both have a storage tunnel in the bed. Regardless, there are worse trucks to be compared to than an R1T.
The cab-over look makes it look a decent bit like a Japanese Kei-truck (or any other cab-over truck for that matter), and I think that’s what’ll hold you up on the styling here, but if you can swallow that pill, I think you’ll love everything else this truck has to offer. “And what things does it have to offer, Griffin?!” A lot!
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If you get the higher end model with dual motors, you’re getting yourself a truck that promises 500 HP, 0-60 in 4 seconds, 350 miles of range, 20-minute 20-80% fast charging of the 106 kWh battery, and a 2,000 pound payload. This version of the truck will run you $49,999 before tax incentives, and if that’s too rich for your blood, check out the single motor , rear-wheel drive option! It’s good for 300 hp, 4.5 second 0-60, 260 miles range, and 1,700 pound payload.
By the way, those payload figures are absurd. Check out this Ford F-150 payload rating chart:
One of TELO’s engineers told me that the company built  its configurator to default to the single motor option because it’s cheaper at $41,520, but they found the majority of preorders were for the dual motor option despite the eight grand price difference. His theory as to why is because at $50,000, you’re still undercutting the $60,000 average price of the gas guzzling alternatives, and that’s all before you get the EV incentives, too.
And since we’re comparing it to the big traditional trucks sold in the US, let’s take a look about how its size compares to a Tacoma:
The photo really says it all here, doesn’t it? You’re getting the same amount of bed in a dramatically reduced footprint and in a more economical vehicle. It’s almost like it’s better to compare this thing to a smaller economy commuter given it’s cute little size. What’s that? The company already made that comparison for us on its website? Well let’s see it then:
Yeah pinch me, I’m dreaming. A truck with the footprint of a frickin MINI. Okay, but these press photos are one thing, let’s see how it looked at the actual event, just hear me out here: the event was packed as hell so I didn’t get as much personal time with it as I would’ve liked, but it’s still worth showing. Check it:
Looking at these first couple of photos, you’ll see that the car is small in stature. I’m 6’2 (bragging) and was absolutely towering over it, as were many people in attendance. The bed of the truck also comes with tie down notches along its base and sides, so you can really use this thing as a work truck and secure your loads whenever you’re hauling. Also: those taillights are just really frickin cool.
Its interior is made out of sustainable materials, largely cork and ocean plastics. The company was also really proud of the way it redesigned the concept of a car seat, opting to have a center post as opposed to the traditional two rails on the seat’s base. The benefit there is that passengers in the rear get to fully extend their legs under the seat in front of them, making the interior feel that much roomier for them. And if you wanna make the ride even roomier:
TELO plans on offering a camper shell type attachment that can turn the truck into a van with optional seats, turning this five seater into an eight seater once set up. But even if you don’t wanna make this thing a people hauler, that bed of the truck can do the almighty:
You can drop the rear seats and make it a midgate like it’s nothing, now becoming eight feet long (with the tailgate up).
You probably wonder how small this thing feels when you’re in it; check out this video by our friends at The Fast Lane Truck:
(And here’s a look at a prototype tube-frame chassis, and here is a stripped down proto off-roading).
You may be wondering: Who even is TELO?
Well, the company’s website has a bio of the three founders, Yves Béhar, Forrest North, and Jason Marks. Here’s a little blurb from the site:
Jason led the Autonomous Vehicles and Driver Assistance Systems test programs at National Instruments (NI), where he was a Chief Business Development Manager.
[…]
Forrest was on the early Tesla team where he developed the battery pack on the Roadster that’s on its way to Mars.
[…]
Yves founded Fuseproject in 1999, an award-winning, international multidisciplinary design studio.
It looks like the company got $5.4 million in VC funding by NEO last March, plus there was some seed capital. The company also likely hopes to obtain funding from the $152 preorder ask, along with the publicity from last night’s launch (which could bring in more investors). TELO says it plans to deliver cars in 2026, using contract manufacturing.
Obviously, this is just a prototype, and whether it will actually come to market is anyone’s guess. Still, the more I looked at the TELO MT1, the more I fell in love with it. What do y’all think?
With the van back, and a range extender ICE jammed in somewhere, I could be interested.
Do regulations really allow for exposed front tires that project beyond the front of the vehicle like that (as it appears in the Tacoma comparison pic)? That seems hugely dangerous, as any contact at all turns the forward bump immediately into a downward drag under. No chance to bounce off the bumper or grille.
Yeah, something like this wouldn’t even need a big range extender, and you could offset the extra cost and weight by downsizing the battery a little
Prowler bumper incoming!
Yes. Or Brubaker Box bumper. Without that though, that is some >90 degree approach angle.
I’m reminded of a toy car that had suction cup wheels and the axle right up front so it could climb walls.
This is sooooo tempting. Love the mini form factor, love the quirkiness, love the battery pack sizes and ability to get 2WD. The true holy grail for me will be if this thing can do V2H or V2G–I so want this to double as my house battery backup and give me the ability to generate from my solar in an outage. Gonna put in for a 2WD, larger battery, and van shell with solar. Finally a vehicle that can out-Fit my Honda Fit, and it’s 11 inches shorter!
I like it, but I’m not a truck guy. Seems like a great idea, but the styling isn’t aggressive enough and the lack of front end will make the average idiot tailgating everyone on the highway feel unsafe (even if crash testing results are exemplary), so I hope they don’t expect large volumes (though being a new brand and EV, maybe they’re just going for a new kind of customer altogether).
Just gotta put on a lift kit at 35″ tires. Maybe some spike lug nuts, and some truck nuts… And maybe some headlight facade that makes it look squinting and scary.
I’m just guessing. Also not a truck guy.
This is probably putting way too much thought into it, but EV truck nuts should look like little Van de Graaf generator balls with a spark effect firing between them.
There was an old man of Madras, whose balls were made of fine brass. So in stormy weather, they both clanged together, and sparks flew out of his ass.
I have been tracking these guys for a while and I really want them to succeed.
This is pretty much exactly what I want in an EV truck if I can’t have a range extender.
RWD with the long range battery plz.
While the bed length is fine and mid-gate is totally rad, I’d be curious to know the bed width. I realize this might not be anyone’s first choice for hauling drywall, but it’s nice to know you have the option.
From TFL’s video, they state that they intentionally made it wide enough that a 4×8 sheet of plywood will lay flat, all the way through the mid gate.
Can’t wait to park this next to my Elio and Canoo. The low pre-order cost raises a big red flag for me. Easy to get a whole bunch of people to drop that, with no requirement to ever return it.
Would be a nice two car garage alongside an Aptera
And your Bollinger B1 and your Corbin. I’ll bring my Tucker
I’ll be a believer once I can see the crash tests. Thin door jambs, not much to crush up front, thin pillars…. I dunno.
Yeah, it looks like the crumple zone is your legs.
They said it passes all the crash and crumple compliance tests! I had the same thought considering how little front end there is to protect you, but I’m gonna choose to take them at their word here
Now put a 1/2 ton of shingles in the bed. My dad’s f250 survived that caving the back of the cab in, will that?
2000lbs payload says yes
It’s not about payload capacity, it’s about stopping quick and your payload doesn’t.
Then that comes down to load securement. If you get crushed by a ton of cargo you failed to strap down, that’s on you.
Or 1/2 ton of plywood and 2×4’s resting happily against the back of your seat with the pass-thru folded down. Don’t get rear-ended!
Yeah they say that, but does the NHTSA say that?
Also, looks pretty naked without a bumper of some sorts
I understand your concern, but I doubt any aspiring vehicle manufacturer would get this far along in the design and production-readiness of a motor vehicle without having run countless thousands of computer-simulated crash tests.
How those simulations play out in real-world crash test is something I can’t be certain of, but I have to assume computer modelling is pretty darn close to reality these days.
I get it. I am a mech engineer. But it still looks concerning without seeing actual test footage.
I agree it will be interesting to see the test footage but the battery pack in the base of EVs tend to make for a very crash worthy vehicle due to the structural requirements for keepting the pack safe. All the EV crash test videos I’ve seen make me pretty encouraged.
In TFL’S video they said basically the entire front end is nothing but crash structure, so no forward storage in the name of safety
Yep, heard that. But people say lots of things. I want to SEE it.
Autopians when modern cars have no visibility and incredibly thick pillars: “This is so unnecessary, we have modern materials, there’s no reason for pillars to be so thick!”
Autopians when modern cars have lots of visibility and thin pillars: “Is that even safe? The pillars need to be thicker! I’ll never put my kids in such a deathtrap!”
Meanwhile Autopians are also lusting after 1970s station wagons with rear facing seats and no seat belts, tiny European and Japanese cars that crumple like a pop can if you look at them funny, and motorcycles that may actively try to kill you. But safety first!
Sir this is The Autopian. It’s safety third.
Kei cars have entered the chat
I don’t know if this will get made, but I tossed them $150 back in 2023 on the off chance it makes it. It’s the sort of product I really want to encourage.
I agree. I love small cars and this thing ticks the boxes. It’s my only hope after Canoo ended.
Agreed! This and Scout are the first EVs to make my head really perk up and this one is really exciting me for some reason. Would love to see it come to market
I do have to admit that I’m disappointed with the dash. I know physical controls are a big ask these days, but I really hoped they’d make it happen.
How many of the Silverado EV off road problems does this solve?
Is this the Willys Truck of EV’s?
If they styled this like a Willys FC I’d buy one in a heartbeat.
Willys EV is exactly what I need in this world
Hell yes
I think the windshield has to maintain the slope that it has for aero – so it would be difficult to achieve the retro look – but I think an attempt could be made to modernize the design.
It seems like the Mini Cooper comparison bleeds into the styling a bit as well. The half circle interior door handles, for example. It’s not my thing but I appreciate the seat post idea and ability to turn into a van.
This but Maverick size and price.
For the base model Telo, it’s not too far off from some higher specced Mavericks. Not one-to-one, but still something!
To be honest, increasing weight and reducing crumple zone was my initial take away on this one. Especially while carrying F150 levels of cargo.
I’d really like to see this succeed, if for no other reason that it might actually motivate other car makers to make more of an attempt to push the limits of packaging a lot of utility into a small vehicle, instead of just bloating everything up
Same size bed? Same interior room? The pictures sure don’t look it. Guess I’ll need to see one in person.
I will say, I’m a big dude at 6’2 (again, bragging) and I didn’t feel cramped in the slightest. I wish I had better images and time with it to show y’all but trust me: it has nice room
Have you seen the newest season of “Reacher”? Redefines the term “big dude”.
If RustyBritmobile is looking at the same thing as me, then he is probably talking more about the bed size comparison. They say it’s the same size bed as the Taco, but their comparison pic clearly shows the Taco’s bed is about a foot longer.
Reacher wishes he was as big as me!!! (that’s a complete lie. Alan Ritchson is a unit and it’s borderline terrifying to see)
But this season has Olivier Richters as one of Alan’s antagonists, a 7’2″ bodybuilder that makes Alan look like Danny Devito standing next to Schwarzenegger.
They keep saying 5 foot bed but I don’t see one in those pictures.
Oh, it’s the part that’s behind the cab. It looks like a big box with no lid.
Looks kinda like the GMC Granite CPU(Compact Pick-Up) concept from 10 years ago, which was cool then and is cool now.
I was under the impression that designs like this are not allowed in the USA because there is no hood that acts as a crumple zone, and thus can not pass crash test standards. Would be cool if they figured a way around that.
Probably the same way Smart did, heavily reinforced passenger cell, minimal small crumple zone up front, and relies on totally destroying any vehicle that hits it to provide extra cushioning from the other car’s crumple zone
Put a 4-banger in it and TAKE MY MONEY!!!
UNDER 50K. STARTING. FOR THAT.
Hell in this economy If they said Under 30K, the praise would be actually earned.
$41k for a single motor is really not terrible for 260 claimed miles of range and what looks like considerable utility. After all, the bed length and interior seem to be comparable in size to the average crewcab F-150 these days – this is giving you the same amount of usable space but in much more useful packaging. I think it’s priced okay, personally.
More or less likely than the flying car, in two years?
$41k? LOL. I doubt this actually gets made in any real volumes.
According to Kelly Blue book, the average U. S. new car price in November 2024 was $48,724. The base version of this under cuts that by a fair amount.
I really hope this actually gets made. The price is still a sticking point, but it’s better than a lot of other trucks for more capacity, so it does make sense.
I also really hope they make it. But I also wish that larger OEMs would take more chances on building cool, forward-thinking stuff so we don’t always have to have the same conversation about a start-up with a cool idea potentially going bankrupt.
I’ve been looking at this thing for a while. It definitely seems like the American EV kei truck. They apparently are working with the apteria people on a solar glass roof at the very least. Not sure who they will get to contact build it but seems like it would have to be us based from and terifs and chicken tax perspectives. Not an easy thing to do with a lot of capital needed very easy to fail. I hope they make it. And I hope they figure out how to scale it and can scale it. If the byd buying some stalantis units are true that could be a possible way for them to get some manufacturing capacity.
I asked them about the solar roof and they were saying it would get 3 kWh of miles out of it compared to the Fisker Ocean which only got 2. (note from self: I’m not the most versed in the EV terminology so I can’t recall if he said kWh but I definitely remember the numbers 2 and 3)
Aptera has been cracking that nut for a while. I think they are supposed to have 700w of solar. The ocean i think allegedly had 300w. 700w in an average us sunny market is a about 3.5kwh a day at the least in December in July about 7kwh. Assuming standard efficiencies. So that makes sense
Get rid of the back seats and put that length to the bed, then it’s an American EV kei truck.
For sure. There is a mid gate too that helps a lot. And it sounds like they are setting up for the cages on the tailgate like the smaller trucks use alot as well. Fold down bed sides would be nice as well. Apparently aria group is their contract manufacture they do alot of aerospace stuff so could be some interesting materials used.
I’ve already had a preorder for a while. I went with AWD.
While I’m not a fan of the midgate in general I am a fan of how small it is. I’ll probably wait to get mine till the factory camper top comes out.
I’ve never heard of anyone disliking the idea of a midgate, what makes you not a fan?
I would rather have a single or extended cab with a 6ft bed. If I can’t have that a midgate is an acceptable alternative.
Ah, I see. Yeah it would be good to have multiple options but with this being a startup they’re probably trying to maximize the utility of this one design.
I understand why they went with the midgate, not saying it’s illogical, just that I have my preferences.