![]() ![]() Marks originally wanted to build an electric motorcycle, but the co-founders said they pivoted to focus on a mini truck about a year ago after sharing ideas with friends and interviewing 100 people on the street in San Francisco. “And if you’ve never met a pole vaulter, we’re all the same kind of crazy.” The pair met through a mutual friend and later realized they were “both pole vaulters at the same high school in Washington state, but 10 years apart from each other,” Marks said. “Funny story is that one of those vehicles that I worked on is now in space, which is so random and weird,” North told TechCrunch. The backstoryīefore Telo, Marks worked on autonomous driving and driver-assistance features at National Instruments, while co-founder Forrest North worked on Tesla’s Roadster team. Telo has lots of work ahead of it no matter how much demand there is for pint-sized pickups. Delivering these vehicles to lots of drivers while turning a profit? That’s a lot rarer in this business. But remember: EV startups usually launch with cool ideas (see: Arrival and Canoo). In the following years, the plan (as I understand it) is to navigate some government red tape, hand-build some vehicles and then work with contract manufacturers to make mini trucks en masse. Just imagine loading surfboards into this puppy.Īccording to Marks, Telo is now working toward getting its first prototype on the road by year’s end. Renders of the truck are sleek as heck, too - with hardly any hood, texture on the front that evokes a handsome, stubbly chin and a goofy swipe across the doors for airflow. It’s also supposed to pack a 350-mile range. ![]() In theory, the truck it highlighted will seat five adults and go from 0 to 60 mph in four seconds. Last week, Telo showcased a full-size model of the vehicle at its office in San Francisco. So far, there’s interest: Telo “received more than 500 preorders within the first 12 hours of the launch,” a representative for the company told TechCrunch. The company kicked off preorders - really, paid reservations - for its first vehicle this week, charging folks $152 for the chance to one day buy a 152-inch truck that’s slated to cost $50,000 at launch before government incentives. Marks argues there’s an untapped market of city dwellers who could use a cargo utility vehicle - gardeners, surfers, snowboarders, hikers and so on - “but they can’t have a big truck because it’s way too big for the city.” That’s who Telo is targeting, at least on the consumer side. It’s betting that lots of Americans actually want a petite pickup - one with the “footprint of a two-door Mini Cooper” and the “same interior and bed space as a Toyota Tacoma,” Telo CEO Jason Marks told TechCrunch. Still, a young startup called Telo Trucks is taking an alternate route anyway. Trucks like the F-150 and Silverado are more popular than ever, giving little incentive for companies to carve out a new path. Yet in the U.S., most automakers won’t risk it, and there’s a financial basis for that. ![]() The switch to electric vehicles offers an opportunity to shake things up, sizewise. In other words, they’re bad for people and the planet. They demand more raw materials and ultimately bigger batteries, and they stir fears that compact cars can’t hack it alongside them on roads today. Huge vehicles are uniquely deadly for pedestrians and cyclists and counterproductive to decarbonization work. This is my take, but I’m not just here to blab about aesthetics and my weird love of teeny-tiny cars. They’re far too big and heavy, with shrinking beds and expanding cabins that reflect their turn from a classic workhorse into a status symbol-meets-family car. Most trucks today are headed in the wrong direction, metaphorically speaking. ![]()
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