TELO gave us an exclusive opportunity to get up close and personal with a pre-production version of its tiny electric truck, slated to ship its first units in about a year.
We first learned about TELO back in 2023, when the company announced it was planning to build an electric truck the size of a Mini but with a bed the size of a Hummerβs.
it sounds impossible, but thereβs a lot of wasted space in vehicle designs these days, especially trucks where automakers consider an enormous front hood as an important part of design (despite theΒ inherent deadliness of this design decision).
TELO went another direction, focusing on a truck with maximum utility and minimum footprint βΒ and says it will be able to offer utility on par with todayβs mid-size pickup trucks like the Toyota Tacoma, but in a package thatβs only 152 inches long (for comparison, tiny Japanese kei cars are 134 inches long maximum).
Now, less than two years later, TELO has completed its first full pre-production driveable vehicle, and we were invited out to have a look and take a ride. Previously, TELO had only made a design mule and a go kart-like chassis, but now itβs got something that actually looks like a real car (and includes the recent design/aero changes from when the truck got its configurator and $41k base price).
The design changes are mainly aerodynamic, including a more rounded roofline and moving the βpillβ design element near the front wheel well, where it now helps airflow around the exposed front wheel, reducing turbulence. TELO says it was able to improve aerodynamics significantly through the use of CFD aerodynamic optimization software, saving on expensive wind tunnel time.
But we also got a first look at some features we hadnβt seen before.
For example, the mid-gate. The bed is normally 62 inches long and 49 inches wide (between the wheel arches, so you can fit a sheet of plywood), but when folding down the rear seats, that gets extended even further. The bed is also covered with L-tracks all around, making it easy to tie down gear.
That said, weβve seen a lot of truck prototypes that promise a mid-gate, and then they donβt end up on the production vehicle. So weβll put an asterisk on that feature for now.
And note: that bed is half a foot longer than the bed of a Rivian R1T and the same size as a Hummer EVβs bed, despite TELO being nothing close to the size of those trucks.
Another neat storage feature is one that seems to have been cribbed from Rivianβs βgear tunnel,β a long, lockable storage space underneath the bed and the passenger compartment which is useful for dirty gear that you donβt want to bring inside the cab, but donβt want to leave in the bed. TELO has a similar (but smaller) space, which it dubs the βmonster tunnelβ βΒ because, like a monster, itβsβ¦ under the bed (hiyoooooo!).
On the interior, there isnβt exactly a lot of space, but thereβs enough for normal-sized people βΒ and even abnormally-sized ones. One of the journalists in attendance was 6β10β, and he said βI fit fine.β
Both front and rear seats had plenty of headroom and good foot room, owing to the floating seat design which allows rear seat passengers to put their feet under the front seat.
The knee room was perhaps a slight limitation, especially on rear seat ingress, as the door aperture is taller and more narrow than most. Same with the driver seat, my knees could have had a little more room, but we didnβt get a chance to fiddle with seat and steering wheel adjustments, so this is probably a solvable problem.
And while we didnβt sit inside the truck for long, itβs certainly no less comfortable than other working vehicles weβve tried (step vans, box trucks and so on) despite being a fraction of the overall size.
The cockpit area includes a wide center touchscreen and several gauges in the driver instrument cluster, though none of this was anywhere near final (edit: for example, seeing the vehicle again a couple days later, a physical knob had been added to the touchscreen which wasnβt there before). Some were static screens, some could be interacted with via remote, but the touchscreen wasnβt working yet.
Then, I got the chance to be the first journalist to ever take a ride in TELOβs pre-production vehicle.
It was just a quick ride around the block in the industrial part of town, but it proved that this isnβt just a design project.
TELO says the truck will have options for either a 300hp single motor or 500hp dual motor configuration. While the truck we rode in had two motors, they were limited to 40% of power for the time being. So the truck got around fine, but nothing exceptional.
The next question is whether a tiny truck even needs 500hp to begin with, but that can wait for another day βΒ perhaps until weβre able to put it to payload/towing tests. TELO says it has a payload capacity of 1,600lbs and towing capacity of 6,600lbs.
TELO also could branch out into offering some sort of off-road package, and pointed out its nearly 90ΒΊ approach angle, given that the front tires go all the way up to the very front of the vehicle.
And here you can hear the wonderful quiet of electric mobility⦠before any sort of dumb noisemakers get added and spoil the fun:
The truck is so small that I didnβt really have to step back or zoom out in order to capture it all in frame
Despite being small, the truck is still rather hefty with a 4,400lb curb weight, regardless of battery option (the larger option uses newer, denser cells to pack more energy in a similar weight). This is still thousands of pounds less than other electric trucks (~6-7k lbs), but (understandably) quite a bit more than the Mini SE (~3,200lbs), and even not far off from the Toyota Tacoma (~4,500lb) to which TELO compares itself.
Speaking of that comparison βΒ the TELO truck is a full five feet shorter than the βcompactβ Toyota Tacoma or four feet shorter than the Maverick, to say nothing of other enormous vehicles in the US. TELO gave us a live demo of what the truck looks like next to both a Mini Cooper SE and a full size RAM 2500 pickup.
This really underlines how much of our space weβve given up for something that doesnβt really offer a whole lot more utility (that you probably wonβt use anyway). And how many of our lives weβre giving up for those pedestrian-murdering truck front ends.
Because, as trucks and SUVs keep getting larger, and automakers keep pushing more and more people into them, and emissions and pedestrian deaths keep rising, the US desperately needs more small vehicles βΒ and needs a company that will actually try to sell them, instead of ignoring they exist and pushing people towards bigger.
So we here at Electrek are quite excited for what this TELO truck represents βΒ finally, the advent of a reasonably sized utility vehicle. Theyβre available in Europe, theyβre available in Japanβ¦ but this would be the first available here, at least in a very long time.
TELO offers a really compelling argument here: a vehicle thatβs capable but isnβt impossible to park, isnβt excessive in terms of material inputs, and doesnβt contribute to the ever-rising plague of pedestrian deaths from oversized vehicles. If you occasionally want a truck for truck things, but otherwise want an efficient vehicle that actually fits places, this seems like a good option.
TELO has many modular configurations in mind, including a βmini-SUV,β and potentially a third row in the bed β if it can get past homologation.
And TELOβs $41k base price (before incentives) and 260 miles of range compare favorably to the most popular commercial EV: Fordβs E-Transit, with an 89kWh battery, 159 mile range and $51k base price (which is now the same as the gas version). Thatβs a much larger vehicle, but for a company that doesnβt need that much space but still wants to do intra-city deliveries, tradesman work, etc., this could be a great option
All in all, despite TELO not being all that old of a company (or that large βΒ it only has 11 employees to date, with one cofounder being Forrest North, an early Tesla employee, and the board including Marc Tarpenning, a Tesla founder), it has produced a pretty neat vehicle which seemed pretty well put together βΒ at least for the few minutes we got to ride in it.
Itβs an important milestone given that TELO has said it wants to ship its first vehicles by the end of this year (although that date might be slipping, more recently the company has been saying β2026β β which could mean the start, or the end, of the year). Thatβs a very close timeline β though itβs only expecting a small initial batch at first, and will do so through contract manufacturing, which keeps startup costs low.
You may remember another EV startup that used contract manufacturing βΒ Fisker. That didnβt go so well, but one thing Fisker did do was come out almost on time (it was unveiled in 2020 with a 2022 release date, and the first Ocean was delivered in May 2023 βΒ a pretty tight timeline, as far as car manufacturing goes). So, hopefully TELO doesnβt let its timeline slip too much here.
I still think itβs optimistic that this truck will ship on the timelines TELO has stated, because there is still a lot to be done before this truck is production ready. But TELO is at least not overstating its volume ambitions. It only expects to ship in very limited numbers at first, and will scale manufactuirng later through its contract manufacturing process. Though it hasnβt yet announced a volume production partner, it says itβs in discussions with several different well-known manufacturers, and weβll learn more about which one theyβre working with once ink hits paper.
You can view the TELO configurator here, where you can also make a $152 refundable reservation (the same as the length of the vehicle in inches). TELO says it has 5,000 reservations already βΒ up 1,300 from the last time we checked in December.
Charge your electric vehicle at home using rooftop solar panels. Find a reliable and competitively priced solar installer near you on EnergySage, for free. They have pre-vetted installers competing for your business, ensuring high-quality solutions and 20-30% savings. Itβs free, with no sales calls until you choose an installer. Compare personalized solar quotes online and receive guidance from unbiased Energy Advisers. Get started here. β ad*
