TELO gave us an unique alternative to stand up shut and private with a pre-production model of its tiny electrical truck, slated to ship its first models in a few 12 months.
We first realized about TELO again in 2023, when the corporate introduced it was planning to construct an electrical truck the dimensions of a Mini however with a mattress the dimensions of a Hummer’s.
it sounds not possible, however there’s quite a lot of wasted house in automobile designs as of late, particularly vehicles the place automakers think about an unlimited entrance hood as an essential a part of design (regardless of the inherent deadliness of this design choice).
TELO went one other path, specializing in a truck with most utility and minimal footprint – and says will probably be capable of supply utility on par with right this moment’s mid-size pickup vehicles just like the Toyota Tacoma, however in a package deal that’s solely 152 inches lengthy (for comparability, tiny Japanese kei vehicles are 134 inches lengthy most).
Now, lower than two years later, TELO has accomplished its first full pre-production driveable automobile, and we had been invited out to take a look and take a trip. Beforehand, TELO had solely made a design mule and a go kart-like chassis, however now it’s bought one thing that really appears to be like like an actual automotive (and consists of the current design/aero adjustments from when the truck bought its configurator and $41k base worth).
The design adjustments are primarily aerodynamic, together with a extra rounded roofline and shifting the “tablet” design ingredient close to the entrance wheel properly, the place it now helps airflow across the uncovered entrance wheel, decreasing turbulence. TELO says it was capable of enhance aerodynamics considerably by means of using CFD aerodynamic optimization software program, saving on costly wind tunnel time.
However we additionally bought a primary take a look at some options we hadn’t seen earlier than.
For instance, the mid-gate. The mattress is generally 62 inches lengthy and 49 inches vast (between the wheel arches, so you possibly can match a sheet of plywood), however when folding down the rear seats, that will get prolonged even additional. The mattress can also be coated with L-tracks throughout, making it simple to tie down gear.
That mentioned, we’ve seen quite a lot of truck prototypes that promise a mid-gate, after which they don’t find yourself on the manufacturing automobile. So we’ll put an asterisk on that characteristic for now.
And word: that mattress is half a foot longer than the mattress of a Rivian R1T and the identical dimension as a Hummer EV’s mattress, regardless of TELO being nothing near the dimensions of these vehicles.
One other neat storage characteristic is one which appears to have been cribbed from Rivian’s “gear tunnel,” a protracted, lockable cupboard space beneath the mattress and the passenger compartment which is beneficial for soiled gear that you simply don’t need to deliver contained in the cab, however don’t need to depart within the mattress. TELO has an analogous (however smaller) house, which it dubs the “monster tunnel” – as a result of, like a monster, it’s… below the mattress (hiyoooooo!).
On the inside, there isn’t precisely quite a lot of house, however there’s sufficient for normal-sized folks – and even abnormally-sized ones. One of many journalists in attendance was 6’10”, and he mentioned “I match tremendous.”
Each entrance and rear seats had loads of headroom and good foot room, owing to the floating seat design which permits rear seat passengers to place their ft below the entrance seat.
The knee room was maybe a slight limitation, particularly on rear seat ingress, because the door aperture is taller and extra slender than most. Similar with the motive force seat, my knees may have had slightly extra room, however we didn’t get an opportunity to fiddle with seat and steering wheel changes, so that is most likely a solvable downside.
And whereas we didn’t sit contained in the truck for lengthy, it’s actually no much less comfy than different working autos we’ve tried (step vans, field vehicles and so forth) regardless of being a fraction of the general dimension.
The cockpit space features a vast middle touchscreen and several other gauges within the driver instrument cluster, although none of this was wherever close to ultimate (edit: for instance, seeing the automobile once more a pair days later, a bodily knob had been added to the touchscreen which wasn’t there earlier than). Some had been static screens, some could possibly be interacted with through distant, however the touchscreen wasn’t working but.
Then, I bought the prospect to be the primary journalist to ever take a trip in TELO’s pre-production automobile.
It was only a fast trip across the block within the industrial a part of city, but it surely proved that this isn’t only a design venture.
TELO says the truck may have choices for both a 300hp single motor or 500hp twin motor configuration. Whereas the truck we rode in had two motors, they had been restricted to 40% of energy in the interim. So the truck bought round tremendous, however nothing distinctive.
The subsequent query is whether or not a tiny truck even wants 500hp to start with, however that may wait for an additional day – maybe till we’re capable of put it to payload/towing checks. TELO says it has a payload capability of 1,600lbs and towing capability of 6,600lbs.
TELO additionally may department out into providing some form of off-road package deal, and identified its practically 90º method angle, provided that the entrance tires go all the best way as much as the very entrance of the automobile.
And right here you possibly can hear the great quiet of electrical mobility… earlier than any form of dumb noisemakers get added and spoil the enjoyable:
The truck is so small that I didn’t actually should step again or zoom out as a way to seize all of it in body
Regardless of being small, the truck remains to be relatively hefty with a 4,400lb curb weight, no matter battery possibility (the bigger possibility makes use of newer, denser cells to pack extra power in an analogous weight). That is nonetheless hundreds of kilos lower than different electrical vehicles (~6-7k lbs), however (understandably) fairly a bit greater than the Mini SE (~3,200lbs), and even not far off from the Toyota Tacoma (~4,500lb) to which TELO compares itself.
Talking of that comparability – the TELO truck is a full 5 ft shorter than the “compact” Toyota Tacoma or 4 ft shorter than the Maverick, to say nothing of different monumental autos within the US. TELO gave us a dwell demo of what the truck appears to be like like subsequent to each a Mini Cooper SE and a full dimension RAM 2500 pickup.
This actually underlines how a lot of our house we’ve given up for one thing that doesn’t actually supply a complete lot extra utility (that you simply most likely received’t use anyway). And what number of of our lives we’re giving up for these pedestrian-murdering truck entrance ends.
As a result of, as vehicles and SUVs hold getting bigger, and automakers hold pushing an increasing number of folks into them, and emissions and pedestrian deaths hold rising, the US desperately wants extra small autos – and wishes an organization that may truly attempt to promote them, as an alternative of ignoring they exist and pushing folks in direction of greater.
So we right here at Electrek are fairly excited for what this TELO truck represents – lastly, the arrival of a fairly sized utility automobile. They’re obtainable in Europe, they’re obtainable in Japan… however this is able to be the primary obtainable right here, at the least in a really very long time.
TELO presents a very compelling argument right here: a automobile that’s succesful however isn’t not possible to park, isn’t extreme when it comes to materials inputs, and doesn’t contribute to the ever-rising plague of pedestrian deaths from outsized autos. In the event you often need a truck for truck issues, however in any other case need an environment friendly automobile that really suits locations, this looks as if an excellent possibility.
TELO has many modular configurations in thoughts, together with a “mini-SUV,” and doubtlessly a 3rd row within the mattress – if it might probably get previous homologation.
And TELO’s $41k base worth (earlier than incentives) and 260 miles of vary examine favorably to the most well-liked business EV: Ford’s E-Transit, with an 89kWh battery, 159 mile vary and $51k base worth (which is now the identical because the fuel model). That’s a a lot bigger automobile, however for an organization that doesn’t want that a lot house however nonetheless needs to do intra-city deliveries, tradesman work, and so on., this could possibly be an excellent possibility
All in all, regardless of TELO not being all that outdated of an organization (or that giant – it solely has 11 staff to this point, with one cofounder being Forrest North, an early Tesla worker, and the board together with Marc Tarpenning, a Tesla founder), it has produced a reasonably neat automobile which appeared fairly properly put collectively – at the least for the couple of minutes we bought to trip in it.
It’s an essential milestone provided that TELO has mentioned it needs to ship its first autos by the top of this 12 months (though that date may be slipping, extra lately the corporate has been saying “2026” – which may imply the beginning, or the top, of the 12 months). That’s a really shut timeline – although it’s solely anticipating a small preliminary batch at first, and can achieve this by means of contract manufacturing, which retains startup prices low.
It’s possible you’ll keep in mind one other EV startup that used contract manufacturing – Fisker. That didn’t go so properly, however one factor Fisker did do was come out nearly on time (it was unveiled in 2020 with a 2022 launch date, and the primary Ocean was delivered in Might 2023 – a reasonably tight timeline, so far as automotive manufacturing goes). So, hopefully TELO doesn’t let its timeline slip an excessive amount of right here.
I nonetheless suppose it’s optimistic that this truck will ship on the timelines TELO has said, as a result of there’s nonetheless quite a bit to be performed earlier than this truck is manufacturing prepared. However TELO is at the least not overstating its quantity ambitions. It solely expects to ship in very restricted numbers at first, and can scale manufactuirng later by means of its contract manufacturing course of. Although it hasn’t but introduced a quantity manufacturing associate, it says it’s in discussions with a number of totally different well-known producers, and we’ll study extra about which one they’re working with as soon as ink hits paper.
You may view the TELO configurator right here, the place you can even make a $152 refundable reservation (the identical because the size of the automobile in inches). TELO says it has 5,000 reservations already – up 1,300 from the final time we checked in December.
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