Have they never heard of a crumple zone?
I would love a small truck like this, but I would honestly buy an old Tacoma or Ranger before even considering buying this on spec.
*edit: digging around I did find some footage on YouTube with actual vehicles. I'm definitely skeptical on the safety now.
Maybe a few people get some functionality out of the design.
* Purely subjective opinion: It's ugly as hell. The front of vehicles isn't just for engines, it's also for aerodynamics.
* It's crazy expensive.
* The bed looks too short to be practically useful.
* The wheels look comically small.
* The ground clearance doesn't seem to make it useful for more than suburban and urban road environments.
So is a Ford Transit van? Who cares. This is a work truck.
> The bed looks too short to be practically useful.
The bed is 5 ft long. From TF website: "Same truck bed length as the Toyota Tacoma. Larger than a Rivian R1T."
> The wheels look comically small.
They look fine? How big should they be?
> The ground clearance doesn't seem to make it useful for more than suburban and urban road environments.
Oh, so they designed it for the environments it was...designed to be used in? And the same environments most macho big boy trucks spend 99% of their life in? What's the problem here?
Honestly, what's your problem? Why is your comment so harshly negative? You can't fathom a target market for this because you don't seem to be in it?
- I think it looks fine
- I don't need a full sized bed for anything I'd be transporting
- Tricked out it's a little over half the cost of an R1T Dual and $10K less than a comparable F150 Lightning upgraded to the long range battery
- The wheels are small because it's a small truck. Big wheels would look ridiculous.
- This isn't a truck for off roading or unmaintained dirt roads.
What would I use this truck for?
- towing a motorcycle trailer
- Picking up stuff from Costco that won't fit in my trunk
- Buying and transporting dirt, gravel, and stone for my yard
- Going up to my cabin with my partner and two friends and having enough room to seat everyone and have room for all the luggage
Not my personal opinion... but wonder how much of a factor this is :)
Have you looked at the mainstream 'small' truck market lately?
Small in quotes, because actual small trucks disappeared, and we're left with mid sized trucks as the smallest. Used to be you could get a 6-ft bed standard and an optional longer bed on a small truck. Fuel efficiency standards now dictate you can't have that without a larger truck and worse fuel efficency.
I hope this makes it to market because if I was buying a car today, and this was available today, I'd pick this.
This is 3860 x 1854 x 1676mm, or 14% x 25% x -16% bigger than Japanese Kei car specifications(3400 x 1480 x 2000mm max.) Closest match in features among Kei cars would be Daihatsu Hijet Deck Van, except that one is 465mm / 18" shorter that this having an awkwardly short 880mm / 35" long bed.
It is a 10-15k/year product at best. How does an independent maker get that profitable at <$50k, despite all the costs of setting up a sales and service network?
On the other hand, electric cars seem to be relatively "easy" to build. Sure, Fisker went bankrupt, but Rivian seems to do sort of fine. Xiaomi even managed to build a car, and I actually saw one of them by chance charging next to me today.
Seems to me like a lot more newcomers succeed in getting cars built, than was and is the case with ICE cars.
Good overviews of the truck https://youtu.be/aEq-vTLimrQ?si=fS-UhjndoWuxwBip
So other people drive in a way that is not compatible with my driving because I don’t want headlamps in my cabin. Occasionally there’s a lifted truck behind me and it brightens my cabin.
In those moments I fantasize about placing retroreflectors all over my rear seat headrests but then I pull over and let them past and the moment passes.
Besides, a HN truism is “Yield to gross tonnage”. I liked that. It makes sense that HN users who believe that if you’re big others should get out of the way also get large cars.
“The cemeteries are full of people with right of way” so smaller vehicles should get out of the way of larger vehicles or risk death. It’s a good lesson. Can’t say it’s false.
It’s about having one vehicle that can do it all. Maybe you’re noticing when there’s one human but you don’t really know how else that person is using the vehicle at other times. Trucks can haul people, things, do road trips, etc. pretty well.
For other times, use a car.
* a truck is just a car that misses a roof over the back part of it
That’s not to say there aren’t real uses for trucks, or people who use them for their designed purpose.
That’s also not to say people should be required to purchase only vehicles that meet their basic transportation requirements. People drive sports cars even without ever going out to a track.
Trucks (and full-size SUVs) specifically push some pretty crappy externalities onto other road users, so it’s not exactly crazy to be annoyed with people who buy and drive big trucks a personality trait.
Best case you’re looking at 28.5% weekend utilization which isn’t that bad, much better than the 1% I joked with, but how many people do you know taking an offroad adventure every single weekend?
So what? Yeah I agree I don’t really care. It’s mostly hilarious watching them try to park.
Not to mention Christmas trees, moving, helping friends out, etc.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42638394 - January 2025
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21631704 - November 2019
Ray Delahanty | CityNerd: Rural Cosplay is, Unfortunately, A Thing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_BE5KPp18
(Americans buy trucks out of emotion and cosplay, not realized utility and rational TCO, based on the evidence and data)
Yes, as can most vehicles?
Also, check out the underside of most of these monster vehicles. The approach, breakover, and departure angles may be awesome, but that’s only because the definitions assume uniform height transverse to the driving direction. If you drive these things over any substantial bump that the wheels don’t go over, the differential will bottom out. Oops. This means that, for many practical purposes, the height of the vehicle and the absurd suspensions don’t buy nearly as much capability as they might appear to.
Contrast that with someone having a needlessly powerful computer. How does that impact the rest of the world? Not at all, it only impacts the owner's wallet. Someone's needlessly-powerful computer has never killed a child, or taken up four spots in public. Heck, it'll even downclock when idle, so there isn't even any extra power use to be worried about!
I noticed the lack of a "crumple zone" the instant I saw the image.
...and a moment later, I also realized it's usually a solid engine block that sits there. I shudder to think of what actually happens when that zone "crumples".
Back to the Telo MT1, it's great that they redesigned it from the ground up, around it being an EV -- it's like the Phelps Tractor having reins, and then somebody asking "why does it need to have reins if there's no horse?"
I believe the engine drops down and the rest crumples inward, at least in theory.
Although I don’t know about American trucks. I think they are meant to wreak havoc on every single person involved.
I can think of one possibility. At Tesla’s scale, production becomes feasible only if they can produce X million units. This is because setting up production tooling, supply chain channels, and other associated costs is prohibitively expensive. Additionally, the demand for these vehicles will be relatively low until influential YouTubers in the construction, farming, and rural sectors become advocates and start promoting them.
In my opinion, electric vehicles (EVs) are perfectly suited for this task. They are ideal for transporting heavy items between nearby destinations, such as moving Home Depot supplies to a construction site or Costco products to a restaurant or store. A range of even 200 miles is practical for this use-case and keeps the cost low (MT1 is a beast by my standard).
For clarification, I am all for more competition. But I am also selfish and I really want this segment to become wildly successful . In any case, I really and truly hope they can make the business case work and be profitable/sustainable.
I was legit considering getting an F150 lighting for a little while but when I saw how much your range decreases when towing something it became obvious that it’s not really practical. It’s just objectively worse at hauling than a gas car.
Hopefully we see more battery tech breakthroughs that make electric trucks viable work vehicles.
For everyday driving, I pay about $8.50 for a “full tank” of charge that gets me around 300 miles. That’s about $100 worth of gas in an equivalent gas truck.
That’s being said I think the ideal truck would have about 2x-3x the current battery capacity of the extended range lightning.
In a couple of recent youtube videos, "Aging Wheels" thoroughly tested a variety of trailers towed behind a variety of vehicles and then also added weight to the trailer to see the efficiency impact of towing a trailer with a lot more weight. They found a 4.3% efficiency drop by adding weight to max out the towing, compared to towing without the extra weight. Weight isn't what matters on towing impact, it's the wind resistance of the trailer that matters much more.
They did a long series of comparison drives (in the about 30 mins video) with different trailers and then loaded them with extra weight to see the impact. It was smaller than you expect. The video with all the tests is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA.
I heard about this on the batteries included podcast where they interview the author of the video above, and kind of give high level summary with some details, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGJv-xAqcTI.
Aging wheels has a recent video on the subject: https://youtu.be/UmKf8smvGsA
Exterior designs.
The interior has no design - design and UI were given over to a touchscreen. Go look at the interior renderings to see for yourself ...
This is a surprising claim to me. Can you point to any other vehicles (even something from John Deere or a competitor) whose demand significantly rose in a way directly attributable to influential youtubers in those niches, and which influencers in particular you think would be particularly influential?
hopefully the success of the ford maverick can allay some of this concern - i don't think anybody was really expecting it to be as successful as it has been, but it seems like there's actually pretty decent demand for a smaller truck.
The results were:
1. Adding weight to the bed, if it doesn't affect aerodynamics, doesn't affect highway range much. For stop-and-go traffic I assume the range would get worse, but he didn't test it.
2. Adding a big air pusher to an otherwise empty trailer murders the range
3. Adding an aerodynamic car or truck on a trailer is better for your range than the air pusher
I do wish it was a hybrid. Maybe small companies don't have the knowledge built up to make a good hybrid drivetrain but hell, Edison is going for it. They're planning to build logging trucks with a diesel generator under the hood as prime mover for a series plug-in hybrid drivetrain. It looks very practical and their initial tests show it tows great. (Since that's their entire selling point, they'd have to fold if it couldn't haul logs)
The side compartment under the bed / in front of the rear wheel is pretty cool too.
- The body panels were composite but they want to go to stamped metal for production. - It's based off of the subaru ascent; at least most of the frame and suspension is. - NMC chemistry, didn't get an OEM name for the actual cell/pouch though. - Mostly off the shelf Bosch power-train components. Will be interesting to see a tear-down once they're for sale. - No commitment on how "open" the vehicle will be to modifications. They have designed in attachment points for upgrades but it didn't seem to be anywhere as extensive as what Slate is doing. This makes some sense; they have a more "finished" vision where Slate is intentionally taking the "our vision is for you to buy the canvas from us and then make it your own" approach.
On that last point, I don't think Slate has released anything substantial either w/r/t the CAN bus either. As far as I know, their plan is still a BYOD approach for the head-unit so here's hoping that it'll be relatively straight forward to interrogate the busses from an android or linux device. The Telo had a head-unit integrated so who knows how much control you'll have over the vehicle.
There’s something to be said for being distinctive, but you can do that while not looking silly (Lucid is a good example). And simply being a small electric truck is enough differentiation anyway
Honestly, if you look at the truck market, it's dominated by masculine designs like the F-150. Arguably this has created a gap in the market for designs that are more compact and approachable. It may never be the majority, but TELO looks perfectly suited to address that niche.
I agree there should be more approachable designs, just seems like this went way too far in the direction of toy-like
At least they kept the stalks on the steering column ...
If anything, small vehicles aren't a thing in NA, but extremely popular still in Europe, even though SUVification is also happening here.
There's plenty of small cars left, like the Toyota Aygo X. Renault is also working on a new electric Twingo, and the new 5 isn't huge either.
It's 3860 x 1854mm, there are vehicles smaller than that being sold in europe right now (in the A segment, not quadricycles): the fiat 500e is 3632x1683, the suzuki ignis is 3700x1660. The citroen c1 (discontinued 2022) used to be just 3470x1620.
Hell there are B segment cars which aren't much bigger, the R5 e-tech is 3920x1770, the yaris is 3940x1745.
I love the look of the front wheels though!
With their distribution and service centers, this would sell like hot cakes.
It's the second electric vehicle I actually like (Rivian being the first - but it's a full-size).
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/remembering-fiat-multipla-quite...
Besides the way it looks, of course. But if you're inside a Multipla, at least you don't have to look at its exterior?
The entire point of the Slate truck is to try to come in under 20K or around it, and without the EV subsidies that's probably not going to happen.
Yet to talk about the amount of mining, its carbon footprint and pretty much irreversible or really high cost extraction/restoration of batteries apart.
Longevity and carbon footprint - If that's not your yardstick than other than that the EVs are great. Have more power than any combustion engine can ever have, have more torque, more acceleration and pretty much zero maintenance as far as the "engine" is concerned. No noise, no emissions, no vibrations either.
I wonder though if the interior trim can be ordered without this felt-like material. I can easily see that being stained or dirty in a short period of time. I am sure there is.
dfee•3h ago
I wonder if Telo is attempting to define a new category. Substance in a truck, in my lived opinion, is about utility. Towing capacity, ruggedness, ability to go (very) off road. An electric power train shows promise, but is limited by infra.
If that’s not the target, then maybe it’s a different target, such as San Francisco residents where space is limited and a slight nod to utility is adequate.
Further down the peninsula, and specifically in the Santa Cruz mountains, this is less interesting. I can’t imagine this for outdoor (e.g. mountain biking) or project oriented (e.g. landscaping) people.
So back to the top: if they’re marketing substance over show, maybe they’re really marketing to people who desire show over substance.
Edit: let me also throw in my drive down to the bottom tip of Baja a few months ago. The roads were rough in places, and I definitely went off road to reach some interesting places. It reminded me of some rough terrain and roads in Wyoming and Oklahoma - truck states. Without big wheels and tough suspension - I wouldn’t take a Telo.
laurencerowe•3h ago
I’m unsure why people think they need such big vehicles for outdoors sports. We drove thousands of miles around Europe with 4 kayaks on the roof of a Ford Fiesta. Or you can easily fit three mountain bikes on a rear bike rack.
garciasn•3h ago
I realize Europeans have a much different understanding of distance and cargo needs; I do. But, 300 miles and 6 passengers is a pretty common requirement here in the US.
TulliusCicero•3h ago
garciasn•3h ago
chipsa•3h ago
raddan•3h ago
I often find that I want to take a break after a couple hours of driving, and even when I drove a gas vehicle, those breaks would be 30-40 minutes long unless it was an exceptionally long day of driving. With a little planning I’ve found that I can do 90% of the trips in my EV that I used to do in my gas car. I probably can’t replicate the couple 1000-mile-in-one-day trips I did in my previous vehicle, but those experiences also made me not want to.
FWIW, in the last two years alone I have driven my EV from MA to Nova Scotia and back, MA to Iowa and back, MA to MD and back, and all over the eastern seaboard (trips to the Adirondacks, WV, etc). Lately I have not even had to plan anymore. It was surprising to discover that I could plug my car (a Bolt) into a GM charger in Indiana this summer and not even need to fiddle with an app. Things have improved dramatically for road trips in the last two years, and I have probably one of the slowest charging cars out there. Really, the only thing stopping me from buying an EV pickup is that I don’t want to pay that much for a vehicle with such an absurdly small bed. My Bolt can pull a small trailer just fine.
garciasn•3h ago
GiorgioG•2h ago
jebarker•36m ago
laurencerowe•3h ago
I don't think it's possible to buy a new 6 passenger vehicle rated for towing 5000lb in the US for under $30K.
Europe allows towing with much smaller vehicles. There you can do 4400lb in a Golf and 4850lb in Passat though you might still struggle for 6 passengers for $30k new.
dfee•2h ago
Santa Cruz Mountain roads tend to be well paved. Though, large exceptions definitely exist! (E.g. Highland Way)
wpm•2h ago
bastawhiz•2h ago
That's a 4-5 hour trip and you don't want to stop to charge for thirty minutes? One bathroom break or stop for food and you've already spent probably half of those 30m stopped anyway.
> fit 6 passengers
This truck does? It has a third row.
But I'm curious what truck you think will comfortably fit six passengers for under $30k. If the second row fits three people and the front row fits two passengers (and frankly, having a person ride in the middle of the front row is ridiculous), you only seat five passengers. Even if you count the driver as a passenger, at best you've got one uncomfortable occupant.
- Ram 1500 starts at 40k
- F150 starts at 38k
- Silverado 1500 starts at 37k
- Ford Superduty starts above 40k
- Sierra 1500 starts at 38k
And most of these are just bench seats in the front, not a third row.
k12sosse•1h ago
bastawhiz•1h ago
baby_souffle•1h ago
Then you need a used diesel pickup truck. 6 people is a stretch unless at least one of those is an infant or you have people on laps.
dfee•3h ago
I’ve also seen a motorcyclist having a bike mounted on a hitch!
Optimization for tiny isn’t a factor in the big outdoors. Indeed, I see more people in Sprinter vans than Teslas by mountain biking hot spots. So it’s not about “could you”, it’s about comfort and practicality of anything / everything else you may want to do beyond just lugging a bike to a trail. Such as: the optionality to go truly off road - in the vehicle not on the bike.
esseph•1h ago
(Check out Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, etc.)
garciasn•3h ago
stingrae•3h ago
jmspring•3h ago
garciasn•2h ago
doctorhandshake•3h ago
garciasn•3h ago
kotaKat•3h ago
Last I checked Telo has... one prototype?
Telo's doomed, anyways.
revnode•2h ago
kennywinker•2h ago
Telo: $41k 350 mile range
Slate: 2 door with bed, or 4 door no bed.
Telo: 4 door with bed.
I’d hardly say telo isn’t a viable option compared to slate.
Anyway what really matters is if any of these companies can get a vehicle to market, and at what price point. I’m not about to buy an imaginary car, and neither are you.
Fwiw if they were for sale i would strongly consider buying a telo. It looks perfect for my needs - slate less so, but if they’re all that’s available i’d strongly consider it
baby_souffle•2h ago
As of OpenSauce last month, they had 3 that were roadworthy. I think the company is 15 people big so it would be odd if they had a fleet with mfgr/prototype plates.
They were cagey on their manufacturing strategy but I got the sense that it'll be mostly contract manufacturing. I think slate is trying to keep as much in-house as possible and that means saying "no" to some design decisions that would require a step-up in terms of manufacturing capabilities. E.G.: Composite panels are a hell of a lot cheaper to make than stamped metal panels so slate isn't going to contract the metal stamping out.
jakelazaroff•2h ago
jcrawfordor•3h ago
There's a divide in needs between off-roading and moving things around, and this seems oriented in the moving things around direction. I can easily see it working for a landscaper in a suburban environment, for example, where the driving miles per day are really not that high and 6,600 is plenty for a typical landscaper's trailer.
From everything I've seen, true off-roading applications are a pretty small portion of the overall truck market, and one that many popular trucks right now are also poorly optimized for (popular 2WD configurations, middling clearances, etc).
darknavi•3h ago
https://youtu.be/pw250Va1JFo?t=469
gfs•2h ago
numpad0•2h ago
It's a Kei truck. That's not a new thing. Online discourses categorizing Telo as one leads to people pointing out Kei are equipped with weaker engines for legal reasons, that doesn't matter. US finally started making its own Kei truck.
ColonelPhantom•1h ago