5 ms·

> We're tired of oversized, impractical trucks designed for show over substance. I wonder if Telo is attempting to define a new category. Substance in a truck,

by dfee 1y ago

> We're tired of oversized, impractical trucks designed for show over substance. 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 1y ago
What would be the limitation that prevents you from mountain biking? It seems to have a similar sized bed to a Tacoma? 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 1y ago
  I need to tow a 5000lb boat 300 miles without charging and I need to fit 6 passengers. It needs to be $30K or less. 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 1y ago
    I'm American and this sounds really off. AFAIK pickups in the US typically have space for five passengers, not six. And good luck finding new pickups that can tow 5000 lbs under 30k; as a category, pickups have experienced quite a lot of price inflation, as I understand it.
    - garciasn 1y ago
      Right. What I’m saying is if you’re going to make a compact car with a bed, it better cost less than a pickup.
  - chipsa 1y ago
    No pickup will do that. Even crew cab pickups normally max out at 5 people (4 passengers), because there is no bench seat up front anymore. Even a Ford Maverick is $30k or so, and that won’t tow a 5000lb boat. Max listed towing is 4klb.
  - raddan 1y ago
    Why without charging? Are there time constraints? 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 1y ago
      Because I travel to places without charging infra.
      - raddan 1y ago
        I hear you. I love to go to very remote places. But I guess I see it more of a personal challenge.
    - GiorgioG 1y ago
      Because he can tow 300 miles easily with a ICE vehicle, and he can fill up anywhere in 5 minutes or less. Once you can charge cars in 5 minutes or less, I doubt he’d have made that a requirement.
    - jebarker 1y ago
      I started looking at camping trailers recently to tow with my Rivian. I quickly went off the idea when I realized that each time I’d need to charge en-route I’d have to find somewhere to park the camper, unhitch, go charge, then do it all in reverse. That’s going to add at least 20 mins to each charging session. None of this is necessary if I were filling with gas. For typical places I go camping here in CO that could be two or three times per journey direction.
  - laurencerowe 1y ago
    I was responding to someone worried about the practicality of carrying mountain bikes to the Santa Cruz mountains 50 miles from San Francisco. 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 1y ago
      Well, you were responding to me, after I noted my excursions through Baja, the mountain west and Oklahoma. Santa Cruz Mountain roads tend to be well paved. Though, large exceptions definitely exist! (E.g. Highland Way)
  - wpm 1y ago
    OK buy a different fucking vehicle then? Sorry this one isn't for you.
    - rossjudson 1y ago
      "I commute 400 miles each way to work, every day, towing my 5000 pound boat, fully equipped outdoor kitchen trailer/classroom, my home-schooled family of 6, 6 dogs, a portable sawmill, solar-powered game freezer + ammunition, and an extra trailer because I might have to go to home depot."
      - garciasn 1y ago
        1. I don't commute; I work from home. 2. I would use a truck as it was intended to be used--as a truck. 3. I have a lake home 150 miles from my primary home and I don't want to have to drive 4 kids and 2 adults in two separate cars every time. 4. There is no charging infrastructure near my lake home.
        chipsa 1y ago
        Do you have power at the lake house? Then you have charging infrastructure. Also, why are you towing the boat to and from the lake house? And again, which new production pickup fits 6 people?
        garciasn 1y ago
        I have power, yes; however, I can't even run the toaster oven and A/C, for example, at the same time. There's likely no way I could charge an EV w/o having everything trip the breaker. And there's no way to go beyond what we have unless the electric company upgrades our service.
        chipsa 1y ago
        More advanced EVSEs are capable of adjusting the power delivered based on the power available. It does require a sensor on the supply cables to determine how much power is being used, but it's technically capable without a service upgrade. Also, electric companies will frequently upgrade an old 50/100 amp service to 200 amp for low or no cost (because they figure you'll pay off the cost of doing so through more power usage). The panel side of the service upgrade will cost you, but then you'll be able use the toaster oven at the same time as the A/C.
  - bastawhiz 1y ago
    > I need to tow a 5000lb boat 300 miles without charging 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 1y ago
      Do the Ranger
      - bastawhiz 1y ago
        It's base MSRP is 33k and it only does five passengers
  - baby_souffle 1y ago
    > I need to tow a 5000lb boat 300 miles without charging and I need to fit 6 passengers. It needs to be $30K or less. 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 1y ago
  I also used to throw my mountain bike on the back of my sports car! It was, in retrospect, ridiculous. 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 1y ago
  Depends on what you're in to, but there's a HUGE amount of land in the US and a lot of lakes and mountains don't have paved roads to them. (Check out Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, etc.)
garciasn 1y ago
A $41K ($46K for AWD) “truck” is absurd. This isn’t a viable option for Americans, at all.
- stingrae 1y ago
  $41k is not an absurd starting price for a truck. Look at f150 prices, starting at 39k.
- jmspring 1y ago
  People are buying Rivians that cost much more.
  - garciasn 1y ago
    People who can afford $100K+ for a new one and $65K+ for a used one are not most people.
    - jmspring 1y ago
      Many people finance cars well beyond their means…
- doctorhandshake 1y ago
  I’m not sure what you mean. The 2025 F150 starts at $39k. https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/
  - garciasn 1y ago
    This isn’t a F150; it’s a mini with a bed. They’re apples to oranges.
  - kotaKat 1y ago
    Slate is targeting mid-twenties and has over 70+ prototypes vehicles on the road. Last I checked Telo has... one prototype? Telo's doomed, anyways.
jcrawfordor 1y ago
A tremendous portion of the truck market are people who live in urban to suburban areas and need to move things. For that audience, the ability to fit a 4x8' plywood sheet easily puts this ahead of a surprising number of conventional trucks on utility. The 2k lbs payload on the 2WD drive model is more than a Tacoma and some configurations of the F150, for example, popular models that also don't fit a 4x8 sheet without strapping it down over the cab or another awkward technique. It also lists a towing cap of 6,600 which is competitive with many production pickups. 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).
- mlyle 1y ago
  I just put down a deposit. I make things from plywood sometimes, and even in my wife's R1S it's a pain. When we don't take the R1S, all 5 of us have to fit in my car (Honda Clarity). I coach robotics teams and sometimes need to haul a lot of stuff. Sometimes we do some light offroading in the R1S. Looks like this will do all the things I need OK. I would like to drive something small and easy to park, that I could offroad a bit, carry my family a bit, haul stuff a bit. And I've always liked the weird aesthetic of kei trucks and things like the Jeep Forward Control.
darknavi 1y ago
The CEO pretty clearly says it's meant to be a city truck with small size but just as much utility (or more) than something like a Tacoma. https://youtu.be/pw250Va1JFo?t=469 https://youtu.be/pw250Va1JFo?t=469
- gfs 1y ago
  I'm failing to see how this could have as much or more utility than a Tacoma. I don't see any mention of towing or payload. Not to mention, the clearance will be limiting for anyone who wants to venture off road at all.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    Payload's around 1700-2000 pounds, TBD. Towing is possible but limited-- this is a weak point for all electric vehicles-- but good enough to haul a trailer to the dump or a boat a small distance. But the bed is better in some ways than the Tacoma. Big question is whether they can reach production and really deliver for this pricing, etc. They have ~11k preorders and could develop a lot more.
numpad0 1y ago
> I wonder if Telo is attempting to define a new category. 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 1y ago
  I would say "kei" does pretty specifically refer to vehicles adhering to those Japanese regulations. I think "minitruck" or "compact truck" would be a better, more general name.

by dfee 1y ago

laurencerowe 1y ago

What would be the limitation that prevents you from mountain biking? It seems to have a similar sized bed to a Tacoma? 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 1y ago
I need to tow a 5000lb boat 300 miles without charging and I need to fit 6 passengers. It needs to be $30K or less. 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 1y ago
  I'm American and this sounds really off. AFAIK pickups in the US typically have space for five passengers, not six. And good luck finding new pickups that can tow 5000 lbs under 30k; as a category, pickups have experienced quite a lot of price inflation, as I understand it.
  - garciasn 1y ago
    Right. What I’m saying is if you’re going to make a compact car with a bed, it better cost less than a pickup.
- chipsa 1y ago
  No pickup will do that. Even crew cab pickups normally max out at 5 people (4 passengers), because there is no bench seat up front anymore. Even a Ford Maverick is $30k or so, and that won’t tow a 5000lb boat. Max listed towing is 4klb.
- raddan 1y ago
  Why without charging? Are there time constraints? 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 1y ago
    Because I travel to places without charging infra.
    - raddan 1y ago
      I hear you. I love to go to very remote places. But I guess I see it more of a personal challenge.
  - GiorgioG 1y ago
    Because he can tow 300 miles easily with a ICE vehicle, and he can fill up anywhere in 5 minutes or less. Once you can charge cars in 5 minutes or less, I doubt he’d have made that a requirement.
  - jebarker 1y ago
    I started looking at camping trailers recently to tow with my Rivian. I quickly went off the idea when I realized that each time I’d need to charge en-route I’d have to find somewhere to park the camper, unhitch, go charge, then do it all in reverse. That’s going to add at least 20 mins to each charging session. None of this is necessary if I were filling with gas. For typical places I go camping here in CO that could be two or three times per journey direction.
- laurencerowe 1y ago
  I was responding to someone worried about the practicality of carrying mountain bikes to the Santa Cruz mountains 50 miles from San Francisco. 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 1y ago
    Well, you were responding to me, after I noted my excursions through Baja, the mountain west and Oklahoma. Santa Cruz Mountain roads tend to be well paved. Though, large exceptions definitely exist! (E.g. Highland Way)
- wpm 1y ago
  OK buy a different fucking vehicle then? Sorry this one isn't for you.
  - rossjudson 1y ago
    "I commute 400 miles each way to work, every day, towing my 5000 pound boat, fully equipped outdoor kitchen trailer/classroom, my home-schooled family of 6, 6 dogs, a portable sawmill, solar-powered game freezer + ammunition, and an extra trailer because I might have to go to home depot."
    - garciasn 1y ago
      1. I don't commute; I work from home. 2. I would use a truck as it was intended to be used--as a truck. 3. I have a lake home 150 miles from my primary home and I don't want to have to drive 4 kids and 2 adults in two separate cars every time. 4. There is no charging infrastructure near my lake home.
      - chipsa 1y ago
        Do you have power at the lake house? Then you have charging infrastructure. Also, why are you towing the boat to and from the lake house? And again, which new production pickup fits 6 people?
        garciasn 1y ago
        I have power, yes; however, I can't even run the toaster oven and A/C, for example, at the same time. There's likely no way I could charge an EV w/o having everything trip the breaker. And there's no way to go beyond what we have unless the electric company upgrades our service.
        chipsa 1y ago
        More advanced EVSEs are capable of adjusting the power delivered based on the power available. It does require a sensor on the supply cables to determine how much power is being used, but it's technically capable without a service upgrade. Also, electric companies will frequently upgrade an old 50/100 amp service to 200 amp for low or no cost (because they figure you'll pay off the cost of doing so through more power usage). The panel side of the service upgrade will cost you, but then you'll be able use the toaster oven at the same time as the A/C.
- bastawhiz 1y ago
  > I need to tow a 5000lb boat 300 miles without charging 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 1y ago
    Do the Ranger
    - bastawhiz 1y ago
      It's base MSRP is 33k and it only does five passengers
- baby_souffle 1y ago
  > I need to tow a 5000lb boat 300 miles without charging and I need to fit 6 passengers. It needs to be $30K or less. 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 1y ago
I also used to throw my mountain bike on the back of my sports car! It was, in retrospect, ridiculous. 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 1y ago
Depends on what you're in to, but there's a HUGE amount of land in the US and a lot of lakes and mountains don't have paved roads to them. (Check out Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, etc.)

garciasn 1y ago

A $41K ($46K for AWD) “truck” is absurd. This isn’t a viable option for Americans, at all.

stingrae 1y ago
$41k is not an absurd starting price for a truck. Look at f150 prices, starting at 39k.
jmspring 1y ago
People are buying Rivians that cost much more.
- garciasn 1y ago
  People who can afford $100K+ for a new one and $65K+ for a used one are not most people.
  - jmspring 1y ago
    Many people finance cars well beyond their means…
doctorhandshake 1y ago
I’m not sure what you mean. The 2025 F150 starts at $39k. https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/
- garciasn 1y ago
  This isn’t a F150; it’s a mini with a bed. They’re apples to oranges.
- kotaKat 1y ago
  Slate is targeting mid-twenties and has over 70+ prototypes vehicles on the road. Last I checked Telo has... one prototype? Telo's doomed, anyways.

jcrawfordor 1y ago

A tremendous portion of the truck market are people who live in urban to suburban areas and need to move things. For that audience, the ability to fit a 4x8' plywood sheet easily puts this ahead of a surprising number of conventional trucks on utility. The 2k lbs payload on the 2WD drive model is more than a Tacoma and some configurations of the F150, for example, popular models that also don't fit a 4x8 sheet without strapping it down over the cab or another awkward technique. It also lists a towing cap of 6,600 which is competitive with many production pickups. 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).

mlyle 1y ago
I just put down a deposit. I make things from plywood sometimes, and even in my wife's R1S it's a pain. When we don't take the R1S, all 5 of us have to fit in my car (Honda Clarity). I coach robotics teams and sometimes need to haul a lot of stuff. Sometimes we do some light offroading in the R1S. Looks like this will do all the things I need OK. I would like to drive something small and easy to park, that I could offroad a bit, carry my family a bit, haul stuff a bit. And I've always liked the weird aesthetic of kei trucks and things like the Jeep Forward Control.

darknavi 1y ago

The CEO pretty clearly says it's meant to be a city truck with small size but just as much utility (or more) than something like a Tacoma. https://youtu.be/pw250Va1JFo?t=469 https://youtu.be/pw250Va1JFo?t=469

gfs 1y ago
I'm failing to see how this could have as much or more utility than a Tacoma. I don't see any mention of towing or payload. Not to mention, the clearance will be limiting for anyone who wants to venture off road at all.
- mlyle 1y ago
  Payload's around 1700-2000 pounds, TBD. Towing is possible but limited-- this is a weak point for all electric vehicles-- but good enough to haul a trailer to the dump or a boat a small distance. But the bed is better in some ways than the Tacoma. Big question is whether they can reach production and really deliver for this pricing, etc. They have ~11k preorders and could develop a lot more.

numpad0 1y ago

> I wonder if Telo is attempting to define a new category. 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 1y ago
I would say "kei" does pretty specifically refer to vehicles adhering to those Japanese regulations. I think "minitruck" or "compact truck" would be a better, more general name.