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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