Most trucks today are headed in the wrong direction, metaphorically speaking. 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.
This is my take, but I’m not just here to blab about aesthetics and my weird love of teeny-tiny cars. Huge vehicles are uniquely deadly for pedestrians and cyclists and counterproductive to decarbonization work. 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. In other words, they’re bad for people and the planet.
The switch to electric vehicles offers an opportunity to shake things up, sizewise. Yet in the U.S., most automakers won’t risk it, and there’s a financial basis for that. Trucks like the F-150 and Silverado are more popular than ever, giving little incentive for companies to carve out a new path. Still, a young startup called Telo Trucks is taking an alternate route anyway. It’s betting that lots of Americans actually want a petite pickup — on …
