The Telo MT1 is a big truck trapped in a tiny truck’s body

I’m bouncing down the road in San Carlos, California, zipping past behemoth tech companies like EA and Oracle, in America’s smallest electric truck. The Telo MT1 (which stands for “mini truck”) unquestionably turns heads because it looks so remarkably different from everything else on the market right now. It has a nearly cab-over design, meaning that front-seat passengers sit almost directly over the front axle. It looks a lot like a Japanese kei truck, with a super-short nose and four doors. People stop to stare as we sit at stoplights or roll silently past. The interior is surprisingly spacious, and while the seats are firm, they’re not uncomfortable, at least for short jaunts on the bumpy roads around Telo’s HQ. Telo Trucks cofounder and CEO Jason Marks drove us to the company’s offices ahead of my short one-block test drive, and from the passenger seat, the ride was firm but stable, thanks to a low center of gravity provided by the battery pack beneath the floor. Behind the wheel, the MT1 feels like a lighter, more nimble pickup truck with a stiff, slightly bouncy ride without any payload in the bed, combined with all the low-end power, torque, and acceleration…