Question for this community: I currently have a 1998 toyota tacoma and, frankly, love the compact pickup form factor. I’ve been wanting to move to an electric truck for years, but am not seeing many options… am I being an idiot, hoping for a unicorn?
- Slate looks attractive, but I’m hesitant about a first gen model from a brand new company. Maybe wait a year after release?
- Telo also looks good, but same issue.
- Ford Lightning is bigger than I’d prefer.
- There are some smaller builds, like the Pickman, but not being able to get on the highway
- I’ve also thought of paying for an electric conversion of my current truck, but that’s looking like $40k just to convert an already older vehicle that’s not in great shape.
My main needs are to have a full bed, 2 seats, top speed of ~55mph, and hopefully be less than $50k. I don’t care for any other modern amenities, crank windows and dumb systems are perfect, and don’t need much range. Am I hoping for too little for too little?


I can’t wait for BYD to start selling in Canada, I am tired of my escape’s insistence on burning fuel for the hell of it, and all affordable hybrids/EV’s in Canada having shit all for range.
A 150km battery + generator would be amazing for my use case, basically only road trips and camping would cost me fuel money.
Nissan leaf range: 460km. Chevy Bolt range: 420km
My hybrid range is 660km.
Ford Maverick hybrid: 800km.
BYDs will not cost less than any of these.
Using the fuel range while discussing electric vehicles is pretty dishonest and/or misses my point completely.
The leaf and the bolt are smaller than my needs, what I am hoping for is something the size of my escape (or maybe slightly larger) thats either a phev with a generator with ~150km full electric range, or a full electric with a 500+km range.
It also can’t be a Japanese make because i have such a long torso that my head rests against the ceiling, and I dont want another american made vehicle until they figure their shit out. This doesn’t leave me with much options for my next vehicle, so i am quite hopeful for what’s coming.
I don’t think you’re going to find a phev with 150+km range, even the shark only gets 100 with a 30kwh battery. Other than the lower 60km range why not the escape phev?
Hah, 60km in an escape is a great joke, I am lucky if i get 40km in my 2021. I know my wants/needs are probably a pipe dream, but my daily round trip is ~120km, and being able to do that without an engine would be great.
Being able to do that, and do a 650km round trip in a day would be amazing.
But as to ‘why not the escape’, I want the other type of PHEV - a vehicle designed to be full electric, but with an efficient generator to increase the range, not a vehicle designed for gas usage with batteries shoved in it - I find even on a shorter average commute (when I bought the vehicle it was ~10km a day), I was going through quite a bit more fuel than one would expect considering I at most needed 25% of my battery capacity.
The smaller BYDs do have issues with head space. The dolphins sun roof rolls up into a lump above the rear seats, so if I sit there my head hits the lump. I’m not super tall either. Atto 3 is much better, but the open boot is still a head hazard as it doesn’t go high enough for me.
Neither of those are an issue for me - I dont open the sunroof on vehicles that have it, and my escape has nearly given me a concussion on more than one occasion, so i am used to ducking the hatch at this point.
The bump is there regardless of whether the sunroof is open or not. And i dont think you can get the car without the sunroof?
Ah,thats less fun. Still not a big deal, since I would never be sitting in my back seat, but good to know.