Hasta La Ideas

Lest we forget that bicycles come in all shapes and sizes, I was interested to see two recent, radically different takes on the diamond frame’s lesser-known cousin: the recumbent.

First up, congratulations to Rob Cotter of Organic Transit for surpassing his $100K Kickstarter goal with some three weeks left in their campaign for the ELF, a “solar/pedal hybrid vehicle” for urban settings and medium-distance commutes. “This three-wheeled electric assist velomobile fills the niche between a bicycle and a car and offers advantages over both.”

Where the Faraday Porteur e-bike was deliberately designed to look like a normal bicycle, the ELF is a different beast. The form is defined by a pod-like fairing over a chassis in which the wheels are in “tadpole configuration,” but the major innovation lies in its solar-powered, 750W neodymium magnetic motor, which gets a whopping 1800 MPGe, or “1800 miles for the energy equivalent of one gallon of gas.”

At $4,000, the ELF is just $200 more than the Faraday, though I’d argue that they have different target audiences—or rather, consumers with different taste within a broad category of commuters and early adopters. Both are examples of successfully crowdfunded, street-legal electirc-assist vehicles, a category that is among most promising candidates for a sustainable solution to the nation’s urban transit woes, namely the first-and-last-mile problem.

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