Read the Scientific American blog post from the beginning by clicking the image to the left:

… It costs $5,500, recharges its battery with its own rooftop solar panels, can legally take you on the road, on the sidewalk,* and on greenway trails, and has a 30-mile-per-charge range. Then you can either rely on those solar panels or you can take the little battery out and plug it in. And though it’s designed to carry me and up to 800 pounds of payload (guitar, amp, and groupie?), I can retrofit a little jumpseat so I can just haul around the groupie if I need to. You can read all about it in this story by the News & Observer of Raleigh.

And hokey smokes, it’s made right here in the U.S.A., by Organic Transit, in a renovated furniture warehouse in downtown Durham, NC.

The thing — and the Elf, its more carlike little sister — is limited to 20 mph on pure electricity (to remain classified as a bicycle), but it can take you up and down hills with or without your pedaling. Every New Urbanist, transit focused downtown renovation should all but give these things away for free. If you live and work in a walkable downtown that lacks — as so many do — a grocery store, instead of needing a second car, all you’ve done is given purpose to your workout. “Going out for a ride, dear — got that grocery list?”

So let’s count the wins: it’s solar powered, saving fuel and emissions; it’s basically an enclosed bicycle, which means you’re burning calories rather than oil plus enjoying your life while you’re inside it; it’s tiny, though you sit at about the same level as car drivers; it’s street legal — but also sidewalk(ish) and trail legal; it’s built in a startup company helping its town by employing people in a rebuilding downtown. It doesn’t throw candy to children as it drives, but I suppose you can do that…

Continue reading here.