A cheaper, more efficient Morgan 3-Wheeler? Yes! (Sort of...)

Sometimes it just all comes together.

Here on Mesquite Hugger we talk a lot about bicycles, electric bicycles, and carbon-neutral vehicles. We talk occasionally about velomobiles. Once in a great while we talked about an electric Morgan three-wheeler. If only we could pull them all together into one glorious machine...

Yep. You know where we're headed:

Morgan Three Wheeler gets the Velomobile Treatment

Yep, it has pedals!

I just learned about it, and had to do some websurfing to learn more.

I learned:

• originally built by Ekomobil in Russia
• unsuccessfully Kickstartered as a πCar (PiCar) in the States in December 2015
• available now from Velomobileshop.com for $5000 (with some type of Sondors ebike tie-in)
• it can be pedal-only or come with a 48 volt hubmotor (maybe)
• it would make (another) great Mesquite Hugger "official" vehicle/birthday present

You can see a little video action on youtube

 

What more can I say?

 

May saving the world really be this much fun!

Lubbock on a Bike: Giving Velomobiles a Second Look

 

It's funny, really, how it all plays out. I have written about velomobiles in Lubbock knowing that ever actually seeing one here is highly unlikely.

Abilene is about 140 miles from here. Saturday we were in Abilene about to head into a restaurant when I spotted a velomobile in the parking lot. The Mesquite Hugger spirit in me leapt! I went over to get a photo for you and was struck with a funny realization - this gorgeous machine was from Lubbock. I even knew the pickup it was in. I had seen it at the grocery store and at the miscommunicated bike meeting I attended recently. There is a velomobile in Lubbock!

You may be asking yourself, "Okay MH, what's so cool about a velomobile?"

 

First, it looks like a torpedo, a retro-futuristic racer, or maybe transportation for a superhero. Second (and much more practical,) it is one of the most efficient land vehicles available. It is light weight, aerodynamic, and has very little rolling resistance. In West Texas terminology, it gives you the best bang for your horsepower buck!

Another big advantage for us bi-pedal humans - it places your body in an ideal position for pedal power. Even more bang for your buck! And if you add a battery pack and small electric motor...

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before in this blog, it has a distinct disadvantage in the land of SUVs and diesel duallies, it could easily be squished by an inattentive driver - and we have plenty of those in our bike unfriendly town. So I admire these exotic and rare machines but have little desire to adopt one for my daily commute.

I have been composing another post lately about solar-powered vehicles, about the lure of self-powered transportation. The current struggle with those is how little power is produced by small solar panels vs. how much power is needed to move a large vehicle, especially one weighed down by a big battery pack. So, solar power combined with a hyper-efficient electric-assist velo...a pairing created in Mesquite Hugger heaven.

All this is to say that I become ever more intrigued by velomobiles in general and by solar-powered velos in particular.

The most prominent one these days is less hardcore than many, but it is commercially available and made in the USA. It is the Elf. In theory, I really want one!

Check out the solar panel on the roof!

You can get a naked Elf, a two-seater Elf, and a campus cop version - you could take Paul Blart-ism to a whole new level!

If you want to learn more about velomobiles, check out this great article from Low-Tech Magazine with lots of cool links.

May you be superhero cool while traveling about without fossil fuels!

The Elf, and Lubbock, would you ride a velomobile?

Not this Elf!

Last year I sold a really cool kayak. It was a well-used Perception 10' sit-in that I had picked up from a friend. I owned it for three years, and the only time it saw any water was when the roof leaked on the shop. A kayak is very green, efficient, and exciting transportation - if you live in a place and have a life where you can enjoy it. I don't. Which is why I try not to bring home the following items any more:
skis
snowmobiles
long-distance motorcycles
dirt bikes
hang gliders
convertibles
sailboats

And to a lesser degree, velomobiles. Velomobiles, however, are growing on me - they do have wheels, after all. They are lightweight, simple, and very very efficient. They offer a degree of weather protection. And they can look very cool.

The coolest of velomobiles! See more here.

I have liked them for some time, but I just don't know about them in our local version of the real world. Our town's traffic is not terribly bike friendly, and a bike has the virtue of being skinny enough to obstruct traffic very little.

This Elf!

A velomobile (and Kickstarter campaign) I have been watching with great interest is the Elf. It's not as sleek or small as most velos, but it has quite a list of virtues. Organic Transit, the company that builds the Elf, refers to it as "...the cleanest, most efficient vehicle on the planet." (1800 MPGe  - 1800 miles for the energy equivalent of 1 gallon of gas!!!!!)

Mechanically speaking, the Elf has the same powertrain as a 750 watt electric bicycle. It has pedals, an electric motor, a lithium battery - high quality but pretty standard stuff. But it also has more comfortable seating, more carrying capacity, and a 60 watt solar panel on the roof. (And it has a roof!) And it's a turn-key production vehicle you can just jump in and cruise - unlike all the cool plans on the internet that will take you two years to build.

So, yes, Organic Transit, you have built (and successfully campaigned) a phenomenally cool and worthy vehicle, and I wish we all would switch to transportation like this for our city driving, but who in the world I live in will drive it in or near traffic?

May we all find a cooler and less polluting way to get around!