Cool Concept in Personal Transportation

Cool Concept in Personal TransportationIf you believe that personal urban transportation has an important future (which I do), here’s a really clever design that looks safe, fun, attractive—and potentially cost-effective.  Readers will note that I support a similar design (on the 2GreenEnergy “clean energy investors” page). 

This strikes me as even more appealing, in a number of respects.  Most obviously, it has a very low center of gravity, contributing to its safety, and also to its aerodynamics and sleek appearance.  The miles per watt-hour are going to be very attractive, given the light weight and pedal-assist.  At the same time, its fold-back roof makes it practical for any weather condition.

These guys have a crowdfunding campaign in place on Indiegogo, the status of which suggests that it hasn’t gotten much traction to date.

Perhaps that’s because investors know that the key to business success for these folks, and everyone else in the category, is going to be marketing.  All cool products attract some level of attention, but successful products tell their stories so as to create widespread and immediate awareness and demand, while differentiating themselves from competitive offerings.  They also need professional, robust dealer programs, getting the right sales channel in place, and making sure all the players in it all make money.

I’m rooting for these guys.  Anyone would like to see an extremely eco-friendly design in broad use, increasing fitness, reducing congestion, and, perhaps most importantly, cleaning up our environment.

 

 

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One comment on “Cool Concept in Personal Transportation
  1. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    Er, I hate to rain of your parade but the vehicle is not new, nor commercially viable.

    It appear to be a resurrected Sinclair C5. The Sinclair C5 was the brain child of the UK’s brilliant, but somewhat eccentric Sir Clive Sinclair. The C5 debuted in 1985 and 14,000 were built but less than 5000 sold. (I own three). The C5 was intended to transform the way people traveled, sadly it became the subject of much ridicule and a commercial disaster, losing about £6million

    The C5 has since become a quite a cult hit with a very active club membership. regular rally’s etc.

    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 )

    There is definitely a fun specialty market for this sort of vehicle, especially with more advanced batteries.

    As a method of serious transport, the vehicle is just a bit silly, even more dangerous than a bicycle and totally unable to compete safely in modern traffic.

    These sort of vehicles are solutions in desperate need of a problem.

    Anyone wanting to invest in such an eccentric product, has more money than sense !