Elliot has been talking for a while about wanting to invent a 'bike car' when he grows up. This afternoon, I had to break it to him: someone has beaten him to it.
I first heard about the velomobile over at resilience.org - Post Carbon Institute just posted their top ten most popular articles, and this was one of the more uplifiting. Kris de Kecker's exhaustive exploration of the velomobile lays it all out: what the velomobile is, how it works, how the electric version is 80x more efficient than an EV, why and how it's illegal in some places, and what needs to change to bring more of these fabulous machines to the world.
Evonik wind explorer
A little digging also took me to this article, about the benefits of cycling and velomobiles, and the cost - to society, to your checkbook, and even to your sex life - of driving.
Flykly smart wheel
This all makes me wonder about what might be possible if and when someone decides to combine a Velomobile with a Flykly smart wheel? (Flykly, by the way, just blew past their third stretch goal on Kickstarter, raising 5x their initial goal of $100k.) Maybe it's just me, but this all gives me hope, and makes me feel like we are a little bit closer to a poop-free future!