Organic Transit Forges New Path in Urban Transit

Question: What travels 30 mph, carries a payload of 550 lbs., and can reduce as much as 6 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year?

Answer: an ELF.

Made by Organic Transit in Durham, North Carolina, the zero-emission, solar- pedal powered ELF is starting to change the way people commute, shop, and get around in cities and towns from Canada to Australia.

“We’re going for what’s known in the bicycle industry as the great blue ocean,” says Rob Cotter, founder and CEO of Organic Transit. “It’s those millions of people who would ride a bike instead of drive a car every day, if only it was safer, more stable, more visible in traffic, had some carrying capacity, and gave protection from the elements,” he adds.  With the average urban car trip being a distance of two miles or under, more feet on the pedals and fewer pedals on the gas could become a growing sight in many urban centres. The ELF’s three wheeled, tadpole design stands to be user-friendly for those who are not in the super athletic biking class.

The ELF also offers something no standard bike and no other electric, or electric- assist vehicle on the road today can offer: solar power. The ELF’s light weight of

160 lbs. makes its rooftop solar panel a practical application for an electric boost whenever needed. The panel charges the lithium ion battery in six to eight hours of sunlight, thus allowing many urban commuters to completely avoid the grid, (although the battery can be plugged into a standard wall outlet for a two hour plus charge-up). This is why Organic Transit claims the ELF is “the most efficient vehicle on the planet.”

For Cotter, who was formally Vice President of the Human Powered Vehicle Association, it’s all in the design. “We take the most universal and plentiful energy source on the planet, the sun, and combine it with the most immediately

available energy source in humans, calories. What we’re really doing is taking the planet’s basic operating system, if you will, and combining it with the basic operating system of the human species, because if you can do that, the results are healthier all around,” he says.

Integral to the Earth’s “basic operating system,” the geologic carbon cycle sequesters carbon for millions of years. It is a process that has been drastically short- circuited by the era of fossil fuel extraction, which, as we know, has become the main conduit for global warming. As public and private sectors around the world struggle to find and implement sustainable solutions to transportation, Organic Transit’s slogan to “burn calories, not oil” is definitely being heard. After a successful Kickstarter campaign and a second year of production, the ELF and Organic Transit have gone from hand-made resin and fibreglass body moulds built in a defunct furniture showroom, to stylish trylon
shells, a new production facility, and sales in nine countries.

While it may be environmental concerns that have been driving the appeal of the zero-emission ELF (according to government figures, the average sedan in the U.S. pumps six tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year), people are being drawn to some fairly clear economic pluses of owning an ELF as well. Legally classified as a bicycle, the ELF requires none of the licensing, registration, and insurance costs of owning a car…not to mention gas. These combined costs can add up to 20% of the median income of a family of four, and can be higher than 30% depending on where that family of four lives.

One of the more surprising elements of the ELF’s appeal has been in the area of personal health. In fact, the company has been a bit surprised by the growing number of people, many of them older, who have come to be ELF owners due to a variety of physical conditions that prohibit holding a driver’s licence. Here the

advantages of an ELF over a bike or car become particularly clear. The ELF has also been shown to have restorative health benefits as well. One ELF owner, who had    broken her leg in several places, was told by her doctor she would “probably   never walk without crutches again.” After riding an ELF 20 miles a day for several weeks, she can now walk without using a cane.