Featured in:

What currently is the best option for personal urban transportation? 

Despite the colorful array of emissions free electric vehicles on the market today, the fundamental limitations of travelling on four wheels or two have not yet been addressed.  Drivers still find that owning a car can be costly, sitting in traffic is stressful, and looking for parking can be time-consuming.  Cyclists have it easier in many ways, but have discovered that hauling loads can be tricky; they're exposed to the elements even when it's inconvenient; and safety is an ever-present concern.  For these reasons and many others, neither really optimally meets the everyday needs of city dwellers.

Introducing the Frankentrike, a human-powered, electric-assist all-purpose tricycle.  A Frankentrike makes for an ideal personal vehicle solution to meet most urban transport needs. In the U.S. 73% of all vehicle trips are under 10 miles in distance. This is a range within which this vehicle can often transport you door to door faster than on 2 or 4 wheels. 

This opportunity comes at a pivotal time of rapid urbanization, climate instability and an epidemic of personal health crises. With the Frankentrikes, you have an opportunity to switch to a clean ecological form of transport without sacrificing a lot of the benefits of owning a larger vehicle. A Frankentrike gets over 900MPGe, making them 18x more energy-efficient than a Prius. This means that no matter how your electricity is being generated, your carbon imprint is infinitessimally small. Being essentially an overgrown bicycle, you also have the option to PEDAL. This empowerment allows you to exercise while getting from one place to the next. It also means you're never stuck. No matter how low your 'fuel tank' is, you can always get to where you need to go. It also means that in places where motorized vehicles are viewed poorly by others---like sidewalks and plazas-- you can move without motors and exhibit a gentler, quieter side to your rather large bicycle.

Driving this tricycle has completely removed my desire to ever own a car again. What I've discovered, living in Vancouver, B.C., Seattle, WA and Oakland, CA, is that, now that I drive a Frankentrike, I no longer need to own a car. Internet-based car sharing services and app-based taxi services meet all my larger vehicle needs while my bicycle in combination with trains, metros, and planes meets other needs.

Why add all this complexity to your life? Two answers: Enjoyment and savings. I spend about 1/6 of what the average car owner spends on transportation yearly, including Frankentrike maintenance, vehicle rentals, taxi services and transit.

And I have more fun. I absolutely love being on a bicycle rather than being cooped up in a car. I love to experience the fabric of the city that I live in and to not miss what's happening around me. I love the wind in my hair, but I also love arriving to a party feeling fresh and energized, not smelly, exhausted, and drenched.  Most of all, I love being seen by the other large vehicles and being treated like a car by other cars. I love being able to trigger the under-pavement sensors for the lights at intersections, and to open the gates of parking garages, which I'm never able to do on a bike. I love never having to look for parking. I love racing my friends to bars and parties. They are always astounded to discover that I've beaten them. They don't factor in just how long it takes for them to walk to their parked car, wait to get onto the freeway, and to look for parking at their destination and then to walk from there to the front door. Under 10 miles, the Frankentrike is always in the running.

Even better, I love being able to travel with my friends as a pod, but to have them in front of me where I can see them and talk to them and still keep my eyes on the road. I love driving kids around in this because for them, it feels like being at Disneyland on a ride. I love being able to go anywhere that a bicycle can go. I love being able to use the bike lanes and the sidewalks, but also not to be shunned from the car lanes. It helps that i'm moving nearly as fast as the other motorized vehicles, so they are not bothered by the speed differential. I think I've only ever been honked at once in the past 10 years out of driver annoyance, yet dozens of times by people showing their support and appreciation for my choice of 'car.'   I love feeling the love from others too. 

I hope that in the near future, that you will be able to share with me this experience. 

Frankentrikes simply started as a personal search for an ideal personal city vehicle, but immediately after creating my own, people started to ask me if I could build one for them.  At first, flattered, I agreed. After 3 however, each of increasing complexity and for a higher price, I was feeling overworked, frail, and extremely burned out.  I realized that--even at the highest price--I wasn't asking for enough to meet my most basic needs, but at the same time, didn't want to ask more than people could afford.  I experimented with jig making and determined that the path forward to both financial sustainability and to maintaining a reasonable price was to stop doing custom builds and to go into manufacturing.

If our minimum funding goal is reached, we will spend the next two years from campaign close refining our product design so that by May of 2018, we have a complete production model ready for small batch manufacture and are ready to take orders.  The amount requested does not include the $1-2K that the founder invests (and continues to invest) in the project every month.  Crowdfunding contributors who choose a Sponsor option will be the first to be invited to place an order.

More info here

June–July 2016 Lease working space and set up existing tools and equipment.

August 2016–May 2018 How we spend this time will depend upon how much support we receive, but our highest priorities are listed above in Campaign Goals.

June–August 2018...  Manufacture and deliver Pioneer Batch One, then continue to the next Batch and manufacturing round, and so on.