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Sunnyclist Is What Happens When You Mix Solar and Leg Power

Looking at vehicles like the Sunnyclist here, you get the feeling humanity isn’t done yet with finding new ways of combining sources of power to provide that all-important forward thrust.
Sunnyclist electric trike 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from YouTube
We’ve gone from electric to internal combustion engines to hybrids and back to electrics, with a lot of other variations on the side. The Sunnyclist falls in this latter category, since it’s pretty hard to agree what type of vehicle it is.

Based strictly on what’s making its wheels spin, it’s an electric vehicle all day long. From where it gets that power, now that’s a completely different story. The obvious answer is “a battery pack,” but it doesn’t do justice to Sunnyclist’s ingenuity.

A very important aspect that partly explains how the idea came about is the origin of the project. The people behind Sunnyclist come from Greece, a country where the sun can be seen for most of the year and light, open top vehicles make a lot of sense. Only the Sunnyclist isn’t really roofless.

If all those solar panels could have been placed somewhere else, be sure that Sunnyclist’s creators would have moved them there, but unfortunately, the sun insists on only shining from above us. The energy captured by the panels is sent to a battery pack, from where it goes on to power the trike’s electric motor. It’s as simple as that.

But assuming Helios isn’t very happy about the quality of the latest offerings and decides to take the day off, then what will his Sunnyclist-owning subjects do? They start pedaling. The electric trike is fitted with a set of bicycle pedals in front of all three seats, but they only act as power generators that transform the physical effort into energy that goes into the batteries. So if you’re giving your best and the vehicle is still sluggish, be sure that one of the other two passengers is skipping on the legwork.

When you run out of juice, though, you’ll be regretting that those pedals don’t move the vehicle directly, as skipping the whole generating electricity first process would surely result in more speed per the same amount of sweat.

The Greeks, who are now running a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, have thought about the lazy people as well and offer the option of charging the vehicle from a household power socket.

The minimum amount that can be pledged to reserve a €6,500 ($7,000) Standard model is €1,000, which means you’d have to show plenty of trust in some guys you’ve never met, besides living in a tropical paradise. Well, that last part doesn’t apply either, as the team will only ship the final product to people living inside the EU, so you’ll need a valid address in one of the member countries.

Engadget says the Standard version will be produced regardless of the money raised by the online campaign, while the other two - City and Traveler - are conditioned by a €100,000 goal. This model runs at a maximum 15 mph (25 km/h) with the City and Traveler going as fast as 31 mph (50 km/h).

The Sunnyclist sounds like a fun vehicle, and sitting here on a winter day watching the clip below we’re all but sold. Not to mention they’ve also used a dog, which is a below the belt punch, really.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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