The solar-powered bike-car thingy we've all been waiting for

Okay, sure -- you could buy a Smart car , and it costs $13,000 just to drive it home, plus no matter how cute it is it's still burning gas and if you want to go to a gig with your guitar and your girlfriend, one of them is going to be uncomfortable. Or you could buy a Volt or a Leaf or, I don't know, an OrganoEcoloSocioEconoGreenoPod, and it's designed in Delft and assembled in Korea and by the time you've shipped it to your city you might just as well as spent your time engaging in a little relaxing mountaintop removal coal mining. Plus -- no matter how eco friendly it is, it's still just another stinkin' car. Or you could do this. You want to see my next vehicle? I'm going to get a TruckIt, a tiny little recumbent-bicycle deal with an electric motor -- it's called a velomobile, if you want to know. It costs $5,500, recharges its battery with its own rooftop solar panels, can legally take you on the road, on the sidewalk,* and on greenway trails, and has a 30-mile-per-charge range. Then you can either rely on those solar panels or you can take the little battery out and plug it in. And though it's designed to carry me and up to 800 pounds of payload (guitar, amp, and groupie?), I can retrofit a little jumpseat so I can just haul around the groupie if I need to. You can read all about it in this story by the News & Observer of Raleigh . [More]