Yabba dabba do you know the mileage on this baby?Photo: Russell Bernice via FlickrInventors who are willing to wheel and deal in crazy new ideas often get pegged as cranks. However, that should be a compliment for Charles Samuel Greenwood, the creator of the HumanCar, a human-electric hybrid vehicle powered by cranks. Hand cranks, actually. I bet Fred and Wilma Flintstone would gladly trade up their pedestrian, foot-powered car for one of these — and in these days of rising energy prices and greenhouse gas emissions, they’re probably not the only ones.
If you and three friends are really cranking it, this sleek little toy can wind up to 60 miles per hour through flat towns like Bedrock and still maintain a cool 30 mph up hills. However, if you don’t have any backseat drivers to help, then the electric plug-in feature can give your handcranking a hand.
So row, row, row yourself (and $15,500) toward a full-body, rowing-style workout as well as, according to HumanCar, a “vehicle that creates electricity and is literally judo flipping the auto industry.”
Take a look here at the future — or is it the past? — of transportation:
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