Organic Transit CEO and Founder Rob Cotter inside the ELF during a test ride event in Portland on Tuesday.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

It’s not a bike and it’s not a car, but the ELF trike is quickly finding fans in Portland who are looking for something in between.

The event drew a good crowd —
some who arrived by bike, others by car.

Organic Transit, the North Carolina-based company that makes the ELF solar and pedal-powered trike, just wrapped up three busy days of test rides (two days in Troutdale and one day in Portland). I dropped by the test ride event Tuesday on the eastbank of the Willamette River near the Hawthorne Bridge to take a closer look, meet the company’s founder and CEO Rob Cotter, and get people’s impressions of these interesting vehicles.

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Coming to Portland

If our story back in November piqued your curiosity about what some call the “most efficient vehicle on the planet”, you’ll want to mark your calendar for a chance to drive one yourself.

Organic Transit (based in Durham, North Carolina) is bringing their ELF solar and pedal-powered tricycles to Portland for three days of test rides. The company that says its missions is to “get more cars off the road” knows that the Portland region’s biking and transit-centric demographic makes it a great marketing target. In fact, the company is considering opening an assembly plant in Portland.

In a press release about the Portland-area test ride events, company founder Rob Cotter said the ELF gets the equivalent of 1,800 miles per gallon. Far from a recumbent bike, the vehicle itself comes with side and rear mirrors, head and taillights, and a fully protective enclosure while still being legal to operate in bike lanes, paths, and in standard traffic lanes.[Read more…]

Coming to Portland

Durham, North Carolina-based Organic Transit is currently shopping for office and warehouse space in Portland.

The company is known for their “ELF” solar and pedal-powered vehicle (which stands for Electric, Light and Fun) which they bill as the “most efficient vehicle on the planet.” The company is the brainchild of Rob Cotter, a former engineer who worked on racing projects for Porsche, Mercedes Benz and BMW. Cotter then moved into the human-powered vehicle scene in the late 1980s as a race promoter and vice president of the International Human Powered Vehicle Association. As CEO and founder of Organic Transit, Cotter steered his latest invention into a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign last year that raised over $225,000 from 547 backers.
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