April 19, 2005

Cross between a car and a bike draws stares, confusion

Not quite a vehicle by law, an invention by two Ashlanders can go 40 miles on a charge

By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings

Forget hybrid technology. Ashlanders Russ Rappa and Jason Bernard have designed a motorized vehicle that does away with the combustion engine altogether. They call it a four-wheel drive, electric powered, quadra-cycle and it’s really part bicycle, part car, all — as Rappa defined it — “environmental kinetic art.”

Russ Rappo, left, and Jason Bernard cruise down Siskiyou Boulevard Monday, drawing the attention of motorists and pedestrians. Photo by Robert Plain | Ashland Daily Tidings

It’s shaped like a car, with four tires, two rearview mirrors and a push foot brake. But it’s made almost entirely out of bicycle parts, from the steel bar frame to the throttle on the handlebars.

“It’s kind of self defining,” Rappa said.

The most unique aspect to their invention, they say, is that it enables people to travel around without the aide of any fossil fuels whatsoever. It has four 600-watt kinetic motors — one inside each of its four wheels — that run off 12 separate 12-volt batteries. On one 6-hour charge, they said, it can go about 40 miles at 25 miles-per-hour.

“In 100 years people will look at this and say these people were looking into the future,” Bernard said. “The whole time I was designing it I was thinking of the Jetsons.”

Rappa said he has been trying to invent an alternative mode of transportation to the gasoline-powered, combustion engine automobile for more than a decade. When he met Bernard this past summer, he knew his dream would soon be realized. “We both shared the same idea,” he said.

Bernard is a blacksmith by trade who has been tinkering with all kinds of engines since he was 10 years old. He said he decided to try to invent a new mode of transportation as a way of showing people that oil and other fossil fuels aren’t a necessary part of modern life, even if traveling is.

“Why would people want to pay $2.50 for a gallon of gas when you can charge a battery and drive around for free,” Bernard said. “Scientists are telling us, the economy is telling us that it is time for a change. George Bush and our government have led us to war for oil and we don’t need it anymore. It is so crucial that we get off gas. If people can go 30 miles a day at 30 miles per hour, we could all be charging off of the sun.”

The duo said they did not invent this new kind of transportation to get rich or start a business but rather to give people something to think about when they reason that they can’t live without their car.

“We are both artists and we are both revolutionaries,” Bernard said. “We’re fueling the revolution, without any gas — recharging the revolution. We made this because we are both radicals and we want to change the world.”

Rappa, an artist who works exclusively with ecological art supplies, said making the decision to travel in an environmentally friendly capacity is just “one of the many ways people can choose to benefit the planet,” he said. “As a society, we need to alleviate the consumption of fossil fuels. This is going to help reverse the agenda of the oil barons.”

The pair began work on their creation back in August. Bernard said they used golf carts as a model and then transferred that technology into a four-wheel bicycle.

“I tried to make it futuristic,” he said. “Without really looking at it, you really can’t tell how it is propelled. I started with a solid cart but when I sat on it was too bumpy of a ride. Every part and every piece is custom. It’s all been cut up in some fashion.”

That’s when he figured it could be a full-suspension vehicle if it were made out of bike parts.

Rappa said it was also important to use all bicycle parts so that it would also be easy to repair. “If something breaks, you can go to the bike shop and fix it,” he said.

After about 400 hours of labor and several rough drafts, they have finally got it on the road recently. So far, it has been driven it only about 110 miles, mostly in downtown Ashland. They said because it does not go faster that 25 mph, it is not legally considered an automobile.

“The cops don’t know how to classify it,” Bernard said, noting that he has spoken to the police about it on one occasion. He said they thought it was as neat as most people do who see it driving around. “It’s not a scooter, it’s not fast enough to be considered a car.”

Ashland Police Officer Steve MacLennan said there is a legal designation for “motor-assisted scooters” but because this particular mode of transportation, which he has yet to see on the road, has four wheels he thought it would be considered a “vehicle.”

“They should be able to drive it on the road here, as long as it obeys all the rules,” he said. “they can’t drive it on the Greenway [bike path]. You can’t have a motorized vehicle on the bike path in Ashland. I don’t know about the county.”

Today, the pair will take their creation to Southern Oregon University where there will be a series of lectures on sustainable energy. They will not be official presenters but they “thought it would be a good idea to show them what a couple of okies from Oregon can do.”

Their goal is to have it displayed in SOU’s Schneider Museum, they said. “We are imaginarians of the future,” Bernard said. “This is futuristic art.”

They said they hope they can convince an investor to help them manufacture more. The first one cost $4,000 and they hope to, one day, produce it for the masses, not unlike Henry Ford did 100 years ago.

But the pair says their motivation is not to get rich or even to start a successful business. They say they are doing it to bring about change in the world.

“There is one of these out there driving around now,” said Rappa. “Now starts the ripple effect.”

Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 3040 or bplain@dailytidings.com.