I’m not much of a fan of scooters. I prefer vehicles to have four wheels rather than two, and scooters always struck me as kinda geeky. Anybody who knows me knows I am geeky enough without having to broadcast it to the world. Scooters aren’t all that popular in America, but all over the world they serve as the primary form of transportation for literally hundreds of millions of people. Getting a cheap electric scooter to the masses would take a big chunk out of carbon emissions.

While such a scooter is still far away, there are a lot of good ideas out there that may one day be viable. Take this sleek, black electric scooter with a solar shell that doubles as a cover. It might be the most badass-looking scooter ever conceived.

The scooter is a design study done by Barcelona-based Guimeraicinca. It appears a dash of realism was added to the design concept, as the scooter would have a driving range of just 12 miles. Sounds pretty short, but for a lot of city dwellers that might be just enough pep to make it a worthy purchase. With a top speed of just 30 mph, it wouldn’t go very far, very fast, but it has an integrated electric charger that would help with the lack of electric-vehicle charging stations.

The real selling point of this scooter is its pillbug-like shell fitted with solar cells. It doesn’t look like the scooter could be driven with the shell up, but wouldn’t that be neat? Just an idea for now, but maybe one day it can be more than that.

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0