The Honey Cycle, A 3WD Solar Recumbent Tandem Trike

Last year my wife and I used this modified TerraTrike Tandem Pro to cycle 400 miles across Iowa with 10,000 other bicyclists during the annual RAGBRAI ride. At that time I had it set up with a rear V3 All-Axle hub motor for cruising and regen combined with a BBSHD crank drive for hill-climbing. The crank drive proved to be hard on the Tandem Pro's complex drive train, so this spring I swapped out the crank drive for one of Grin's new dual side-mounted All-Axle motor kits. Now we can easily climb up the steepest hills in Ithaca NY at over 20mph. This build uses three batteries, three controllers, and three motors. I used two Y-splitter cables to connect all three controllers to one Cycle Analyst.

I also have a reverse switch connected to all three controllers. The Honey Cycle carries two 200 watt solar panels and can cruise at 15 mph on level ground using about 400 watts, so that on a sunny day we can arrive at our destination with full batteries!

The Honey Cycle represents what I hope will become a new class of lightweight solar-powered EVs. The automobile industry has failed to make EVs lightweight enough to be solar-powered. So it is up to us ebike hobbyists to scale up bicycles and add solar panels to them so that we can give them car-like utility and in so doing save the planet.