What the money buys
One bike, $3,495, twelve flat surfaces.
The twelve spots add up to exactly what the machine cost. Sell them all and the bike has paid for itself; sell one and it is one decal closer.
The machine, plainly
- Machine
- Infinite Machine Olto
- Price new
- $3,495
- Top speed
- 20 mph (Class 2), 28 mph unlocked
- Range
- Up to 40 miles per charge
- Battery
- Removable, charges at a wall socket
- Frame
- Cast aluminium, flat panelled — which is the whole point
- City
- San Francisco: SoMa, Mission, the Embarcadero
- Riding
- 50+ miles a week, most of it in daylight
Why I am doing this
I bought the Olto because it is the best way I have found to move around San Francisco. It is also, unavoidably, a strange-looking object that people stop and ask about at every second light.
It has flat aluminium panels the size of a laptop lid, and they are blank. A billboard four blocks from here rents for thousands a month and nobody remembers it. So I am renting the panels instead, at a fixed price, to whoever wants them — and putting the money against the machine.
I print the decals myself, fit them, photograph every one, and ride. If your logo is on it, you get the photograph and the mileage. That is the entire deal; there is nothing else in it.
No media buyer, no impressions report. A decal at a stoplight, and a photograph of it.