The Short Trip Finally Has a Vehicle of Its Own Meet the Smile Machine from Lightfoot, a sun-powered cargo scooter for the small, frequent trips that shape everyday life, designed to put a smile on your face every time you ride, whether you’re running errands, heading to work or out to meet friends. Lightfoot from Otherlab is now shipping the Smile Machine. The first 100 Launch Edition units come in sky blue and solar orange and are priced at $4,495, including delivery. A fully refundable $100 reservation at lightfoot.solar puts you in line to own one. The Smile Machine combines the open-air agility of two wheels with the everyday utility that often sends people back to a car: lockable storage (45.2 L) for errands, range people can trust, exceptional low-end torque for hills, room for another person—and simplicity, safety and durability by design. From standstill to just under 20 mph, anyone can ride the Smile Machine with confidence. No gears, no shifting: twist to go, untwist to slow. It’s quick enough for traffic, calm enough for bike lanes, so nobody’s dog gets spooked. In most places, no license or registration is required. It’s easy to learn and easy to use. And with 160 Nm of low-end torque from dual 750 W motors, the steep block you might typically route around is now just the way home. Its integrated solar panels can add up to 18 free miles of range a day when parked or on the road (3-4 miles of range per hour of good sun). You keep moving and get more done while continuously topping off the formidable Lightfoot-designed 1.5 kWh lithium-ion battery, which delivers up to 37 miles of range on a full charge and is certified to UL 2271 and UN 38.3. - Smile Machine by the numbers - What’s it made of (Hint: No mystery or exotic, hard-to-replace parts) - An exploded view: Take the Smile Machine Apart. No Tools Needed - Lightfoot Media Kit And thanks to regenerative braking, your rides become even more efficient, transforming each downhill coast and gentle stop into extra range. The Smile Machine is designed specifically for the small, frequent trips that make up everyday life. Its design draws inspiration from iconic vehicles like the Vespa and Volkswagen bus, and it demonstrates that utility, confidence, simplicity, delight and price do not need to be tradeoffs. Short Trips Shape the Day Coffee before the first meeting. Groceries on the way home. A school pickup. Dinner with a friend. The pharmacy because someone remembered it at 5:42. One more stop because the day changes after you leave the house. None of these feel like a transportation problem. Together, they determine whether a day feels fluid or fragmented, light or heavy, fun or frustrating. The Smile Machine gives those trips a different rhythm. Twist the throttle and go. Pull up close. Stop circling for parking. Put the bags in the cargo bay instead of on your back. Add a stop without turning it into a production. The destination feels closer because less stands between deciding to go and getting there. The day feels lighter because a vehicle designed around the trip brings less bulk, complexity and overkill along with it. The result is more freedom to carry, stop by and change your mind. Take a Ride: Life Between Leaving and Arriving. At first, the plan was coffee. That was all. The Smile Machine was waiting outside: two wheels, a bench seat and integrated solar panels across its body. It travels just under 20 mph, seats two people and carries the things a day tends to gather. You pull up near the café and park on the sidewalk instead of beginning the familiar search for a parking space. It's less time between you and your coffee. Then your phone lights up. Since you're out, can you grab eggs? The market is six blocks away. The eggs become milk, greens, pasta and the good bread you weren't planning to buy. A Whole Day Fits The Smile Machine's 45.2-liter cargo bay takes three grocery bags, locked away from the weather—and from the temptation to balance anything on a handlebar. Outside the market, another message arrives. Your daughter’s subway train is two stops away: Can you pick me up? The bench seat has room for two. Ten minutes later, the groceries are still secure beneath you and you are heading home together. The plan is no longer coffee. Power Where You Really Need It Halfway home, your spouse remembers the pharmacy. The avenue is backed up. In most places, the Smile Machine can travel in bike lanes and on city streets, so you choose the route that fits the moment instead of combating the traffic. It is a small kind of freedom, but small freedoms are often the ones that change a day. The quickest way back goes over the hill. The Smile Machine's two motors are tuned for useful power at everyday speeds. The power is not there to make the vehicle extreme. It is there to keep the shortest route from becoming the route you avoid—whether you are carrying groceries, another person or both. Sun Adds Miles. You Add Plans. While you are having coffee, shopping or standing at the pharmacy counter, the Smile Machine is doing something useful too. Its integrated solar panels can add up to 18 miles of range in a day under good conditions, turning some of the time the vehicle spends parked into miles for the next trip. While someone else is checking gas prices, you find yourself checking the weather. Sunshine is useful, not mandatory. When the sky turns gray, the Smile Machine's onboard charger plugs into a standard wall outlet. Solar simply means the vehicle can become more ready with additional charge added to the battery while life is happening around it. By the time you arrive home, the original coffee run has become four stops, three bags, two people and a new dinner plan. The day got bigger. The Smile Machine met the need each step of the way. This is how the Smile Machine earns its name: a trusty steed doing exactly what the day asks—and making the day feel lighter. The Right Amount of Vehicle Most short trips are made in vehicles designed for something else. Cars are built for distance, speed and capacity. Many two-wheel vehicles ask riders to compromise around cargo, passengers, security or readiness. The coffee run that becomes a grocery run, station pickup and pharmacy stop is simply a different job. The Smile Machine brings enough capability without bringing the rest of the car along. That is the role we mean by The Everyday Vehicle: the right amount of vehicle for the trips that happen most often. It is not meant to replace every drive, ride or walk. It is meant to make everyday short trips feel like a better part of life. Designed Around the Trip The Smile Machine looks different because it began with a different question. At Otherlab—a Willy Wonka-like R&D lab in San Francisco founded by Saul Griffith and known for building new solutions for deep decarbonization and getting them into the world—the starting question was not how to make a car, bike or scooter slightly different. We asked something more fundamental: What kind of vehicle—and how much energy—do short trips actually require? The question seemed worth answering since more than half of U.S. vehicle trips are under three miles, according to federal transportation data. But short doesn't necessarily mean walkable. MIT researchers analyzing 13.6 billion visits to everyday amenities found that in the median U.S. neighborhood, only 14% of trips to everyday amenities were within a 15-minute walk of home. There's a huge part of daily life that falls between walking and the kinds of trips where we actually need a full-size car. That’s the trip we started with. Starting with that trip changes what you build. You provide enough range to trust, enough power for hills, enough storage for real errands and room for another person. You use sunlight because a smaller vehicle requires little enough energy for the sun falling on its body to make a meaningful contribution. You leave out machinery the trip does not need while building in the durability and confidence everyday use demands. That is what “designed by Otherlab” means here. It is not a styling credit. It is a way of working: empathy and creativity paired with engineering rigor, translated into something useful enough to leave the lab and become part of a day. Designed for Durability – We Guarantee It The Smile Machine's modular design is built for ultra-low maintenance and fast, easy repairs. The scooter is built with off-the-shelf, highly rated parts that are designed for maximum durability and can be easily fixed at home or at your local bike shop. The entire vehicle is covered by a 1-year warranty, with an even longer 2-year warranty for the scooter’s most vital components— including its frame, motors, controllers, brakes, lighting, and front suspension. The scooter is also covered by an ironclad buy-back guarantee; if you’re unsatisfied with your purchase for any reason, we’ll buy it back from you. The First 100 The first 100 Launch Edition Lightfoot vehicles are shipping now in sky blue and solar orange for $4,495, including delivery. Launch pricing won’t last. Future pricing may change. Reserve a place in line with a fully refundable $100 reservation at lightfoot.solar. Reserving gets you first dibs. When your turn comes, convert the reservation to an order and choose a delivery window—or take your $100 back. Because a trip that begins with coffee rarely asks permission before becoming your day.