Forgive me but I gotta rant a bit, I hope it doesn't seem too spammy lol
I'm sure most are well aware of this but recumbent pricing is often disproportionate to the actual product, very specifically components & it's often true identical, cross-platform compatible items (axles, wheels, cogs etc. vs freestyle BMX etc.) will cost twice as much or more than their counterpart... on the other hand anyone willing & able to eco & areomod their transport is very likely able to build their own recumbent, resourcing parts and not only reducing costs drastically but having a great time building it.
Some of that is based on fad/fashion & "specialty parts" but with examples like the above a lot of it is labor & R&D so while justified to a degree, the DIYer obviously needn't pay themselves for their own time.
The aerodynamic shell that makes it a velomobile is in my opinion the most difficult part to fabricate. However there's many fine examples of the concepts, construction processes & materials needed here on this forum,
Aerodynamics - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com so folks here are no stranger to that aspect lol
The recumbent bicycle/tricycle part is perhaps more mechanically complicated, but it isn't difficult to build provided only you've access to a welder - with a plethora of DIY tips tricks & plans from places like
AtomicZombie - Downloadable plans for DIY Recumbent Bike, Trike, and Choppers all the guesswork is only what you've decided to add & modify to suit your project's needs, they've gone out of their way to simplify the process as much as possible & using pre-existing components like chopping up a bicycle is always fun.
As an example (not necessarily a recommendation lol), I built the
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ole-18414.html for around $3500 -
including the motors;
I'm not disparaging commercial offerings or the engineering & development like what's in the OP, doubtlessly the quality is unparalleled & I'll admit much of the science is beyond me - still there's no reason to not avail ourselves of their research, they've done the hard bit so we only need to zot something together if we've the hankering... but lack a spare ten grand or so
...we'll just skip over how long it took me to build one right?
