Lori Bush loves turning heads on her Durham commute.

“Oh I get a lot of funny looks,” she said.

She drives an egg-shaped machine called an ELF, short for electric, light and fun.

“It’s a great mix of a car and a bike,” Bush said.

It’s actually a backwards tricycle fueled by bike pedals and a tiny, solar-powered motor that can carry passengers and cargo up to 550 pounds.

It is the brainchild of inventor and former race car technician, Rob Cotter, CEO of Organic Transit.

“What we’re looking to do is take the bicycle experience and integrate it with car-like functions,” he said, like heated, ergonomic seats, wireless speakers and an automatic transmission.

The ELF requires no insurance or gasoline and is pollution-free. It does 20 mph with straight pedal power. Add the motor and the ELF can get up to 35 mph.

It’s estimated that the average ELFdriver could eliminate three tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year.

Cotter has built and sold 450 ELFs over the past 18 months, and he hopes to triple that number in 2015. He targeting resorts, senior centers and developing countries for mass production and sales.

“Most of the planet, they don’t have automobiles,” he said. “They don’t have cars. Some of them hardly have roads.”

Charlotte Clark, who works at Duke University, is one of about a dozen ELF owners on campus.

“I don’t even own a parking pass anymore,” she said.

“I’ve only put about 5,000 miles on my car since I’ve had the ELF, which is way less than half of what I used to.”

The ELF may not be ready for the interstate, but it is making inroads in local neighborhoods where people like Clark and Bush travel everyday.