It was at about 36 miles per hour that I decided the Infinite Machine Olto is not a bike. Sure, it has pedals, you don’t need a license to ride it in most (but not all!) places in the US, and the folks at Infinite Machine assured me it is allowed in the bike lane. But I’ve never used the pedals. Why would I? This thing weighs a whopping 175 pounds, and even with some motorized assistance it’s like pedaling a rock uphill. Also, everyone gives me dirty looks when I pass them in the bike lane. The real giveaway, though, was the first time I twisted the throttle and passed a car on a city street. They were going maybe 30 in a 25. I probably should have gotten a ticket.
I don’t know exactly what to call the Olto, a new $3,495 vehicle from the New York-based startup. It has some moped DNA, some e-bike, even some scooter. For our purposes here, let’s call it a bike, but only because I don’t have a better word for it. Whatever it is, it belongs to a fascinating and tricky category of vehicles designed to replace a lot of your day-to-day car use — spiritually, it’s probably most like a cargo bike. Whatever it is, it’s the most fun new kind of vehicle I’ve tried in a long time.
My life is filled with trips that are too long to walk but too short to really need the car. It’s a mile to the grocery store; a mile and a quarter to my kid’s daycare; a mile and a half to CVS; three-quarters of a mile to my favorite coffee shop. Each one far enough that walking turns into more than a quick trip, but close enough that I often spend as much time looking for parking as I do driving. I was once an enthusiastic user of rideshare scooters, also designed to solve this exact problem. Over the years I’ve ridden hoverboards to the grocery store, tried gamely to get good at the Onewheel, and wondered many times whether an adult can get away with wearing Heelys.
The Olto, with its spacious seat and twitchy throttle, is a more elegant take on this problem. A 20-minute walk is three or four minutes on the Olto. You can park it basically anywhere — you don’t even have to lock it up, thanks to both its anti-theft automatic locking systems and its sheer size and weight. You turn it on with an NFC-capable card or through the Infinite Machine app, and the app can be set to start the bike as soon as you get close to it. All together, it feels effortless.
You can operate the Olto in several modes, which correspond to some legal definitions of e-bikes and e-motos and can vary by state. (One of the first things you do in setup is tell the app where you live so it can adapt to local regulations.) My options are Limited, which only goes up to 15mph; Class 2, which goes up to 20; Class 2+, which stays at 20 but offers faster acceleration; Class 3, which goes up to 28mph and where I live in Virginia would officially classify you as a “speed pedelec e-bike” and subject you to more rules of the road; and Unlocked, which gives you full power and says it is exclusively for private property and off-road use.
It didn’t take long before I started riding the Olto even outside my normal errands radius. I had a six-mile journey to meet a coworker for lunch, all of it through hellish Washington, DC-area traffic. Google Maps told me it was a 40-minute bike ride — the Olto did it in 26, and I didn’t break a sweat. (My coworker did laugh at me when he saw me turn the corner, though. You really need a motorcycle helmet when riding the Olto, and I do not look cool on this metal hog in a giant helmet.)
The Olto promises 40 miles of range on a charge, and you fill it up either by plugging in the bike or by taking the monstrous 1,200Wh battery out and charging it on a separate dock. The stated range seems to match my experience, though it’s very dependent on what mode you’re using; when I took the built-in governor off and pushed the thing to its limits, it burned about a third of the battery in only five or so miles. It takes several hours to charge, too, which makes the Olto more of a “charge it overnight” vehicle than a “top up while you’re waiting for coffee” one. And trust me: You’re not going to want to pedal it with a dead battery.
The Olto is in many ways just a shrunken version of Infinite Machine’s first product, the P1, which is a very design-y electric moped. The company itself was started by two brothers, Joe and Eddie Cohen, both of whom were previously software guys (which explains both why the Infinite Machine app is so nice to use and why so many features are controlled there). Ultimately, they have plans to build all manner of electric vehicles — a lot of the technology in the Olto is apparently relatively easy to miniaturize for smaller devices, or expand for larger ones — but the Cohens decided to start with the vehicles people already know.
The P1 launched in 2023 and immediately inspired the same two reactions I heard over and over in my time with the Olto: “Whoa, what is that,” and “That thing looks just like a Cybertruck.” They both really do, particularly the silver model Olto. It’s all those big blocks of glistening, chrome metal, the whole industrial exoskeleton vibe. The Cybertruck comparison does the Olto a disservice, though; instead, imagine the Cybertruck, but done well, and about a tenth of the size. It won’t be for everyone, but it works for me.
There are lots of thoughtful design touches around the Olto, some of which seem a bit overly clever. The pedals are mostly designed to be footrests, which is clever, but it takes a few very tricky steps to get them unlocked and pedaling. There are small foot pegs near the back, in case you want to have a second passenger, but once I took them out, I had a hard time getting them to click back into place, and when they’re out the pedals whack them on every rotation. I would say this is bad design, but really it is just abundantly clear that these are vestigial pedals. Legalese pedals. Pedals so you can say “but look, officer, it has pedals, it’s a bike!” They are not even remotely for pedaling. Because this is not really a bike.
The handlebars include a number of useful controls, including a turn signal, but it took me a long time to stop pressing the ultra-sensitive horn by accident every time I got on the bike. There are two hooks on the back of the bike for hanging bags and whatnot — I didn’t even notice them until the last day of my testing. Luckily, there’s space in the foot well for a couple of shopping bags, so I didn’t need the extra hauling options. (I do wish it had a cupholder, though.)
If you think of the Olto as a tiny motorcycle, it is fabulously fast and agile. It can take tight corners even at pretty high speeds, the throttle is incredibly responsive, and the thing seems to hit top speed in no time. Compared to a bike, though? This thing is clunky. It’s far too heavy to easily pick up over a curb, or quickly redirect the way you’d just pick up your bike’s front tire and move it to the side. You can’t pick it up and take it up the stairs or load it into your car. Even a heavy, large cargo bike is vastly more malleable than the Olto. I’d wager the Olto is more comfortable, more luxurious, and faster than just about any e-bike you can find. But the tradeoff is real.
If the Olto is a success, it will cause a lot of consternation in a bike world already worried about the increase in motors. Deservedly so. But I find it fascinating: I’ve ridden a lot of these so-called “micromobility” vehicles before, and this is the most comfortable, relaxed, dare I say car-like one I’ve tried. It’s not trying to be a bike at all, really. It’s trying to replace your car. It did so for me, more quickly and for more things than I even expected. And when I’m on the road, there’s no question who rules the bike lane — just please know that I feel terrible about it.
