Now on Kickstarter, a little electric wheel that can motorize your bike or rollerblades

FlexPV, the electric-powered motorized wheel you can slap on anything like a bicycle or a skateboard and which we looked at a few months back, today hits Kickstarter.

The team is seeking to raise US$20,000 for the open source electric “vehicle” – the Kickstarter page is here. US$99 secures buyers one FlexPV motor/wheel along with universal brackets so you can Tesla-ify your bike, buggy, or rollerblades. Or perhaps a shopping cart – imagine that.

We made some GIFs from the startup’s Vines to show you the thing in action:

If you weigh about 70kg, the FlexPV can get you up to 25km/h (15.3mph) and get you as far as 15km (9.3 miles), the startup claims, though I suspect that a number of variables such as friction and the type of thing you attach the FlexPV to will change that a great deal. The motor/wheel weighs 1.08kg.

The FlexPV is controllable with a mobile app. That app can also map your route – as you plough head-long through a farmer’s market after dropping your phone.

The China-based startup behind FlexPV is Flexbot, which had a Kickstarter smash-hit in late 2013 with the open source, 3D-printed drone that raised over US$500,000. Earlier that year, the Flexbot crew graduated out of HAXLR8R, China’s premier incubator for hardware startups.