Inventor, entrepreneur, and environmental activist Saul Griffith's Onya Cycles came about after he took a hard look "at every single joule of energy I've used in my whole life," then figured out where to trim the fat, so to speak. Replacing cars with electric bicycles for short-haul trips, even to carry loads of cargo, was the obvious solution.
The recently-launched Maker Pioneers video series takes a look at Griffith's design process (check out those awesome tilting wheels):