+
upworthy
Identity

The Kenguru is the first electric vehicle to truly put wheelchair users in the driver's seat

kenguru wheelchair car

The Kengura featured on Translogic.

We live in a modern world full of technological wonders. Just look at the way we get from A to B—electric vehicles that need no gas, Teslas that drive themselves … it’s an interesting time to be alive.

And yet, even with all these advancements, transportation remains an issue for many drivers with disabilities. Though many vehicles offer wheelchair access, for example, it can still take considerable time and effort to simply get in and out.

That’s where the Kenguru comes in.


The Kenguru (pronounced like Australia’s most popular marsupial) is not just another smart car. It’s making a splash in the electric vehicle world for being the very first EV created specifically with wheelchair users in mind.

Instead of multiple side doors, the Kenguru has one large door that takes up the entire back panel. With the punch of a button, the door opens for direct access. No seats, no trunk. Just freedom.

Driving is equally simple. Motorcycle-style handlebars replace the traditional steering wheel, and the company is currently working on a joystick version for those who have more limited upper body strength. There are only three gears: forward, neutral and reverse. And, according to The Next Web, it’s technically considered an electric scooter, meaning there’s no driver’s license required to operate it, making things even more accessible.

The Kenguru only clocks about 25 mph and has a 60 mile range, but speed and distance aren’t really the main point—inclusivity is. With this kind of vehicle, drivers can easily enjoy a quick trip to the store, an impromptu movie, meeting with friends … simple pleasures that are easily taken for granted.

Plus, there’s the Kenguru’s affordability. An article for Startup Selfie reports that where the car is priced around $25,000, buyers qualify for a federal “green incentive,” which offers a rebate discount. Some drivers will qualify for the “vocational rehabilitation incentive,” if the Kenguru is considered a work vehicle. In other words, these vehicles could shoot down to anywhere from $20,000 to a flat zero.

Stacy Zoern, an attorney in Texas, discovered Kenguru after purchasing—then totaling—a fully modified $80,000 van … all within only a few months of having it. Yikes.

Zoern tells Translogic that for some time after the accident, she depended on others to get around. On a whim, she searched the internet to see if the technology had improved over the years. She was pleased to discover that it had.

There was only one issue: The Hungary-based company that developed the Kenguru lost its bank loan and was relying solely on fundraising. But Zoern was so impassioned by what Kengura had to offer disabled drivers, she decided to give them a call, and the rest appears to be a partnership destined for success.

Zoern joined forces with Istvan Kissaroslaki (the vehicle’s original creator) to move the company to Austin, Texas, and has worked diligently to gain investors. By 2014, Kengurus were fully produced in the U.S. You might have already seen one cruising nearby.

And beyond supply chain challenges (not having the funding to build enough cars for such a heavy demand), Zoern says that the plan is for Kenguru to go worldwide, with dealerships in Spain and Germany showing interest.

This is an exciting example of how technology can help connect us—all of us—to life, and make the world a better place.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less

A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo via Canva, @WhattheADHD/Twitter

The 'bionic reading' font is designed to help keep you focused and read faster.

Reading is a fundamental tool of learning for most people, which is why it's one of the first things kids learn in school and why nations set literacy goals.

But even those of us who are able to read fluently might sometimes struggle with the act of reading itself. Perhaps we don't read as quickly as we wish we could or maybe our minds wander as our eyes move across the words. Sometimes we get to the end of a paragraph and realize we didn't retain anything we just read.

People with focus or attention issues can struggle with reading, despite having no actual reading disabilities. It can be extremely frustrating to want to read something and have no issues with understanding the material, yet be unable to keep your mind engaged with the text long enough to get "into" what you're reading.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less

Only child asks her friends what it's like to grow up with siblings.

Ahhh, siblings. Sometimes they're your best friends and other times your living room turns into an MMA octagon over the remote control. If you grew up with brothers and sisters, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to be an only child. (That's not to say you didn't dream about it when your sister stole your favorite shirt for the 30th time.)

But not everyone has siblings, so it can be equally as hard for someone who grew up as an only child to picture what it would be like to have them. Only children also likely had moments where they dreamt of having a little brother or sister, not realizing the literal torment siblings can inflict on each other.

TikTok creator Lonnie IIV recently posted a video of himself with two other friends seemingly out to lunch, when the girl in the group asked what it was like to grow up with siblings. In less than a minute she realized she lucked out being an only child because her two guy friends gave her a crash course in sibling behavior.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo: courtesy BioCarbon Engineering/WikiCommons

Technology is the single greatest contributor to climate change but it may also soon be used to offset the damage we've done to our planet since the Industrial Age began.

In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire "seed missiles" into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.

Keep ReadingShow less
Health

Artists got fed up with these 'anti-homeless spikes.' So they made them a bit more ... comfy.

"Our moral compass is skewed if we think things like this are acceptable."

Photo courtesy of CC BY-ND, Immo Klink and Marco Godoy

Spikes line the concrete to prevent sleeping.


These are called "anti-homeless spikes." They're about as friendly as they sound.

As you may have guessed, they're intended to deter people who are homeless from sitting or sleeping on that concrete step. And yeah, they're pretty awful.

The spikes are a prime example of how cities design spaces to keep homeless people away.

Keep ReadingShow less