US light electric vehicle (LEV) start-up Nimbus has started taking orders for its first vehicle, a compact, tilting e-trike capable of speeds of up to 50mph.

The Nimbus One is billed as being a rush-hour-beating city vehicle that you can park “virtually anywhere” but with a host of safety features that mark it out from e-mopeds and the like.

It’s fundamentally a trike with the single wheel at the back. This allows it to tilt for corners – an LEV design that seems to be becoming increasingly common.

Founder Lihang Nong told Tech Crunch that the vehicle steers, “kind of like a boat. You turn left and it pitches to the left.”

At around 2.3m long and 80cm wide, it’s closer in size to an e-cargo bike than a car. It’s got a bit more power though with that 50mph top speed and a 0-30mph time of three seconds.

It’s also significantly heavier, weighing in at 375kg. A small proportion of that’s the removable 9kWh battery that Nimbus reckons is good for around 90 miles and which can be fully charged in 5.4 hours from a household power socket - but mostly it’s other stuff.

Most obviously, the Nimbus One is a covered vehicle and the cockpit is a lot more car than bike. There’s a steel frame, a steering wheel and an airbag, plus on-board cameras and AI to sense other vehicles.

Then you’ve got all the other usual car stuff, like powered windows and air-con.

It’ll cost $200 a month to rent or $9,980 to buy, although deliveries aren’t scheduled until late next year.

Nong says it’ll be rolled out city by city, so you can expect it to be a US-only vehicle initially.

Cycling Industry News reports that Ponooc, an Amsterdam-based venture capital fund with a focus on sustainable energy and mobility, is among Nimbus’s investors. Ponooc is also working with Porsche on its e-bike projects.