Tuesday, April 7, 2009

From BoingBoing – Segway & GM Collaborate

 

A two-person electric car, courtesy Segway and GM. 35mph, 35 mile range. I have to presume NO FREEWAYS. So, in all, a great in-city runabout.

puma_gm.jpg

For most of the US it won’t replace a car; it’ll merely reduce (drastically?) the amount of driving one does. Since we won’t avoid having to buy a car too,  price will have to be way down there … less than a motorcycle, I’m afraid.

Let’s use me as a case study. In my, ahem, 25 years of working, this vehicle would have been suitable for my commute for the first 15 years, but not suitable for the last ten years. Having said that, though, I’d still have needed a car for all the travel off-commute. But then, we have a family of four, and we live in the Western States. Do business on the East Coast for a few weeks, and you can start to see how this vehicle would address a whole bunch of in-city needs when you have the opportunity to rely on Amtrak and other non-car transport to get from city to city.

I love one of the comments on BoingBoing, though.  The reader say:

“Makes you look like Captain Pike.”

I practically died laughing at that one. What? You don’t get the Captain Pike reference? You know… Original Star Trek. Pike was the…. oh heck, here’s a photo….you’ll remember:

That’s Pike on the far left. From The Menagerie.

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