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posts about #pumamobilitypod more → VIDEO: GM, Segway PUMA Pod Gets First Drive On Today Show
GM, Segway To Unveil New Two-Wheeled Urban Vehicle
Detroit, 8:12 AM
Tue Dec 1
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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| posts about #pumamobilitypod more → |
VIDEO: GM, Segway PUMA Pod Gets First Drive On Today Show |
GM, Segway To Unveil New Two-Wheeled Urban Vehicle |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
04/07/09
at 1:20
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Thank you for making Rascal mobility scooters look cool. My grandmother has never felt so hip.
All the best,
Wrapped N. Bacon
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This is a motor vehicle. It should be able to meet NHTSA regs for things light headlights, turn signals, brake lights, windshield wipers, seatbelts, and some minimal level of crash protection.
The Segway was limited to about 15 mph. 35 mph means that impact forces would be at least four times greater. Plus you can't pretend that this two-seater is really for use on the sidewalk, so it has to play in general traffic - and be able to take its lumps out there too.
Putting the riders directly over the wheel hubs is also not a great way to maximize comfort. Using the gyro mechanism to balance on two wheels means that you can eliminate most of the steering gear a car needs, and control turns through relative movement of the driven wheels.
It's kind of cool, and I'm sure there are a variety of uses it might be ideal for. But, like the Segway, I can't see how this ever becomes more of a minor player, restricted to a few niches. At $8 - 10,000, I can't see a huge demand for it.
04/07/09
GM Europe will also get variations under the name Opel Obtuse and Vauxhall Vexation, while GM Australia will get the Holden Half-wit
04/07/09
2009: runnerless rickshaw invented
I'm all for alternative transportation, but this thing is just as stupid as the first Seqway. It's a solution for a problem that didn't exist - at least for most people. This goes only 35 miles on a charge, which in real life means it probably goes about 20 miles, and that's barely enough to cover most people's daily commute. It doesn't keep up with regular traffic, so it's forced to run on the side of the road where it will be more dangerous and less pleasant to drive. And it costs "1/3 as much to operate" as a car - using math, no doubt, that deducts the cost of maintenance and insurance and gas from the average price of a vehicle. So it'll cost $10,000.
I don't know about anyone else, but as a city-dweller with a car I don't have the budget or space for two vehicles, which means my car needs to serve multiple purposes; I need it to go to the grocery store and haul stuff from Ikea, I need it to drive out of town on the weekends. This couldn't even take me to the supermarket because I couldn't fit my groceries in it. I suppose if I lived in Connecticut and took the train into the city I could use this to get to the station, but that's really it.
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Also available in other colors.
04/07/09
[blog.wired.com]
150lbs, 40 mile range, 57mph top speed. Looks like a normal bike. Can be hooned on the MotoX circuit.
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Can we PLEASE have our preview button back now?
04/07/09
In the long run, as far as pollution goes, I think most of our electricity will becoming from much cleaner sources, be it wind or solar or even, gasp, nuclear.
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04/07/09
Coal puts more radioactive waste into the environment than any Nuke plant ever will.
[www.sciam.com]
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04/07/09
"*Editor's Note (posted 12/30/08): In response to some concerns raised by readers, a change has been made to this story. The sentence marked with an asterisk was changed from "In fact, fly ash-a by-product from burning coal for power-and other coal waste contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste" to "In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant-a by-product from burning coal for electricity-carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J.P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.
As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage."
What I get from the above is that if the thorium and uranium containing fly-ash were contained in the same manner as nuclear waste, instead of just being put in landfills, the whole shaky premise of your assertions would vanish in a puff of logic.
If you would like to continue using specious arguments to contradict others' statements, don't do it to me, because I will call you on it.
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These segway guys have no fucking clue what they're going to do with other than the fact that they're getting money to stay afloat from GM.
"Will it be enclosed so you can ride it in the winter?"
"durrrrr..... That's a possibility i suppose..."
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