Yesterday General Motors announced that it had teamed up with Segway to develop a battery-powered, partially-enclosed, two-seat, two-wheeled scooter (here). The two companies unveiled a prototype of what they call Project PUMA (for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) and what the rest of the world will call Dorkmobiles.
Seriously, just look at it. I love how the pedestrians are staring at the PUMA with the same inscrutable expressions with which people stare at Segways. It’s a look with a mixture of what-the-hell, oh-my-god, whatever, like-whatever, and woah-nelly.
GM’s VP of R&D contends that the PUMA, which will reach speeds of up to 35 mph, will not need special safety features (like airbags or those helmets that make Segways even dorkier) because the PUMA will “automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars.” No word on whether Hummers and Chevy Silverados will be designed to automatically avoid all these little glorified golf carts that will be zipping around totally out of their elevated range of vision.
When I read the PUMA announcement, I flashed back to 2001, when the media was buzzing about a mysterious new invention set to be unveiled by inventor Dean Kamen that would reportedly transform personal transportation forever. Kamen claimed that his invention “will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy.” People were excited. Was it a hydrogen car? A hover car? A teleportation device a la Star Trek? No. It was the Segway. Sigh.
Initially I thought that the PUMA is a feel-good bid from GM to show that they’ve reformed their Earth-evil gas-guzzling ways and curry some favor from the Obama Administration (aka ‘boss’), but it turns out the partnership began in 2007, before GM’s woes became our woes. Which leads me to believe that there’s something inherently bad about the whole idea.
And then I realized what it is. There’s already a two-wheeled vehicle that city-dwellers can use for short trips around town, and it doesn’t require lithion-ion batteries, gyroscopes, or 600 pounds of encasement. It’s called a bicycle.
