GM And Segway Create New Microcar Concept

[LuckyTheDog]

Run time: 02:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvfPip5GpvA   Posted on YouTube: April 07, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 08, 2009 By DU Member: LuckyTheDog Views on DU: 1353

 
Could this be the "green" vehicle of the future for crowded cities?

[Avidor]

1. It's ridiculous.

A "green' two-wheeled vehicle already exists... the bicycle.

[LuckyTheDog]

8. Not everyone is able...

...to ride a bike for many miles. I can see a niche for this thing. I thought it was odd at first, too. But really, its probably as safe or safer than a moped or scooter.

[Avidor]

12. Just one word why Segways won't work...

WINTER

Incidentally, there are bikes with electric motors.

There is also public transit that auto companies like GM have lobbied against for ages.

A multi-modal approach works best for cities.

This GM/Segway vehicle is just vaporware to make them look "innovative".

[LuckyTheDog]

16. The production version of that vehicle...

...would be enclosed. That would help it overcome the Segway's main problem in cold climates. Plus, there are a heck of a lot of crowded cities in warm places around the world.

[raystorm7]

20. This would work marvelously in other countries...Just not here in most cases =/

[JJ]

2. This is why Detroit is failing.

Why make it more complicated than necessary? the two wheel auto balance serves no purpose. add a third wheel, and save probably a third of the cost and complication.

[customerserviceguy]

3. I can see why the Segway technology is in there

A third wheel would not make that great a contribution to stability of a vehicle with such a high center of gravity.

I think the real engineering challenge is safety. You don't want them operating on sidewalks, the Spandex crowd isn't going to want them in bicycle lanes, and if you let them operate on streets, they're going to smash like beer cans when anything hits them. Even if you eliminated automobiles (you still have to have delivery trucks) on city streets, if two of these hit each other, the occupants are at serious risk for injury. Motorcyclists call automobile drivers "cagers", but that cage protects the people inside fairly effectively these days.

[LuckyTheDog]

6. Turning radius ...

... is virtually eliminated by using the Segway technology.

This is actually probably no less unsafe on the streets than a moped or a scooter. In fact, it could me more safe because it'd be more visible.

I also think that, if it was Segway and Honda doing this, a lot of people would be calling it "visionary, out-of-the-box thinking." But because GM is involved, people say things like "this is why Detroit is failing."

[JJ]

11. No, it's a stupid idea. Period.

People say things like "this is why Detroit is failing" because it's true. GM is apparently run by people who are completely out of touch with what consumers need, and think gimmicks will solve the problem.

I guess I'm just one of those "blame America firsters"

[LuckyTheDog]

14. Well, I don't know 'bout that

GM still sells more vehicles in the U.S. than any other company. So I guess they are not completely out of touch with what consumers want.

I also don't think GM is touting this vehicle as the savior of the company.

[customerserviceguy]

22. Good point about the turning radius

These might have a place where only this type of vehicle was used, but I still worry about visibility. In the color shown, it really wouldn't have great visibility, perhaps some lights and a brighter color would help. In any case, should there be a collision with anything else, including a wall or a stable obstruction, the riders don't seem to have a lot of protection.

And I wouldn't ride a moped or a scooter (or a motorcycle, for that matter) on ANY city streets. Back when I used to ride a couple of decades ago, motorists couldn't "see" motorcycles, now with cell phones (that they feel the pathological need to look in the direction of when conversing on) they don't even see other cars.

If you could keep these things in lanes made only for them, and build in some collision avoidance technology, there might be something here. But prototypes are made to get people thinking, and this will likely do that.

[Ticonderoga]

4. Haha

So that's what all our hard earned taxpayer "bailout" dollars is going to. Is that the best we can hope for GM? If so, Bye Bye.

[LuckyTheDog]

17. Why do you wish...

...for the destruction of hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs?

I just don't get the anti-Detroit/anti-blue collar bias I see on DU.

[Historic NY]

5. Makes sense GM builds half car for half the money....wouldn't mass transit be better

for urban cities.

[LuckyTheDog]

7. Is it an either/or thing?

What's wrong with small, clean vehicles?

[Historic NY]

9. put a family of four in one....next thing were back to the problem we are trying to fix.

Developing clean, safe, mass transit systems would probably serve us better than a brazillion of these little things going up & down. They don't solve the problem they just a smaller replacement. Why use the technological expense for just a 2 person vehicle.

[LuckyTheDog]

10. And again...

... I don't see how developing small, clean vehicles precludes spending money on mass transit. You will never, ever make personal vehicles disappear or replace them entirely with mass transit. So, why not experiment with making them small, cheap and clean?

[JJ]

13. the point is...

you could make them small and clean, without resorting to gimmicks that do nothing more than make it more expensive and more complicated.
A converted golf cart would fill any niche this silly thing would compete for, at probably less than a third of the cost.

[LuckyTheDog]

15. Given that we don't know the cost...

... that assumption about "less than a third of its cost" is conjecture.

[customerserviceguy]

23. Mass transit works

for places where there are enough riders to keep enough buses running so that there is always one in another five or ten minutes if you just missed one, but that only applies to the largest cities in the country. There are plenty of suburban places, and small towns where individualized transportation solutions are needed.

People will not use mass transit unless they absolutely have to in places that can only run a bus line once an hour. I worked on a transit committee in a small Olympic Peninsula city of about 8,000 people that successfully passed a sales tax levy to provide free bus service within the town. The empty buses were an embarassment to us all, and the wingnuts loved to run ads in the local papers saying "Look at the empty buses, your tax dollars at work!"

[Unca Jim]

18. Don't you guys rag on the Volt, too?

Seriously, unless *you* want to buy and can get it for $1.08 yesterday it has to be bad and an indicator of how GM and the US auto industry are out of touch! Transportation nihilism is so tiresome.

Electric bikes get ragged on too, but they work well for some people. I drive a self-built electric car and I hear this kind of crap about transportation innovation all the time. Why not see what the market bears?

Remember when Segways first came out? So many people ragged on them as stupid-looking and impractical, etc. Guess what? They found a niche, served it, and made money. Next time you go to the airport note all the segways in use.


The little cars featured here will probably sell well in big cities like Rome or New York.

[LuckyTheDog]

19. I agree (nt)

[zalinda]

21. This is a very important step for many reasons

First, there are many people who are disabled that could use this vehicle. I'm not talking about those who spend their lives in a wheel chair, but those who do need a wheel chair to travel more than a block or two. I have 2 bad knees that need to be replaced, and although I can walk, I can not walk for more than a few blocks before my knees start to become painful. If I keep walking, I will have a flare up that can last a week, in which I either have to keep myself doped up on meds, or stay as immobilized as possible. There are people who have bad lungs, or bad hearts that can't walk for long distances also. How about someone who has had a leg amputated, walking for a distance would be very tiring, and almost impossible to carry much of anything.

As for public transportation, that can be a real joke unless you only go where a bus will take you. I needed to pick up my car from the mechanic after the brakes were repaired (it had been towed in). The shop was about 10-12 blocks away from my house. I looked over bus routes for an hour trying to figure out how to get there from here. There was absolutely no way unless I first took a bus to the central hub and then transferred on to another bus to go back along a different street to get there. The total time for this trip, an hour and a half, with travel time and waiting. Now, if it had been a nice spring day, I probably would have tried walking there, and hoped for the best with the pain, but there was a cold rain, which I dared not try to negotiate.

People tend to forget that there are people who are not healthy and must rely on other people. This vehicle would help make them mobile, allow them to go shopping or to the doctors office. It may just help them get healthier, as there would be more opportunity to get out of the house and get more frequent exercise.

zalinda