GM and Segway Unveil PUMA - Two Person Electric Vehicle

GM has teamed up with Segway to make the PUMA. This is a two passenger personal electric vehicle. Today GM is touring the streets of New York to show off it's prototype. They even put in an appearance at the Today Show. Meridith Vierra takes a test drive here.

PUMA stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility. A GM representative says this vehicle can travel up to 35 miles on a single charge. Charging the vehicle costs an average of 35 cents. This would certainly make an economical transportation option for city dwellers.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "GM didn't say how much the machines would cost, but research chief Larry Burns said owners would spend one-third to one-forth of the cost of a traditional vehicle".
This is certainly good news in this strapped economy.

It seems there is talk of making this GM vehicle adaptable to winter weather as well. The GM Segway PUMA could become an enclosed personal car, capable of driving in winter weather. This would make it superior to the
two-wheeled Segway, it's vehicle predecessor.

The Segway PT came out with much celebration, but as it turns out was an impractical vehicle as it was banned from use in many areas. Still it is useful in some applications as evidenced by the movie, "Paul Blart Mall Cop", which features security officers at a mall making full use of the Segway PT.

According to the Segway website, the Puma is equipped with the following features and capabilities,

PUMA GM Segway Features - Dynamic Stabilization
"Dynamic stabilization: The ability to balance on two wheels and have a true zero turning radius. It gives you incredible manueverability."

PUMA GM Segway Features - Electric Propulsion
"Electric Propulsion: It's extremely efficient and gives us significant fine control over vehicle dynamics. You can also use regenerative braking to charge back the batteries."

PUMA GM Segway Features - Smart Battery Management
"Smart battery management: We're one of the world's largest customers of large format lithium-ion batteries. As such, we've become experts about the safe and efficient use of their chemistry."

PUMA GM Segway Features - Drive-By-Wire Digital Controls
"Drive-by-wire digital controls: Think about this whole thing as the digital solution to an analog problem. All steering inputs, acceleration, and deceleration are done with zeros and ones instead of levers, cables and pads."

PUMA GM Segway Features - Intuitive User Interface
"Intuitive user interface: Shifting the center of mass of the vehicle controls how fast it goes and how quickly it stops. Check out the video to see it in action."

PUMA GM Segway Features - Digital Dashboard
"Digital dashboard: Data from the vehicle such as speed, battery life, and other information can flow wireless to a hand held device wirelessly. Add in real-time traffic and other connectivity info. And you'll be armed with enough information to sail through your commute."

The PUMA, along with several other transportation alternatives could be America's answer to weaning itself from dependence on oil. Recent developments have brought us the Smart Car, The Pod Car, and an increased interest in Scooters.

Sources :

online.wsj.com

blogs.cars.com

www.smartcarusa.com

www.nytimes.com

www.vespa.com

www.segway.com