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The Chevy Segway Keeps On Rolling (Video)
Back in 2009 G.M. and Segway talked about the P.U.M.A., or Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle. Now it's the EN-V, which stands for Electric Network Vehicle. G.M. (along with partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) debuted the thing in Shanghai in 2010, then displayed it at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in 2011, and now they're showing it off at auto shows, no doubt hoping to get a lot of buzz going for this two-wheeled wonder, which is supposed to be so loaded with navigation and collision avoidance electronics that you can sleep in it on your way to work. (Please wake us up when we get there, okay?)
Could we maybe get a little less talking by the broadcaster and a little more of a look at the damn thing
"So now we can spend money on stupid stuff (like segway clones) that were already proven failures by other companies (Segway)." - GM
No I'm not trolling.
This is my honest opinion.
Though their Volt car seems like a decent idea; not sure why it isn't selling better?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Sarge: May I introduce, our new Light-Reconnaissance vehicle. (Rotating around the new jeep) It has 4-inch Armor Plating; M.A.G. Bumper Suspension; a mounted machine gunner position, and total seating for three. Gentlemen! This is the M12 LRV! I like to call it the 'Warthog'.
Simmons: Why 'Warthog,' Sir?
Sarge: Because 'M12 LRV' is too hard to say in conversation, son.
Grif: No, but, why 'Warthog'? I mean, it doesn't really look like a pig...
Sarge: Say that again?
Grif: I think it looks more like a Puma.
Sarge: What in Sam Hell is a 'Puma'?
Simmons: Uhh, you mean like the shoe company?
Grif: No, like a Puma. It's a big cat, like a lion.
Sarge: You're making that up.
Grif: I'm telling you, it's a real animal!
Sarge: Simmons, I want you to poison Grif's next meal.
Simmons: Yes sir!
Where's the bamboo handles and the skinny guy to make it go?
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I have a 30 minute commute... just about perfect.
What would you be doing the other 29 minutes?
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I just realized...we are the daleks!!!
just need to make it look more like a garbage can and stick a plunger on it...
the physics of doing an emergency break with two parallel wheels when going 35 mph?
They were displaying a prototype of this 2 years ago at the NY Auto Show held at the Javits Center... My friend and I are standing by it, and we're trying to guess how much electronics are crammed into the thing, and my friend says "I'll bet it runs Linux"... So the booth babe next to us turns and says 'No, it runs on electricity!"
We thanked her for her insightful information, took three steps and then started laughing hysterically.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The problem of getting a large number of people around in an urban setting was solved more than a hundred years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle
No reliance on fossil fuels. No recharge time. Takes very little parking space. Extremely maneuverable. Easily moved when broken. Cheap. Easy to repair.
It does have one fatal flaw - low profit margins.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Imaging a fleet of these at bus/train stops for daily rental. In the US, at least, the problem with mass trasportation is getting from one stop to the rest of the destination. I tried to start a business in the Dallas area based on this. The idea is basically, a person pays a monthly subscription rental on an small shuttle electric vehicle. The company provides them with a vehicle like the EN-V at the location where they are dropped by the bus. When they are done, they simply return the vehicle to the stop, get on the bus, and go home. Ironically, the Texans that bitch all of the time about federal regulations, wouldn't let me start the business because of state requirements on vehicle size, liability insurance "path to owner" requirements, and licensing restrictions on who can run a "rental car business". If someone has the investment capital, I can guarantee the Federal incentives and tax cuts on this business alone would be worth getting into.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
i would rather just have a golf cart, at least a golf cart has the room to haul four people, or two people and several bags of groceries or luggage or whatever else you need to haul
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Are they actually turning a profit yet, or did the bailout just delay the inevitable?
The fact that they are selling more cars than anyone else is completely worthless if they are still operating at a loss.
which is totally what she said
Are they actually turning a profit yet, or did the bailout just delay the inevitable?
The fact that they are selling more cars than anyone else is completely worthless if they are still operating at a loss.
Sure, they may be selling every car at a loss, but they plan on making up the difference in volume.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
If only there were some way to get a chair and desk installed in your home.. and connect via some kind of communications network to your workplace and/or colleagues to share files. Maybe some way of sending text, audio or even visual communications.. that would be cool. It would save billions of units of currency of fuel each year, not to mention commuting time.
Of course we just don't have the technology, and probably never will. Why do I torture myself with such dreams?
which is totally what she said
Seemed to me that the bans were pretty reasonable. Something on the pavement that weighs a considerable amount and has a top speed of 12.5mph isn't suitable to be ridden on the pavement. At the same time a vehicle with a top speed of 12.5mph is too slow to ride on the road and causes an dangerous obstruction in a dedicated cycle lane of people riding bikes at 10-20mph.
At the very end of the video she points out that this model (2nd gen) has no windshield wipers, headlamps, or climate control. But they are looking to add that stuff for the 3rd gen model so it will be "all weather". It seems to me that by the time they add all the crap to it that a normal car has, it won't be any cheaper than buying a SMART car. Sure you can spin it around and park it more easily, but with the range and speed tradeoffs it hardly seems like a good business model.
I'm confused, who is the target market for this thing? They do not have the safety features of existing cars, so they cannot be used on the roads with existing cars. The justification for not including standard safety features is that they will never crash because, when every vehicle on the road is one of these, they will talk to each other and know where all the others are. The question is how do we get from where we are, to the place where every vehicle is one of these? Of course, the government and big businesses would love this because they would be able to track your every move.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Because its a fairly new plug-in hybrid that's substantially expensive as many competing hybrids (including, now, plug-in models) from more established brands (e.g., Prius), that is marketed as an "electric car" while at the same time spending a lot of marketing effort to overcome the perception of limitations of electric cars, and that is much more expensive than competitors electric cars (e.g., the Nissan Leaf.)
If they had marketed it as a very fuel efficient hybrid, rather than trying to market it as an electric car and then trying to overcome the public perception of the limitation of electric cars (a limitation that is real, but doesn't apply to the Volt because its a plug-in hybrid, not an electric car) they would have faced less challenges, but they probably saw "electric car" as more of a differentiator, as there were lots of hybrids on the market. While that's probably true, and its probably a positive differentiator for a certain segment of the market, that segment is precisely the segment that is going to be turned off when they find out it actually has a gas tank.
But even then it would be hard sell -- its a very expensive product that most of the intended market would need to finance, that doesn't appeal to the luxury-oriented market, that hit the market during an economic downturn that featured a major credit crunch, and for which the nearest competitors were much less expensive. Its not amazing that it was hard to sell even if the marketing had been spot on.
Riding around in a dismembered Transformer's head, specifically Bumblebee.
I didn't want one until you mentioned that. Now it looks all sorts of awesome.