Can PUMA Really Transform Urban Transportation?
April 7, 2009 by Miranda Marquit
This is GM's attempt at an alternative vehicle?
(PhysOrg.com) -- With a June 1 deadline for settling its differences with creditors and unions looming for GM, the American automaker unveiled a joint project with Segway.
Segway, the personal motorized scooter and a general source of amusement, is developing a two-seater with GM. The plan is to create an inexpensive mode of "urban transportation". The new vehicle will be called PUMA -- Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility.
The idea is interesting: A tiny, 600-pound vehicle that seats two (and has two main wheels). It is supposed to be powered by batteries, so emissions will be low. However, this urban transport device is strictly for city driving only; it's top speed is about 35 miles per hour. You should be able to go 35 miles on a single three-hour charge that is estimated to cost about 35 cents. There seems to be a recurring theme...
PUMA is not going to be released anytime soon, though. Segway and GM are aiming for a 2012 release of the product, which will come equipped with GM's OnStar service. This service isn't meant just to automatically contact OnStar in the event that your tiny PUMA is mangled. PUMA -- according to GM and Segway -- will be designed with OnStar help to prevent collisions and avoid congested routes. GM is actually claiming that PUMA will offer "autonomous driving and parking".
Of course, GM has to get through its current problems before it can move on. However, if GM is hanging its future hopes on PUMA as its main "alternative" vehicle offering, perhaps the company should just give up. After all, there are already scooters, mopeds and bicycles that already do what the PUMA can. Although, in defense of the PUMA, it does appear that it would be more comfortable on a rainy day.
More information: http://www.segway.com/puma/
© 2009 PhysOrg.com
Jun 04, 2008 |
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Now if they put a solar panel on the roof to trickle charge it, that would work nice.
Even better, fold out solar wings to charge while it's not in use.
What does a 35 mph crash test look like with an SUV? It would either get crushed like a soda can or recoil from the impact and go ballistic.
The vehicle itself is great however roads are not the place for it unless other road vehicles are banned.
This was the same killer for the Segway. Banned by local government from sidewalks and suicidal on the roads. A huge price tag did not help. So what you have is an expensive toy you can drive around a parking lot or a back street.
What is needed are dedicated non motorvehicle roads like in Holland. Perhaps it would sell well over there.
The 35 cents figure should give a good idea of its capacity, guessing $0.12 - $0.25 kWh^1.
Then sell it to Martha Steward!
It will work!
This is dead before it leaves the building, just like the seagway
But what the hell, a push bike is much cheaper, and the only sure-fire way to reverse the obesity bloat now afflicting burger and fizzy drink eaters all over the world. The Segshaw does seem to have some weather protection, which could probably be made better, and beefing up the monocoque structure should allow it to be safer in the event of a crash, if the occupants are wearing seat belts, but it is doomed by air-resistance as well as all the 'features' mentioned by others above. Perth is a windy place and that thing would only go half speed against the kind of headwinds we can get here. In a vehicle just for two, one of 'em's got to be behind the other to really benefit from streamlining.
Why didn't they go for an electric scooter built-for-two - which would be much more romantic - and incorporate a weather shield/roll cage like the German BMW C1 of whatever. That is not rocket science.
Should read, "... city driving in flat areas, during good weather, on streets with no other vehicles." I would be worried about getting hit by a bicycle carrier.
Looks better than the hover round!
Non EV!
No Fossil fuels!
Mealer American Motors Corporation is being funded and you will soon have the option of a MEALER.
NO CARBON TAX from this side.. We are the only provider if such a vehicle/power source.
http://betterconstructed.com
John Lewis Mealer
It's a huge hit in the making, but at what price? What could have been the Great Segway Mania fizzled exactly because it costs 5 thousand dollars.
I also think the projected release date, in 2012, is a horrible mistake. It kind of vaporizes the ware...
They're not holding back battery development.
In 1899 B.G.S. electric car could travel 180 miles. The trick is to go really, really slowly at all times, have huge lead-acid batteries and zero crash safety.
Similarly, 10 000 miles per gallon is no problem. All you have to do is to make a highly aerodynamic coffin that seats(beds?) one severely underweight or young person in lying position; have absolutely zero crash safety and creep along at low speed on perfectly flat ground with low friction/low deformation tires.
I am amazed at the machine itself though I didn't even see it moving. I don't know if they put the movie they were presenting at the show on youtube yet, but it shows a future that is -stylistically- straight out of the 1940's, except... this time it is convincing.
Let's plot, folks. 1-Cars that weigh more than, say, a thousand pounds (it doesn't matter how much, but it has to have a ceiling, unquestionably) will get painfully taxed.
2-There will be tax incentives for smaller "cars" -where the word "car" is just meant to be "mode of transportation".
3-Therefore, in less than ten years, all big's will be changed for small's. If you want to cross the country, fine, go by bus and rent a "small" there. I doubt that 100% of the citizens of that fine 1940's future -that means you- need the cross-country ability every day of the year, anyway.
Problem number one is the competition. The GEM by Chrysler is also absolutely terrific and it's far from vaporware. I really mean it! T e r r i f i c !
And it costs 12k, making a serious headway directly into the future market (pricetag-wise) of the PUMA, which still doesn't have even... guess what... a price tag! (I did say it looked like kind'a vaporized ware and it remains so.)
If we were to design a future, which should it be? Gem or PUMA? (The Segway is permanently out of the competition because of the price tag, which has been proven to be unshrinkable.)
They lead to different futures, both would be perfectly adequate. 1-f you see the movie you will instantly fall in love with the PUMA, but... 2-If you see the car you will instantly fall in love with the GEM.
It all depends on where government support will rest, and where lobbies will sabotage you... and they will sabotage you, that is what they were made for...
PUMA or GEM? All bets on window 4...
If there is government incentive, we could be seeing the end of the driver's license.
Let's go for it: I have to vote for the PUMA, for now.
Don't complain yet, we are just designing a future, aren't we?
And - running on battery power is may reduce noise but it hardly reduces pollution. The power has to come from power stations which mostly run on coal, oil, or gas, and are very inefficient. When you add in the losses along the power lines, and in the battery charger, and the battery itself, the overall efficiency of battery-powered vehicles is typically the same, or even lower, than gasoline-powered internal-combustion engines. So: I think it's a joke. Perhaps a clever joke, since it's clearly taken in a lot of people. Given GM's other troubles, they may have felt that we needed cheering up!
Minor correction, power plants are a good deal more efficient than an internal combustion engine and oil isn't used in powerplants unless you live in some really backwards place like the middle east.
First, the Volt for $40,000 and now this. No wonder GM needs us taxpayers to keep throwing money at them.
Expect this thing to show up on the FAIL blog as soon as its released.
Sad.
On the contrary, it will promote the extinction of both the auto insurance business and of the driver license as we understand them now. It doesn't matter that it is vaporware, it will set deep fear in the insurance business.
Know where the next major movement against you by world goverments will come? It's where the lobbies go for. Trust me, there will be no lobby for PUMA, and much less for GEM. That has to come from the need. That is why I think the PUMA is more vaporware than the GEM. However, they are both perfectly spectacular in their different ways, though the GEM is still, recognizably, a car, and the PUMA is not.
As far as "flimsiness", the PUMA can be driven by pre-teens. Should we get over the production and price bottlenecks, it will require extensive redesign of roads so that cars that go over 25 miles per hour will simply have to get off them. PUMA and car traffic simply can not mix. If it is not the PUMA then there will be something else coming along pretty soon (Oooooooh... the iDrive from Apple! Ooooooh!) and it's a certainty that sooner rather than later there will be efficient and inexpensive transportation for everyone on a personal level, and redesigned mass transit for intercity or interstate trips.
So if PUMA is vaporware why am I on its side? Because it points to a future I can live with.
And because it would kill car insurance as we understand it... Just another aspect of society that will not be missed by anyone at all, and whose death shall be celebrated.
REVENGE! REVENGE! (:-)
I just realized how little idea you have of what is going to happen to the driver license legislations and to the insurance lobbies if personal transportation does happen soon!)
Don't give up just yet.
In fact, do take voice lessons and be ready to scream the day the insurance business tries to get its paws around the personal transportation business.
When that business exists, of course. Not that it ever will...