Segway, GM Introduce The Personal Urban Mobility And Accessibility Vehicle

Segway, GM Introduce The Personal Urban Mobility And Accessibility Vehicle

By Greg Johnson April 6, 2009

By Robert E. Calem, Contributor

When it comes to driving in crowded cities where traffic rarely tops 20 miles per hour, such  macho measures as 0-60 MPH are irrelevant. At those speeds, even a SMART car can be more machine than a person needs to navigate from point A to point B.
 
That is the thinking behind an 18-month collaboration between General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. that has produced a two-wheeled, two-passenger, covered vehicle dubbed PUMA - the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle.

The partnership and its first prototype vehicle were unveiled to Green Car Advisor during a closed-door meeting on Monday in New York City by Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development and strategic planning, and Jim Norrod, Segway's president and chief executive.

The companies did not state a sales price or a production schedule -- and it's too early to determine what might happen to the PUMA concept should GM be forced into bankruptcy.

The rest of the world will hear about PUMA during a joint press conference on Tuesday morning in New York. Here's a bit of what we heard earlier today.

"The DNA of the automobile has been pretty much the same for about 100 years," Burns said, adding that vehicles have been "powered by an internal combustion engine, energized by petroleum, driven mechanically, and controlled mechanically or hydraulically."

The PUMA concept vehicle attempts to reinvent the automobile through "the marriage of electrically-driven vehicles" (such as Segway's Personal Transporter, a two-wheeled, single passenger machine) with "connected vehicles," Burns said. The goal is to "reinvent how we move around, how we interact, in cities and in towns."
 
PUMA isn't simply an effort to reduce congestion, Norrod said, because cities also are saddled with CO2 emissions, noise pollution and a paucity of parking spots.
 

Hence, the PUMA., which Norrod described as a zero-emissions "balancing machine." It is powered by two Lithium-Ion batteries, capable of traveling up to 35 miles on a single charge and can reach speeds as fast as 35 miles per hour.Though a price tag has yet to be set, GM and Segway estimate that operating costs will be 25 percent to 33 percent of the total operating cost of an average automobile (which is estimated to be 55 cents per mile).

The covered passenger compartment will accommodate two seated passengers - unlike the Segway Personal Transporter, which carries a single,standing rider. And it is small enough to go just about anywhere and appears to be narrow enough to travel through an open doorway.
 
The steering wheel telescopes in and out to drive the vehicle forward or backward, slower or faster and to remain balanced at a standstill or to enter what's called "park mode." And, just like the Segway Personal Transporter, the PUMA can literally spin 360-degrees in place for ultimate maneuverability.

There is no dashboard or instrument cluster. GM and Segway instead opt for a docking station and wireless connectivity for a common PDA (personal digital assistant) or a smart phone (such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone,) which can display the battery level, speed, miles driven and other data, Norrod said.
 

Design changes, however, already are on the drawing board.

A second PUMA. prototype is slated to debut in the fall - when the vehicle will be made available for test drives. A concept vehicle to be produced early next year is expected to include more-refined interiors and full body exteriors.
 
The next prototype will be wider, carry four batteries instead of two, and be more than twice as heavy (700 pounds) as the current prototype (300 pounds). By comparison, the Segway Personal Transporter weighs 110 pounds.

Another significant change will be the replacement of the telescoping steering system with push-button controls that are expected to make driving the PUMA. more akin to controlling a video game player, Norrod said.

"The theme that we're talking about here is doing more with less," he added. "Less cost, less emissions, less space, less congestion."

Burns said that future PUMA vehicles could include wireless communications and GPS technology capable of linking up with traffic information infrastructure, other vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists and even the Internet. The result could be vehicles that autonomously could avoid collisions, join other PUMA owners in a convoy - or even allow drives to track down Facebook friends who are nearby in their own PUMAs.

In addition, Norrod said, owners might be able to interchange body skins on their vehicles, much like with cell phones, to reflect the personalities of different drivers.

PUMA vehicle designers envision the finished product as a fun and fashionable machine. "I see PUMA as something I wear," Burns said.

Collision avoidance will have to be be a key aspect of the safety equation because the vehicle won't be equipped with airbags. Norrod expectes that most impacts will be "nudge accidents" at 5 MPH or slower.
 
Of course, cities like New York that are home to taxis and big trucks traveling far faster than 5 MPH won't be the ideal place to introduce the PUMA. But Norrod envisions the vehicles getting warm welcomes in such cities as Indianapolis, which has lanes dedicated for vehicles other than autos, as well as Washington, D.C., Atlanta and other cities around the world.

"We think freedom means the mobility to go where you want to, when you want to," Burns said. That kind of flexibility has been "fundamental to man ever since we started walking," Burns said.

But interacting socially with communications is important, too, he added, noting that many drivers now talk on cell phones while driving.

The PUMA vehicle, he concluded, is "a way in which we can take these enormous freedoms that we've had to interact and move about and bring them together through electrically-driven, connected vehicles ... [that also] allow us to express ourselves with fashion, style and fun."

Without, he added, any of the negative side effects.

Greg Johnson: