Is there any interest in following the PUMA story? I would like this to be my regular commuting car, particularly in the winter. With the Volt as my over the road vehicle.

Jonathan Cassidy

Not much interest. Pretty much panned here. Overly engineered and expensive NEV. GM should get out now and save it's precious borrowed money.

I'm curious why the pan of this Segway/Puma vehicle. My only issue is that it should go a little faster than 35, and the charge should go a bit further. If you read the articale in Popular Science this month, it talks about making these "automatic" - as in they drive themselves. They would be part of a grid system in big cities, where ONLY these would be allowed on the streets, (I concluded; maybe that's not reality). It's all GPS-relative. you tell it where you want to go and it goes. Never an accident, because it can "drive around large objects, such as people or other cars".

To me, this is just the first in a building block to get cars off our big city streets. Very futuristic. Though I think it over-reaches a bit. For one, have you ever tried using a GPS in a big city? Doesn't work very well.

Regardless, I think it's a cool little vehicle for big cities or small gated communities - but that's about it.

I'm curious why the pan of this Segway/Puma vehicle. My only issue is that it should go a little faster than 35, and the charge should go a bit further. If you read the articale in Popular Science this month, it talks about making these "automatic" - as in they drive themselves.

Pretty much because we're mostly concerned with the here and now and what is practical. GM really doesn't have the excess cash to burn on the highways of tomorrow like they used to back in the '50s when they did work on the "automatic" highway you described (only back then they looked cooler). The technology to make automatic driving a realistic possibility is at least a good 10 years off. Dedicated highways, never going to happen.

Even if they did come up with the technology for automatic driving in the very near future and there were cities interested in dedicating roads to this project, using a conventional three or four wheel NEV would save the consumer a ton of money and therefor be more likely to be adopted. The Segway has always been a technology in search of a purpose. It was invented not because it was needed, but rather just because it could be done. The PUMA is just an extension of that.