Segway, GM Partner On Two-Wheeled Electric Car 394
Slartibartfast was one of many readers sending in news of GM's partnership with Segway to develop a two-seater urban electric vehicle. It's called the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or "PUMA." This is just a prototype, so don't get your credit card out yet. Its total cost of ownership could be about 1/4 that of a traditional car, GM says. The prototype runs for 35 miles, at a top speed of 35 mph, on lithium-ion batteries. It features the now-familiar Segway balancing technology, though fore-and-aft training wheels are visible on the prototype. Some commentators have likened it to a high-tech rickshaw, others to a golf cart. Engadget describes how the ride feels.
Re:My Dad Had a 2 wheeled car (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ride a motorcycle? (Score:5, Informative)
if you live in Oklahoma like I do, it's just coming from coal or oil
And as has been shown many, many times before, the net impact on the environment is still much less than burning fuel in a small internal combustion engine. Power plants have the advantage of higher temperatures, more consistant loads, unlimited weight and size, and being always on. They are much more efficient at pulling energy out of fossil fuels, even including losses due to transmition, charging, and the electrical engine.
Re:PUMA? (Score:3, Informative)
Red vs. Blue [myspace.com]
Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score:5, Informative)
Ideally, none. In a perfect world, the reduction on friction on the other two wheels equals the increase in friction from the third. Now, in practice, things don't work out quite that way (for example, the heating profiles change, which changes the coefficient of friction), and the third wheel also adds some weight (although they're losing the weight of the balancing hardware).
Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:35 miles, at a top speed of 35 mph (Score:3, Informative)
So is the management at GM.
Don't worry, they're now being run by an organiztion which spent its entire GDP [bloomberg.com] in 6 months. A company that lost billions of dollars a year is now being run by an organization which loses over a trillion a year. I hope that works out for them. :\
Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
The US car companies don't make big, inefficient cars because that's what Americans want. Rather, Americans want big, inefficient cars because that's what they are sold
Thank you! Sometimes it's like talking to a brick wall, those people who insist that the Big Three were just selling what people wanted. As though they don't spend over 7 billion dollars a year [dollarsandsense.org] on marketing. That's about 40% of NASA's annual budget, all on pushing the vehicles they want you to buy the most -- and this decade, those ads have been overwhelmingly for big, heavy, inefficient vehicles. They've been pushing them because they have the highest profit margin; it doesn't cost them that much more to make a vehicle bigger, but Americans have been historically willing to pay more, proportional to the size of the vehicle.
Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
This last weekend I bought twelve 8 ft 2x6 boards for a raised garden. I brought them home all inside my Honda Fit, totally enclosed, all doors shut, all windows closed. All I'm saying is that some of those subcompacts are not as compact as people think they are.
Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score:3, Informative)
No, the gyroscope effect of the wheels on motorcycles and bicycles is minimal. The dynamic stability of two-wheeled vehicles occurs because the point of contact on the front tire is behind the axis of rotation of the steering head. So as the bike moves forward, the front tire is being "pulled straight" and can be easily maintained on a track by the rider.
If the gyroscope effect was significant enough to keep a motorcycle upright, it would prevent leaning the vehicle over during turns, which doesn't happen.
Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score:5, Informative)
Additionally, you're seriously misguided about the quality of American cars. You're either stuck in the past, living in the 70s and early 80s when American cars were crap, or you merely eat up whatever the media feeds you.
I've owned numerous domestic made cars, Ford and GM. I care about longterm reliability, cost of repairs, gas mileage, offroad performance, and price. All the domestic cars I've owned were made in the 80's and 90's and (quite frankly) I got sick to death of fixing them, both performing the repairs and buying the parts or hiring people for stuff I couldn't do. They simply sucked. They rusted everywhere and everything broke and there were design flaws I could see at a glance. When I finally started making a little money, I unloaded my old Pontiac and bought a Geo Tracker. It was sold by GM but made by Suzuki and was an incredibly reliable and cheap and performed very well for what I needed. It was also fun to drive. It was just about bulletproof. Aside from minor maintenance I had to do one or two minor repairs over the whole time I owned it and when I found a really good deal on a larger, newer Suzuki truck (made in Canada) I upgraded and sold my old one to a friend who got another few years out of it (including rolling it at speed on the expressway in a snow storm and driving it home after the accident) who traded it in on his new car. I still see those well made little things driving around. They look odd, but they work. My new truck has similarly been pretty decent about reliability with some minor issues with accessories.
So, after my horrible experiences with US cars and very good experiences with foreign brands, what have domestic auto makers done to win me back and convince me their vehicles have improved and are on par? Why in the world would I consider buying another US car? When I buy something I usually do the research, but for newer cars, it takes many years for long term reliability to show up as hard data and anything else is probably just marketing. So as of a few years ago, what were independent review companies, who are paid entirely by their subscribers and don't take any cash or even donated vehicles from automakers saying:
Of the 47 vehicles on the most-reliable list, 39 were from Japanese automakers. Six came from the domestic automakers, and one each came from South Korea and Europe. Twenty-one Toyota vehicles earned top ratings. Honda had 11 vehicles at the top of our ratings. Ford, General Motors, and Subaru each had three, Mitsubishi and Nissan each had two, while Hyundai and Mini each had one.
Of the 45 least reliable models, 19 were European, 20 were from U.S. manufacturers, 5 were Japanese, and 1 was South Korean. General Motors had 12, Mercedes-Benz had 8, Ford and Nissan each had 5, Chrysler and Volkswagen each had 3, BMW and Jaguar each had 2, while Kia, Land Rover, Porsche, Saab, and Volvo each had 1.
And what do they say about long term reliability numbers?
And those reliable older models tend to be Hondas and Toyotas. If they're well-maintained, they still have a long, useful life ahead.
And:
Overall, the most reliable vehicles come from Asian nameplates. Though domestic cars are getting better, they still trail the Japanese models.
They also provide the data from their studies that backs up their claims. So with US automakers decades later still significantly behind japanese manufacturers, why should I support their failure to deliver. If US automakers want my money, the answer is simple, make reliable cars that meet my needs and keep the reliability at that level for 5 years so it shows up on the hard data. Don't promote the jackass who finds another way to cut costs at the expense of long term reliability that doesn't show up until years after they have been promoted and moved on. Make a real commitment to invest in the brand and make me respect it again.
Right now, in my mind and based upon the data I pay unbiased third parties to provide me, American cars really do seem to suck (in general).