GM’s PUMAs: Cool Or Stupid?

The beleagured General Motors has teamed up with the makers of the Segway to create the PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) vehicle. This extremely compact two-seater is designed to travel up to 35 miles an hour, can go for a distance of 35 miles before needing to recharge its battery (by plugging into any 110 volt outlet), and is meant to be used for travel within a city’s limits.

However, its fatal flaw is that … well, look at it.

Its other, more serious flaws: 35 miles isn’t that far to travel. It takes “just a few hours” to recharge its batteries. If you do serious puttering around your little town, you could eat up that charge in no time, then have to wait while the PUMA gets back up to full.

There’s also nearly no protection against anything. Someone could reach right in and take something from your person and run off before you had a chance to extricate yourself from the harness. This thing wouldn’t survive a collision with any other vehicle. There’s no air conditioning. No shelter from rain. Where do you keep the groceries? And would you feel comfortable riding this toy up any hill greater than 20 degrees?

I’m sorry, GM, I know you’ve been having your problems lately, but this Lego Mindstorms project is not the key to profitability. But hey, maybe I’m just biased because I think Segways are the most ridiculous things ever. What do you think, O Learned Readers? Would you buy one of these?