Crippled GM touts enclosed wheelchair for two

Set aside the jokes about the Segway being the personal transport solution for people who think Microsoft is totally cool. Because Dean Kamen's rolling pogo stick may well yet find a place outside of warehouses and geeks' garages.

Or at least the technology driving it, with the announcement of the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (PUMA) project -- a side-by-side two-seat Segway developed in cohorts with GM.

With its perspex windscreen, PUMA looks a little like an enclosed wheelchair. It combines dual electric motors powered by a lithium-ion battery pack and Segway's gyroscopic balancing technology, allowing it to keep occupants upright on two side-by-side wheels.

Weighing 136kg, prototype versions have been able to run up to 56km on a single charge, at speeds of up to 56km/h -- about three times the top speed of the original Segway scooter.

It is also designed to tap into the 'smart' electricity grid of the future, feeding power back into to the grid in times of peak demand.

The PUMA is the most dramatic expression yet of GM's efforts to downsize its products and move with times that have changed too fast for it. Necessity being the mother of invention, the credit crunch and the speed with which its monster-truck stock in trade has fallen from grace have left it at its most innovative and open-minded in years.

"We were the SUV company, and we accept that," R&D and strategic planning vice president Larry Burns told The New York Times recently. "We want to become the USV company -- known for ultra-small vehicles."

The PUMA incorporates some technologies which GM Holden's recently appointed green man Richard Marshall touched on in his interview with the Carsales Network earlier this year (more here) -- namely, integrating them into a GPS and transponder network giving them the potential to operate themselves.

Marshall's contention was that with two thirds of the average car's weight given over to secondary (post-crash) safety, the greenest move an auto manufacturer could make would be to relieve the driver of the opportunity to crash the car. GPS systems and sensors are far more trustworthy in keeping it away from other vehicles, pedestrians and the trees and lamp posts that currently claim so many lives.

This might be essential with the streets full of PUMAs... It would be no fun to crash one at 56km/h.