Thinky

Smart Cars in the US

It's been going on for quite some time now. Individuals with time, money, and a whole lot of patience are importing Smart Cars into the U.S. It's supposed to be illegal to do so, since they don't meet DOT crash-worthiness, equipment, and EPA evironmental regulations (actually, they meet the regulations, but the DOT / EPA has to smash the cars themselves to believe it), but apparently it can be done.

Here's the classic story about Sally Jesse Rafael and her green Smart. It's not for the faint of heart.

Here's another guy who's got a Smart Cabrio, complete with ugly custom paint in NYC. I think his was imported in parts (legal, ish) and then assembled here. You can also buy one from these guys (caution, bad website alert) in Florida. The prices aren't even that high, $14,700 for the coupe

The Smart Car stable has been getting bigger as of late. But the looks of the cars has really gotten worse in my opinion -- the Smart "forFour" is particularly hideous. The roadster and roadster coup are better, but really depart from the cute-city-car design of the original Swatch/Mercedes joint venture.

Toyota "PM" Concept [photos]

The Toyota Personal Mobility Concept, a car-for-one (more on this meme later) that includes lots of personalization and communication technology. It's written up as one of the Ideas of the Year in this week's NYT Magazine. Some of its cool features:

• Rear-wheel electric motor driven
• Steering and throttle with a motorcycle-style dual grip (no wheel in sight).
• The posture of the driver changes as the car accelerates (and apparently "stands-up" to let the driver in (though I haven't found a movie of this yet).
• "Swarm" feature -- Toyota calls this platooning -- that lets a set of cars follow a lead car at a safe distance on auto-pilot.

Some of its useless features:

• Ability to send SMS messages from the car -- now one can curse the driver of a nearby car in a way that he or she can hear! And reply to!
• Moods. The car can read your mood (accurate to two decimals places) and change LED lights on the vehicle. Why would I ever want to do this?
• Hollow-center front wheels that give it that tron look that everybody's lusting after

There are no plans to put this puppy into production. But as a inspiration platform, I can certainly get behind it.

Economic arguments for Segway PT

The new(ish) Segway website lists a couple of economic arguments for owning a Segway. There is a page for businesses to figure out their ROI on Segways, as well as a section aimed at individuals, with smartly designed PDFs. One [pdf link] states:

Pay For Just One Vehicle: The typical U.S. household spends an average of $6,200 a year on transportation costs like buying, fueling, and maintaining a personal car or truck. By replacing your second car with a Segway HT, the savings quickly add up.

Uh, they do?

Let's assume that Kamen's statistics are correct for the personal car. The segway costs $4,995. It costs 10¢ to charge, and that would be basically twice a day (once at night and once at work). That's approx $75. Then you need a helmet (dorky, but good) and some rain gear (also dorky, but also good) for the less than ideal comuting days. Call that $100. Throw in any accessories (cable lock, light, trunk space, and you're above $5200, saving you in the neighborhood of $1000 in the first year, maybe less. Now in the second year, you're really winning. If the segway would only hold up like a car. Getting 10 years of life out of a segway would make the above statement true. I guess the question that I have is: Is the Segway durable enough to make the above claims true? If it were a bike, I'd have no trouble believing that it would last 10 years. But will the Segways made today still be on the road in 5 years? I kinda doubt it. Batteries wear out. Electronics go bad. Electric motors fail.

I'm not trying to knock the Segway. I think it's interesting. I'm just not so sure that the segway is a really economical way to travel around town. Seems to me the $6,200 number was Kamen's target -- make a transporter that is cheaper than a car when you factor in purchase price, insurance, depreciation, gas, and upkeep.