INBOX:WAY BACK IN 2001 there was much talk of a magical product called either "IT" or "Ginger". The product was rumoured to be an amazing new kind of perpetual motion engine or an anti-gravity device. In fact it turned out to be a new kind of scooter called the Segway. So much for our dreams of hovering around on anti-gravity perpetual motion machines.
The Segway remains something of an oddity. You balance as if on a single bicycle pedal with one wheel on each end, but instead of falling over, the internal gyroscope works out that you are leaning forward and kicks in the electric engine to move forward. The effect is like gliding around, just using one’s weight to move forward and backwards or to turn. The two-wheeled electric machine can go up to 12.5mph.
The brainchild of American Dean Kamen, it was claimed at its 2001 launch that the Segway would make the car obsolete in congested cities. It hasn’t. In 2003 the Segway company sold just 6,000 machines and only recently sold 30 to Chicago’s police force. It is law-enforcement and postal workers who seem to be the biggest users – and now Segway counts the Chinese elite anti-terror police officers as customers. Members of China’s armed police are using them as “anti-terror assault vehicles” to patrol airports and sporting venues during the Olympic Games. The one main advantage of the Segway has been its ability to manoeuvre in tight spaces or crowded urban environments.
Now however the Segway has a competitor. Toyota has unveiled a deceptively similar two-wheeled motorised transportation device it dubs the Winglet, or a personal transport assistance robot.
The Winglet has a body that is roughly the size of a sheet of A3 paper, making it much smaller than the Segway. It will come in three sizes (small, medium and large), ranging in height from 18in to 3ft 8in, with handlebars that go up to different levels. Users stand on “wings” that overhang each wheel. All three models will only go just above 3mph – barely walking speed – and the machine will take about an hour to charge-up.
The smallest version weighs 9.9kg and can be folded and put into a large bag, while the largest weighs 12.3kg, and has a 10km cruise range.
A Toyota employee displayed a Winglet prototype at the company’s showroom in Tokyo this week and some reports say it’s fairly easy to ride. Trials for the Winglet models will be held at Central Japan International Airport and at Laguna Gamagori, a seaside resort complex.
Before you place your orders, though, the first models are only expected to roll off of the production line in 2010.
Unfortunately, no one seems to have told Toyota about a competing product already on the market which costs a fraction of a Winglet or a Segway. It has a thin structure, goes up to 15mph, has an unlimited range and runs on recyclable organic material, with almost zero carbon emissions. It’s called a bike.
