Dumbo NYC

Notes from the DUMBO, Brooklyn NY neighborhood


PUMA in Dumbo

April 16th, 2009

Our friends over at Blue Barn Pictures saw this prototype vehicle, a joint venture with General Motors and Segway called PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) riding around Brooklyn Bridge Park and Fulton Ferry area. The PUMA has a max speed of 35 mph and the battery will last up to 35 miles. They’re several years away from putting this out to market, but I can’t imagine that it will be a comfortable ride down the Belgian Block streets down Washington or Plymouth Streets in Dumbo.

Filed in Dumbo Tidbits at 5:55 pm
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  • d'troit
    I thought it was a PUTA--personal urban transportation appliance.
  • That's a car?
    Steve, you are being kind....I believe a stroller could knock that thing over.....nevermind the wind. God forbid a Segway hits it, lol.
  • dumbostreets
    Walking is ideal, but if people need to drive in a dense city, smaller vehicles make sense. As far as safety, I bet this is safer than a motorcycle. It may lack the bulk of a SUV, but those things flip... There are no shortage of safety issues with SUV designs. Depending on the engineering, a small vehicle might roll / resist impact more effectively...

    The short of it is there either needs to be less cars on the road, more roads, or smaller cars. The last option seems the most likely to me.
  • shut yo mouth
    see, this is why americans are getting fatter and fatter. these companies are always trying to find a way to so call "improve" the way we live by making it more accessible for us to move around. there is nothing wrong with good ol' fashion walking, especially if you are fat borderline obese
  • Steve
    one hit from a car/truck and the PUMA and occupants will be a stain. i'll keep my big gas guzzler to roam the streets!
  • Marc Johnson
  • dumbostreets
    GM is obviously trying to catch some stimulus money with this; and robotics is one area of the economy that is doing well due to military spending, which is probably the origin for this tech.

    It's true that when I walk the bridge and see lines of cars with one person in each vehicle, that situation seems far more absurd than a 2 wheel sub-sub-compact.
  • That's a car?
    Yes, from the maker of the Segway - you know, the two wheel wonder that George W Bush fell off? Wasn't the segway supposed to change how we move around? That it was going to revolutionize cities? That cities would change everything about themselves to support them? Oh yeah, NYC said no. End of story.
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