Renewable Gossip

Honda U3-X.

The race toward sustainable mobility is moving car companies in odd and unexpected directions. For example, Honda today unveiled the U3-X, a compact electric personal mobility device that fits between the rider’s legs to provide movement forward, backward, side-to-side, and diagonally.

The PUMA people mover developed by General Motors and Segway.

The Honda U3-X is made to easily use, carry, or store. The 22-pound device has a foldable seat and footrests—and a body that functions as the frame in which users can retract the various components. When unfurled, riders jump on and go—adjusting speed and motion by simply shifting weight. The precise capabilities of the single-wheeled U3-X were achieved in Honda’s robotics program, which also produce the ASIMO two-legged robot.

It reminds us of the strange two-wheel, two-seat electro-gyroscopic vehicle that General Motors unveiled last year. That device, called the PUMA or Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, was the first in the world to combine electric drive with both vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications and autonomous driving and parking. A few years ago, Toyota showed a similar three-wheeled i-Real personal mobility vehicle.

read more