GM: Goodbye Hummer? Hello electric scooter

Ailing car multinational General Motors tries to green itself by collaborating with Segway and dumping Hummer
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 April 2009 18.24 BST

General Motors and Segway unveiled a prototype two-seat electric scooter today, intended to ease urban congestion and pollution and help GM recast itself as environmentally progressive and technologically innovative.
The vehicle, named Puma (for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility), is the product of an unlikely collaboration between an ailing American industrial behemoth known for manufacturing gas-guzzlers and a privately held company founded on technological wizardry.
The companies have no plans as yet to mass produce the vehicle and offer it for sale, instead characterising today's announcement as a demonstration of technology.
"It's a directional statement that we're making ... an urban transportation we need to reinvent how we move people around in cities and towns," Segway president and chief executive officer, Jim Norrod, said in an interview.
The announcement comes eight days after President Barack Obama challenged General Motors and Chrysler to "restructure, to modernise, and to make themselves more competitive". At the same time, Obama fired GM's chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, who had failed to stem a long-term decline in the company's US sales and whom Obama said lacked vision to take the company forward.
General Motors has already received $15bn (£10bn) in bailout loans from the taxpayer, and Obama demanded last week that the company devise a radical restructuring plan if it hopes to receive more funds. General Motors and Segway began talks on the project 18 months ago, before the taxpayer bailout, but the company was keen today to promote the Puma as a symbol of the company's break from tradition.
"Imagine small, nimble electric vehicles that know where other moving objects are and avoid running into them," said GM's vice-president of research and development, Larry Burns. Meanwhile, the company has signalled that it may jettison its Hummer brand, the massive, much-loathed military-style vehicles.
The new vehicle can hit a top speed of about 35 miles an hour and its lithium-ion battery system gives it a range of 35 miles, the company said. A full recharge for the vehicle takes between eight and 10 hours, but uses only 40 pence worth of power.
"We think 35 miles in a city is pretty reasonable to do in a day," Norrod said. "Then you get back and you charge it overnight, and we think that's sufficient."
The company has not tested the vehicle in poor weather or on terrain rougher than pavements. The company said in a statement that it had "no current plans to offer it for sale" and did not suggest a price range but added that "it's probably less than most current small car prices".
Norrod said mass production would depend on whether cities created the necessary infrastructure – "bike lanes could be a good start," he said. He said London, Paris, Abu Dhabi and Singapore would be likely candidates for the vehicle, as would Indianapolis, Atlanta and Washington in the United States.
The vehicle rides on two side-by-side wheels, but like the $5,000 stand-up Segway on the market since 2002, the Puma stabilises and balances itself. It boasts a zero turning-radius, making it easy to squeeze into tight parking spots.
The vehicle's appearance, which resembles a double-width wheelchair with a windscreen canopy, drew sniggers on its first outing.
"How would you imagine a guy picking you up at your place in that thing?" a CNN anchorman, TJ Holmes, asked a woman colleague, with a chuckle.