GM Announces Electric Car Of The Future

Laugh all you want but this is no joke. The article linked is about batteries for cars.

Anyway, this battery issue — and many like it — hasn’t stopped GM from announcing yet another Car Of The Future. Only this time they’ve partnered themselves up with Segway.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

The interesting thing here [is] its vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Not only does the P.U.M.A. talk to other units, but it can detect the presence of other types of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists; using that info to avoid collisions. It can also join together with other P.U.M.A.s to form high-speed (if you can call 35 MPH high speed) cross-city trains capable of using special lanes for uninterrupted travel.

So, the only thing that makes this more useful than a bicycle is predicated on (a) massive consumer adoption of the things and (b) ubiquitous specialized urban infrastructure? That’s clever.

I guess now that GM’s effectively owned by the federal government we should get used to ideas like this.

I can just see this car gliding down Chicago's Michigan Avenue in 20 below weather with a 40 mph breeze blowing. And some people wonder why GM is in trouble. It is not just the unions. Of course with Congress now running Government Motors I expect a lot more ideas like this of equal or greater brilliance. Look for solar cells that can collect dark energy and wind turbines that can generate power on windless days. Of course the Congress is equally good with economics. We are so fortunate to live in such a country.

Cross Posted at Classical Values