Toyota’s personal mobility pod-car concept
December 13, 07 by Mr.Q
There’s a lot of talk about Toyota and its robotic division recently, and here’s another one. This is basically old news for those in Japan, since it debuted over 2 years ago, but we just got a glimse of it here in the states, so it’s new to us. Officially called the “i-unit”, the single passenger unit is equipped with intelligent transport system technologies that allow for safe autopilot driving in specially equipped lanes. The vehicle allows the user to make tight on-the-spot turns, move upright amongst other people at low speeds and can be easily switched into a reclining position at higher speeds. Body colors can be customized to suit individual preferences and a personal recognition system offers both information and music. Hear that Segway’s owners? This thing will out-geek your expensive toy, and we can sit down, too.
The first thing I said when I saw this thing(from the yellow/green picture below) is, “holy ****, they created a protoss car”. It’s too bad that not many concept stuffs will ever be mass-produced for the public use, but this is one of the thing I want to see come to life. Even if Toyota never bring this to market, I’m hoping some modders will create a similar, static chair, before Starcraft 2 comes out next year. It would make for a sweet gaming chair.
