Is this latest vehicle from GM actually a viable new method of efficient transportation of is it just another attempt to look productive in order to get some easy bailout money? It looks like the same company that created the new Camaro will be teaming up with Segway in order to produce the “P.U.M.A.” which is short for “Personalized Urban Mobility & Accessibility”. While it doesn’t look fit for duty on city streets at first, a closer inspection yields a couple of situations where this “car” might be the right choice; a college student living near campus or someone that lives in a congested metropolitan area would be the perfect fit for the P.U.M.A. … if they don’t mind being seen in it.

All of us living anywhere near a big city like Los Angeles has undoubtedly already seen a couple examples of SMART cars, which already look outlandishly small as they navigate through a sea of regular and oversized vehicles. Unfortunately, SMART cars really don’t offer that much of an improvement over bigger cars for the amount that they cost and the disadvantages that owners have to bear. The car’s role is simply not defined enough and only appeals to those that are trying to look trendy.

The P.U.M.A. takes the concept of a small car up a notch (and down a size!) and may actually end up useful as a result. Segway has already mentioned that this is not a beefed up Segway and is instead its own design. GM has built a minimalistic shell around Segway’s technology; it has wind protection in the front, hand and foot controls, two seats, and a small roll cage to wrap it all up. It’s not exactly going to give the Ferrari F430 a run for its money in the looks department, but the P.U.M.A. gets the job done.

Now heres what you’re probably all interested in: the stats. It can reach a top speed of 35 MPH and has a range of approximately 35 miles. They didn’t give an estimate for the charging time but they said it would cost only 60 cents for every charge; you could try working out the electricity cost for the charging time I guess. Depending on the charging time, it might end up making the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight just wasteful!

Like I mentioned above, I could see this working out for someone that rarely needs to travel outside their city and doesn’t want to deal with the hassles of owning a motorcycle. This is contingent on the price, which GM has estimated at 25% the cost of a “regular” automobile. I’m not too sure what a “regular” automobile costs but if it’s around 25 thousand, then this thing would still cost over six grand, a little bit on the pricey side… I’d rather get a slightly used Suzuki GSXR600 for that kind of money!