This is a non-starter. This fills the same niche as an electric moped at 6% or less of the cost. And people can drive electric mopeds on city streets legally today. For less than half the price someone could buy a used, low-mileage sedan (such as a Civic, Corolla, or Accent), with a trunk, seating for 5, seatbelts and airbags. And then use the other $8k to pay for gas at $5 a gallon for the next 48,000 miles. Or, they could buy 2x brand-new 150cc Honda motorcycles and use the extra money to pay for the gas (at $5 a gallon) for the next 50,000 miles for both vehicles (100k total).
Doesn't make economic sense. Doesn't make safety sense. Doesn't make logistical sense. Doesn't make practical sense. Doesn't make environmental sense.
Electric mopeds cannot go on freeways. An electric motorcycle is better for nontrivial distances.
On the other hand, an electric moped which cannot travel faster than 20mph also has an advantage: in California it is treated as a bicycle and can travel on bike paths on major bridges.
My main complaint: if neither electric motorcycles nor self-balancing motorcycles are currently popular, why would an electric self-balancing motorcycle be popular?
Personally, I've always wanted a vehicle with the speed and fuel efficiency approaching a motorcycle and a 5-star crash safety rating. Motorcycles are a death trap, and I refuse to ride one despite their many advantages.
Unfortunately, I think you're imagining a fantasy vehicle: your requirements are pretty much in direct conflict with each other.
The smaller the vehicle, the less it can rely on passive safety (crashing better), and the more it has to rely on its advantages at active safety (avoiding crashing). You can't cheat physics: a tiny personal vehicle is never going to have passive safety as good as a midsize car. Even relatively safe compact cars like the Toyota Yaris don't have 5-star crash ratings, so I don't see how a 2-wheeler ever will.
Motorcycles are dangerous primarily because (a) small fast vehicles tend to attract more than their share of irresponsible people (which, not uncommonly, includes alcohol), and (b) car drivers have trouble seeing tiny vehicles. I don't see how this vehicle proposes to change either of these factors.
No...it's not. This thing is just as dangerous as a motorcycle.
The danger is from not having the steel cage protecting you, not from tipping over in a parking lot. Motorcycles aren't even difficult to balance...at all.
They're easier than bicycles in that respect because they self-stabilize from the speed that operate at. You only need balance when puttering about in the parking lot, and even then, scarcely.
I have to stop reading this thread. I'm a keen motorcyclist and it's vividly apparent none of you know what you're talking about in the slightest.
Well, if you want a highway vehicle then you can buy an electric motorcycle for half or a quarter the cost of this thing (such as the Brammo Enertia or the EMC GPR-S).
Electric motorcycles seem to have some degree of minor popularity, but are certainly a tiny niche even compared to plug-in hybrid cars. But the value-add of a self-balancing motorcycle seems highly dubious.
I would imagine we don't have self-balancing motorcycles because we don't need them to self-balance. You can just put your foot down when you stop. But this isn't a normal motorcycle. The enclosure makes it necessary to do something else. Self-balance is what they decided to try. Another option could have been some speed triggered training wheels that popped out but that wouldn't be quite as cool looking.
I don't really see this being comparable to a moped. A moped is like a teeny tiny motorcycle - it's an exposed 1 or (at best) two seater with barely any cargo capacity, no protection from the elements, and no crash protection. This should appeal to someone who wouldn't be comfortable on an exposed two wheeler in traffic.
And considering that 80% of trips taken in cars today have a single occupant, the "seating for 5" argument probably doesn't matter to plenty of people. Obviously, it always will for people with kids and dogs to transport, but there are enough people without those encumbrances to make up a very healthy market.
- handling is supposed to be better than anything
- performance of a bike + safety of a car
- higher mileage than electric cars + faster charge
You are comparing the launch price of a completely new vehicle to market prices of commodity ones. This could be cheaper than a car in the future, and maybe even safer since it won't roll/tip as easily in an accident.
It won't have better handling or performance than a bike. Just look at it: it's twice the weight of a large sports bike, has a longer wheelbase, it's still hamstrung by having only two wheels, it can't lean over as far as a bike.
It may be possible to engineer some improved safety over a bike, but it will never have the safety of even a compact car. You can't beat physics.
The whole "won't tip as easily" thing is misleading.
They say it would take "a small elephant" to knock it over. You know what is the size & weight of a small elephant? A car...
Rolling isn't the major cause of crash injuries anyway, it's crush and impact injuries. While this is an improvement over motorbikes in these areas (as well as the critical one of weather protection!) it is nothing like as safe as a car.
These very much remind of a two-wheeled Can-Am[1], which are "trikes" in the vein of a motorcycle. They're also much larger and would never be able to lane-split (legal or not).
Doesn't make economic sense. Doesn't make safety sense. Doesn't make logistical sense. Doesn't make practical sense. Doesn't make environmental sense.
What's the value add?