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Toyota Introduces the Winglet
Or maybe they should call it the dork mobile. Toyota makes a lot of good tech, their cars are top shelf, even the cheap ones, but this thing...not seeing much use for it at all other than a way to spend money and use up electricity.
According to Toyota, they will begin testing three different models at a few Japanese airports later this year, as well as some popular malls. The feedback received from customers will help determine whether Toyota will mass-market the gadget for sales everywhere else.
ed.z. OK, I'll relent a little, for people who have physical impairments, treat it as a personal mobility device, anyone else..I don't think so. Even then I don't think the style is practical either for those people. Four widely spaced apart wheels with you and your junk in the middle are industry standard for stable, plus you can go shopping and carry groceries home and books from the library and so on. Where are you going to hang the grocery or whatever you need to carry basket on this thing? And at the airport? Knock knock, pepole got luggage at the airport, and I don't see any mention of a tow hitch and wagon for it. At the mall, packages. Get it? Just because you can build something, isn't always a reason to build something.
Dear Toyota, please get a cheap pure electric car out there if you want to sell something "new". Price it around for what you get for a Yaris, in fact, about just like that, make a pure electric Yaris. Resist the temptation to add unnecessary crap to it. Resist I say! You know, a commuter car? Basic, functional transportation? Remember your original corolla, the thing you sold that got you planetary notice? A 40 mile range on pure electric is enough. It doesn't need to cost 50 thousand dollars and have lithium-unobtanium batteries or hydrogen fuel cells and remote controlled iPod accessible GPS navigated Sensurround makeup mirrors.
And this little thing, we already have powered wheelchairs and the "rascal" and go-buggy devices like that. This winglet deal is..well, in the real world, the first wad of chewing gum or a lost nut or bolt or some bigger chunks of gravel someone hits is going to dump them hard. That's just for starters. This thing is mostly teh dumbness, and it completely blows that urban argument that everything is walking distance or you take the bus or something. It's OK if people actually walk and get some exercise toting their heavy one kilogram notebook They don't need this thing, waste of engineering talent, and we don't need yet another useless doomed for the junk heap soon thing that needs to be plugged in. We need *eco* gadgets that actually would serve a large scale public good, not ego gadgets that at a minimum promote ultimate slothness.