Daniel Kim is nothing if not ambitious. His goal is to revolutionize personal transportation by combining the best elements of a car and a motorcycle. The result of his work is the prototype C1--an enclosed motorcycle that uses gyroscopic stabilizers to remain upright:
Cars, by Kim’s reckoning, are most often a waste of space and, for the most part, they’re terribly inefficient. Motorcyles are far more efficient but they’re dangerous.
The C1 is gyroscopically stabilized – sort of along the lines of a Segway – so it can’t tip over. It delivers 1,300-foot-pounds of torque and has about 200 miles of range or, as Lit employee Ryan James put it, “three times the range with one-third the battery requirement” of electric cars. A regenerative braking system helps goose the range and airbags protect the occupants.
Link -via Althouse | Photo: Lit Motors (where there's a video)
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Looks like the start of Tron bikes.
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There's gonna be a lot of naysayers and scoffers, but I've been riding motorcycles all my life and I want one of these! It's not a car and not a motorcycle, but it look like it would be fun.
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Only two things would hold me back: The initial $24K price tag. If it was half that, I'd think I would pull the trigger...except for thing #2. Being 6'5", I have a feeling, I wouldn't fit. I would definitly have to test drive one first.
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Unless it has A/C it looks like a rolling oven.
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My biggest fear when riding a motorcycle was never losing control, hitting debris in the road, and even getting hit in the face by a big fat bumblebee, it was the automobiles could in a split second end my life. Unless there are special barrier separated lanes for these gyroscopic motorcycles, I'll have to stick to other means of transportation. Too bad though, it is a neat idea but there are simply too many people texting, eating, shaving, applying makeup, etc in control of a couple of tons of metal and glass to feel safe in anything so small.
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