A transportation pod has been the dream of every tech geek and the company that introduced the original Segway is making that dream into a reality with its S-Pod self balancing scooter. Inspired by the transportation pods in Wall-E and much like the gyrosphere in Jurassic park, just a lot faster, S-pod provides easy transportation with the help of a controller much like a joystick.
The S-Pod is egg shaped with a tall and comfortable suede seat. It is a self-balancing vehicle and has two wheels for support and is controlled with a joystick. The joystick is present on the right arm rest – the user just needs to push the joystick in the forward direction to go forward and in the reverse direction to go backwards; slightly titling the joystick in the left or right directions will make the S-pod move in the left or right direction, respectively. In order to stop the pod, the joystick simply needs to be released. The joystick is quite sensitive and needs to be handled with ease when using. The movement is maintained by a center-of-gravity optimized control system which makes the balancing system quite effective and reliable.
Segway’s self balancing scooter has multiple lights on the back serving as turn signals. They serve the purpose of turn-lights while moving at night. S-Pod displays the battery levels through a strip on the right side.
The S-Pod has a maximum transport speed of 24.8mph which equals 40km/hr – the model presented at the CES, however, had a speed of 7mph. It has an average range of 43.5 miles or 70 kms. The S-Pod can also climb elevations that slant at an angle of 10°. All this is carried out on a battery which only takes two hours to fully charge!
Unveiled by the merger Segway-Ninebot, at the Customer Electronics Show 2020, the S-Pod is basically an electric wheelchair. The company has targeted it for short distance travel and for enclosed areas such as hospitals, however, it will also be of great usage when people need to simply move around in cities. The wide angle view offered by the S-Pod also makes sightseeing tourists a potential market for selling the product. The company claims that it is very easy to get used to and describes it as the game changer in individual transportation.
Luke Gao, CEO of Segway-Ninebot said, “”Segway-Ninebot has established itself as a category leader in short distance transportation solutions, from innovative delivery robots to kickscooters now used in cities across the world.”
The S-Pod’s commercial launch is scheduled at the end of 2020, while direct-to-customer sales will be carried out later. No details about the pricing of the product have been released.
The below video from The Verge provides a hands-on demonstration of Segway’s self balancing scooter, the S-Pod .
Images © Segway
h/t: The Verge