WTF is a PUMA?!
For years I’ve used the Segway as a sort of a milestone of humanity’s technological accomplishment in building something wickedly stupid, unnecessary and overrated – a remarkable blend of misplaced technological acumen and social ineptitude – a middle finger to common sense and “cool” if you will. Yes I clearly got an itch to scratch on this topic… Well imagine how I felt today when I came across something that takes the Segway to the “next level” – a Segway for two called PUMA! In the world of hip and meaningless acronyms PUMA stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility and not for Please Unf*ck My Auto. I find it perversely ironic that this “vehicle” is a “brain” child of GM and Segway. The freaking visionaries at GM (Government Motors) whose recent business “success” has been widely publicized went for a Hail Mary pass on this one by teaming up with Segway. The only way to top this would be to have Sarah Palin as the model/spokes person pitching this thing, but then it would have been called COUGAR (Couples Oriented Urban Gumby-Ass Rickshaw).
This should be the poster that all of GM’s competitors hang AFTER GM dies. I saw this one the news and some tool at GM was saying that this is what the tax payers want GM to do with the tax dollars… “innovate”. WTF… who are they kidding? Adding two seats to Segway technology is not innovation. So sad, and funny.
GM made money with their big iron and these days instead of trying to copy what Toyota and the others are doing, they need to INNOVATE, instead of being a crappy METOO they need to give the consumer something NEW, something the consumer doesnt even know they need yet, SOMETHING HOT! GM needs to set a damn trend for a change or die.