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Toyota's New i-Real Is a Segway With a Seat

by Tim Stevens on October 25, 2007 at 12:39 PM

Toyota Demos 30 km/h Segway-Like WheelchairToyota is already dominating the world's automotive scene in terms of sales, as well as leading the green vehicle scene thanks to its still rather trendy hybrid Prius. But the Japanese auto maker must be getting bored. Since nobody can seem to compete with it on the vehicular front, the company is moving into new markets: high-end, designer wheelchair sales with its new i-Real three-wheeled chair.

Actually, "wheelchair" is about fitting a term here as "scooter" is when describing the Segway, though Toyota is aiming the device at a variety of seated users who want to move around. The thing sports a relatively upright seating position that reclines as speeds increase, up to a maximum of a brisk 30 km/h, just short of 20 mph. Not quite enough to get you a speeding ticket, but faster than the Segway's top speed of 12.5 mph.

Controls are two joysticks mounted at the end of the arm rests, making the thing, supposedly, quite easy to maneuver (despite the rather concerned look on the model in the picture to the side).

No word on whether Toyota actually plans to produce the thing or, if they do, how much it'll cost.

Sure, it might look like a prop off the 'Star Trek' set, but we'd rock it on a trip down to the corner store ... assuming we could figure out a way to put some groceries in the thing.

From Autoblog

Toyota's i-Real Concept



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Tags: breaking+news, Future Tech, FutureTech, i-Real, Tokyo Motor Show, TokyoMotorShow, top, Toyota, Trade Shows, TradeShows, Weird

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