It's painfully obvious that they won't sell, 5G's for a scooter is going to be a very limited market (basically rich morons with no respect for the value of a dollar, there used to be a big supply of those, but with the dot-com meltdown they're a dieing breed). As for the safety considerations: watch, wait, and learn. It's a simple matter of how the control system works. Much as how you're car can't detect the difference between a deliberate turning of the wheel and an epileptic seizure, there's no way for this thing to tell the difference between a deliberate body tilt and the result of being hit by the wind. If they've managed to solve that particular puzzle there are about a million much better uses for the technology.
You might not have heard any complaints from the people that have trialed this, but I haven't heard any praise either. All things considered there's been a remarkable lack of sound coming from the trial participants.
there's no way for this thing to tell the difference between a deliberate body tilt and the result of being hit by the wind. Telling the difference between deliberate body tilt versus being blown by the wind probably isn't too hard given the separate attitude sensors on the platform and control stick.
A bigger problem is what to do about it. If the wind starts pushing a person's center of gravity rearward at 2mph, one of three things must happen:
- The machine moves the wheels rearward at 2mph to keep them under the center of gravity; the machine must keep doing this until the wind subsides.
- The machine moves the wheels rearward at over 2mph to get them behind the center of gravity. At that point the person would tip forward except that the forward-leaning moment is offset by the rearward moment produced by the wind.
- The person falls backward.
One of the problems I see with the machine is that it is not statically stable. Perhaps the machine can manage #2 above effectively enough to minimize 'wander', but the level of mobility required would still be significant. If you are standing still on the machine and get hit by a gust of wind, there may be no way for the machine to avoid having to very rapidly and without warning move back six inches or more (if the machine hesitates before moving, or moves slowly, the required distance would be much longer).
Frankly, I don't like the idea of a pedestrian craft which would have to move without warning in order to maintain stability.