Segway is famous for trying to make walking obsolete.

If you have a reasonable sense of balance and can lean forward, you can zoom around on two wheels.

It’s basically a fancy electric push-scooter for grownups.

Now they’re taking it a step further, by eliminating ‘standing’ as well.

When I first saw the Segway S-Pod, I assumed it was for people who are paralysed and rely on a wheelchair to get around. Turns out I was wrong, because the S-Pod is being marketed to everybody.

The Verge took it for a spin at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show:

There’s no need to find your balance, since the S-Pod is controlled with a joystick on the right side of the seat. Push forward to go forward, back to go in reverse, and to the left or right to spin in place. Moving the joystick between 10 and 11 o’clock or 1 and 2 o’clock will let you turn left or right, respectively, while maintaining speed. Overall, the S-Pod is somehow pretty nimble despite being what must be a relatively heavy piece of equipment.

Like its predecessors, the S-Pod has just a few “features.” There was a light strip over my right shoulder that communicates the battery level, and there are more lights on the back that serve as turn signals. The colours of these lights can be customised using a tablet that pops out of the left armrest. There’s also a horn button, though that didn’t work on the prototype I drove.

Strap in for peak laziness:

They do know that electric wheelchairs, complete with joysticks, have been a thing for a while now, right? Stephen Hawking famously had one? No?

But the most impressive thing about the S-Pod is that it is rock solid despite the fact that the giant chair sits on just two wheels. It never once felt like the S-Pod was going to tip over in any direction, regardless of whether I was stopped or taking turns around sharp corners. From the moment I turned on the S-Pod and it lifted me up into the active position, it was easy to feel Segway’s many years of experience with self-balancing gyroscopic technology.

It does look like a lot of fun to drive around in, provided it stays intact.

Alas, this is CES, and things tend to go wrong with even the best prototypes. At the very end of my ride, the joystick came loose, and the Segway egg (and I) crashed into the wall. Thankfully, there was no great fall.

That’s a hard pass from me.

But hey, each to their own.

[source:theverge]