Honda Develops Bizarre 'Personal Mobility Device'

Honda recently unveiled the U3-X, which looks like a high-tech unicycle. It’s an experimental personal mobility device that allows people the same free range of movement they would have while walking but places that ability on one wheel. Powered by a lithium-ion battery, the U3-X, fits between a rider’s legs and can move forward, backward, side-to-side or diagonally.

It uses Honda’s balance control technology as well as the Honda Omni Drive System — HOT Drive, as they call it — to allow the rider to adjust speed and movement. The rider can stop and turn in any direction simply by shifting his or her body weight. It’s designed so the rider will be at the eye level of people who are walking.

There are no controls: no buttons, levers, wheels or handles. All the movement is based on perceptible shifts in the rider’s weight as picked up by an incline sensor first developed for robotics.

Unbelievably, Honda says the device is less than 10 kilograms, which for those of you who are metric deficient means it weighs less than 22 pounds.

Yes, this thing sounds strange, and yes, we want to try one.