This thing cannot brake effectively in an emergency, which severely limits its real-world usefulness - it will just roll. The only route out of that, that I can see, is counter-rotating something with a large moment of inertia. If that something is the passenger, it will be extremely uncomfortable; if the mass is e.g. a flywheel, it'll add significantly to overall mass, reduce efficiencies, and add to overall forward momentum.
A long downhill stretch will also completely beat it (if it wants to maintain a constant speed downhill). Any flywheel or other counter-rotation system will have to keep accelerating for as long as the hill continues, or else it will tumble.
A small 3rd wheel for emergency braking would work (it could even be automatically lowered when the chassis has rotated over a certain amount), or you could just drive only at slow speeds. The Segway is a diwheel as well, and people don't worry about that.
The Segway has a relatively large moment of inertia to act as counter-torque when braking - the big human body sticking out the top of it - along with gravity, where the centre of gravity of the inertial mass is well away from the axis of rotation. It also travels slowly (I think the Segway is a more viable product at the speeds it travels at than the device in this article, which IMO really needs to go faster to justify being strapped in etc.).
So what happens if you are riding at a good speed, and you hit a pothole or other obstacle that bends a wheel? That could make it so the carriage cannot rotate freely inside the wheel, leading to rapid rotation of the passenger. I would not expect a good outcome after that.
I think that is likely the downfall of this kind of vehicle. Yes, with slosh control you can make it work well in normal circumstances, comparable to other vehicles. The failure modes, though, lead to worse accidents than other vehicles, and I don't see any advantages of it in normal circumstances to counter that.
Haha, I was thinking the same thing...they should put that on the midway! For some reason I also thought of the infamous South Park bike--the one with the interesting seat as a cool looking but maybe just a bit impractical powered 2 wheel transportation device.
So, is this actually a useful vehicle? Or is it just for circus stunts? The trouble with letting young bloods demo a new bike is, they don't ever use it normally.
For instance, can it accelerate without gerbiling?
I read "slosh control" as avoidance of oscillations from the initial impetus of acceleration (i.e. jerk, the first derivative of acceleration and second derivative of velocity). Acceleration will effectively need to be limited to such a rate where the off-centre weight of the passenger + seat acts as counter-torque. Applying any more torque would cause gerbilling.
I think it's just being more progressive about the application of acceleration. From a motorbike analogy, it's just being extremely smooth about engaging the clutch while bringing up the revs. If you pop the clutch with high revs on a bike, it too will "gerbil" - i.e. wheelie, or even loop.
A long downhill stretch will also completely beat it (if it wants to maintain a constant speed downhill). Any flywheel or other counter-rotation system will have to keep accelerating for as long as the hill continues, or else it will tumble.