GM rolls out concept car with China partner

As China's cities fill with more people, there is some hard thought being put into how to move them around once the streets are saturated with all those new cars. General Motors and its Chinese partner have a solution.

General Motors, which introduced a modified Segway at the New York Auto Show a year ago, is now trying out a similar kind of personal mobility scooter with its Chinese partner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Group. Looks a lot like last year's buggy with a canopy thrown on.

It's called the EN-V, or Electric Networked-Vehicle, and it was just shown in Shanghai. It's a two-seater developed from that Segway, which GM called the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, at the time. The body and canopy of EN-V are constructed from carbon fiber, custom-tinted Lexan and acrylic.

The EN-V gets its power from two electric motors -- one in each of its two driving-mode wheels. It can literally "turn on a dime" and takes up only about the third of the space of a car.  In addition, everything in EN-V is drive-by-wire, supporting its ability to operate autonomously or under manual control. The motors not only provide power for acceleration, but also bring the vehicle to a stop, GM says.

The vehicle also has the ability to communicate with sensors in roadways and other infrastructure -- a technology that has been getting a lot of attention in Japan and the rest of Asia.

Also read: GM unveils new concept car EN-V today in Shanghai