Forget the fact that putting the “i” prefix in front of anything and everything has long been considered lame and take a look at Toyota’s i-Real. It is a three wheeled mobility concept. It looks like an armchair, and changes positions depending on your speed. You can zoom along at up to 30 kilometers per hour while lying down. The controls are where they should be, on one of the chair arms.

30 kilometers per hour, incidentally, is the maximum legal top speed for 50CC vehicles here in Japan, so it is possible that the top speed is limited to comply with silly government regulations for small vehicles. At any rate, it is fast enough to do some damage and looks mobile enough to make my dream of never leaving my armchair a reality. All they need to do is figure out how to make it climb stairs and convince my wife to let me take it in the house. I saw one of these things on the news last night flying around a testing facility somewhere in Tokyo. This thing looks like it eats Segways for breakfast. What a shame that for now it is just a concept.

Sources: Electro Plankton, Product-Reviews, The International Herald Tribune