Congratulations Toyota, you have just re-discovered the Segway. Even though you’ve named it the Winglet and are describing it as a “personal transport assistance robot ridden in a standing position“, we fail to see how this is a different concept to Segway’s, two-wheeled, self-balancing, battery-powered electric vehicle, that has been in the market since the beginning of the previous decade.

In any case, some five years since Toyota previewed the Winglet in the form of a concept in 2008, the automaker has now advanced to “public sidewalk trials” in the Japanese city of Tsukuba, as it edges closer to series production.

Toyota said that the trials of the battery-powered model, which are scheduled to run until the end of March 2016, “are aimed to verify the safety, functionality and convenience of the Winglet so it can be used on public sidewalks in the future”.

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