Toyota aims to take us on a magic- carpet ride in mobility in about two years with its new vehicle called the Winglet. The device is the latest addition to the company's range of "partner robots" — concept vehicles whose purpose is to explore future forms of personal transportation. Toyota believes that robots will be a part of its core business by 2020, along with a switch from gasoline power to electric power.

The Winglet started life seven years ago as a Sony Corporation project before Toyota purchased it during a round of restructuring at Sony in March 2007. Of the team that completed the project — adding Toyota's partner-robot technology and finalizing the styling — two were ex-Sony and five were on loan from Sony.

To see if the Winglet really will take mankind in a new direction of mobility, I took one for a test drive this month. This is not the first two-wheeled balancing scooter the world has seen. The Segway was launched in a blaze of publicity in 2001 but has not been the success it was expected to be, with just 30,000 units (costing ¥1 million each) sold so far — mainly in America.