Must admit, it’s just plain… weird.
Really weird and creepy
If the things can truly tackle rough terrain as shown in the CGI video and provide a stable ride, I can imagine a great marketing campaign for using them to open up access to the back country for mobility-challenged individuals.
And from the technophile perspective, heck yeah, I’d love to try one. I could definitely do a little geeking out over it - again, assuming it works as they are envisioning it. Buy it? No way it would be in my budget, but given sufficient disposable funds/toy money, sure, I might buy one.
My brother sent me the link, but w/o the video.
After watching it, my first thought was “But there’s no neck to pat”
This made me laugh:
“If we can’t get Eddie Murphy on board for a Shrek donkey voice, what’s the point?”
and electric extension cords to power the horsy
I read these things as ATVs that can handle more rugged terrain, not really “horses.” As that, they’re pretty cool!
And I bet we allllll know someone who really should have something like this instead of a living, breathing, feeling animal. If marketing these as “robot horses” makes it easier for those people to accept and transition, hell yeah! Bring on the robot horses
At least it won’t spook at anything.
You all have great points. I still think it looks creepy😀.
No, not even if it had a head! How are you supposed to feed it carrots???
Am I the only one that think it moves more like a dog/ cat than a horse? The “knees” on the front legs are totally wrong for a horse which gives it the dog/ cat movement I think.
I’m feeling a Star Wars Equine vibe. Sign me up!
The shots from the rear make me think great ape.
That is kind of cool… I would definitely want to try it
I wonder what the learning curve on jumping over large cavernous ditches is?
Having a miscalculation would be very painful.
I agree, it looked very cat like to me.
That was what I thought, more like a large dog than a horse. It also needs a head and neck.
But guaranteed it WILL make horses spook if you encounter one on a trail…
An important point the article makes:
" it better come with an AI horse personality with optional snark and sarcasm."
Personally, it’s kind of cool but I wouldn’t want one until it can jump as well and it still wouldn’t replace the adventure I have when I give my mare her head and she decides to head for Canada.
I wonder if they will be allowed on trails that do not allow motorized vehicles.
They allow horses (including horse drawn carriages), bicycles, and humans at Fairhill but no motorized vehicles (except ranger and emergency vehicles) and my understanding is that this is because of the danger to pedestrians and how much more they would tear up the land.
At Fairhill, there are some trails that are blocked off to horses because of how narrow they are so a greater chance of incident should people be coming from both ways and the carriage paths are the widest so some of the riding paths are not open to them.
Motorized vehicles aren’t authorized because they are to fast and more likely to come around a corner and hit someone (we already have that problem with rude cyclist but at least if they run into a horse or human there isn’t as much danger). The tires also cause more damage between the weight and the motion.
I don’t see electric horses really having this issue - they are likely built with avoidance technology and not going fast enough and certainly aren’t as heavy as a draft horse to really mess up the turf, so I think they would be alright.
I think they look pretty cool and if they ever actually come to fruition, I would love to try one. It’ll probably feel really weird and I might even hate riding one, but I still like the idea.
Even if I wound up loving the experience and it could do everything they hope it does in the video, it still would never replace developing a relationship a horse you’re working with.