An alternative wheel-legged robotic wheelchair, "MEBot", was designed to improve the safety and mobility of EPW users in both indoor and outdoor environments.
But now the three-wheeled vehicle seems poised to reinvent itself, as new manufacturers, new designers and the new realities of American life on the road are making it an increasingly attractive alternative to four wheels.
The changes are less far-reaching than the mid-life updates that were carried out last year on the larger Discovery and Range Rover Sport models except in one respect; the Freelander will in future be available with front-wheel drive, making it the first mainstream Land Rover model to be offered with an alternative to four-wheel drive.
"The average American could save up to $6000 a year by replacing their second car with a two (or three) wheel alternative," Piaggio CEO Paolo Timoni explained.
As an alternative, the government has wheeled out a hazy concept of "collaborative consent".
The wars, and betrayal by others, required Robespierre to defend that revolution with a device proposed along with his friend Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as a humane alternative to the breaking wheel, after the pair had unsuccessfully attempted to abolish the death penalty.
In the past year, Tesco's bungling has given free rein to discounters Aldi and Lidl, which have both seen rapid growth by offering a cheap and more convenient alternative to spending hours wheeling a trolley around a huge out-of-town store.
If better fuel economy and more reasonable power application is more of your thing, the model equipped with a turbocharged 2-liter 4-cylinder engine is an alternative (although with all-wheel drive, the four-banger's fuel economy drops from 20 city, 30 highway to 19 city, 28 highway).
A low maintenance, low cost, lock-gate support has been developed as an alternative to the classic wheel-on-rail support.
It gets a bit cooler: tapping into the capabilities of the phone to bring new tricks into the mix, the custom app will allow the driver to use the device's accelerometer to steer as an alternative to the onscreen wheel.
