Not at all. When you ride a (motor?)bike you still do a lot of work by yourself to keep it balanced, thing is, you become so accustomed to those things that its easy to think that they happen "by themselves" but nope.
Try turning at a relatively high speed without leaning correctly and we'll see if that wikipedia article saves you from the road rash. In these proposed vehicles you are giving control of that to some hardware that "supposedly works" and software that "supposedly works".
To each his own I guess, I wouldn't ride one of those, let alone everyday, let alone on a highway.
I think you may have some misconceptions regarding the physics of motorcycles. You do not have to lean at all to turn, if you don't want to. Obviously the combination of you and your bike must lean, but you yourself can maintain a perfect upright posture if you'd like (and let the bike "do all the leaning"). You won't be able to turn as sharply, of course, but it's NOT the rider leaning their body that causes the bike/rider system to lean, it's purely a reaction to the countersteer you apply to the bars.
When I say "you do not have to lean at all to turn", I was not clear. What I mean is that you can look like the left photo, rather than the right photo: http://i.imgur.com/K4vTdDm.gif
I read your comment to imply that the rider's body lean is what initiates a turn, rather than their handlebar input. Or that the rider must actively lean (their body), rather than allowing the bike to lean them over.
Your other reply to jsprogrammer says that "it's pretty obvious that the passenger needs to be shifting its weight to achieve that." But that's precisely what I'm saying is wrong. No weight shift is required at all to do any street-riding turns. When the handlebars are steered, the bike will force you over. When a seated driver of the C1 turns the bars, the seat will move their body over, they don't have to do any work.
If you're on a racetrack, then yeah, shift your weight and eek out sharper turns, but you'll look silly shifting your weight around when riding on public streets or a highway.
What? The diagram is not about how a bike turns, but rather how the vehicle moves when the wheels are rolling and the passenger does nothing: it doesn't fall over if the wheels are rotating at sufficient speed.
What? I saw a bike leaning and turning. The passenger is "doing nothing" because it's just a checkered ball without animation, but that it's not how bikes normally behave (assuming a "passive passenger" as they say), it's pretty obvious that the passenger needs to be shifting its weight to achieve that.
My bike stays up while moving forward even if I'm not pedaling. Forward momentum works wonders. Once it's slow enough to fall over, it's too slow to kill or even really injure you. I know you're arguing against the "losing power would kill you", but I would go farther and say that "it very well might" is only really applicable if you stall in the middle of a highway and get hit by another car, in which case even a Volvo would struggle to keep you safe.
Well, my main doubt is in your ability to effectively control the vehicle unpowered. This could be dangerous in many instances: on bridges/overpasses, steep roads, roads with steep drop-offs near the shoulder, etc. Stalling at highway speeds with other vehicles would not be good, but you may be able to manage it.
