Segway's Breakdown

Wired Magazine ^ | March 2003 | Gary Rivlin

[dagnabbit]

For $4,500 I can go out and buy a used 2001 Kia rio, or Hyndai Accent, with A/C, and CD player and everything.

I could get the Segway look for free by hitting the town in my wife's clothes.

[FreedomCalls]

• Airport flightlines for the mechanics to get from aircraft to aircraft
• Large factory floors where they now use bicycles sometimes
• Amusement park rentals to get people used to them
• Rentals on the Mall in Washington, DC where it is tiring in the summer to walk from the Capitol all the way to the Lincoln Memorial
• Rentals on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City

  Hmm, it seems most of the market would involve rentals of some sort ...

[dfwgator]

The Segway is like a pogo stick. There is no way to look cool on one.

[SauronOfMordor]

I have been in a few situations where I wished I could rent one of them. I like the idea, but thought the $4500 price was economic suicide. Hardly anyone will purchase them at that price. From the looks of the thing and the general overall elements that has been revealed to the public, it seems like the units could be manufactured for a lot less than what would demand the $4500 price. It looks right now like this is doomed.

The Segway may occupy a similar historical niche as Apple's "Lisa" computer: introduced in 1983, it used a mouse and GUI interface. But with a price tag of $9,995, it failed in the marketplace. The ideas in Lisa, however, resulted in a second attempt a couple of years later which WAS a success: the Apple Macintosh computer.

The Segway will probably die out as a failure, but somebody down the road will use a lot of ideas from it to develop something that will be better able to fill a viable market niche

[Core_Conservative]

I know that the parking lot attendants use them at Disney. They would not be safe enough in the park for someone else to ride - too crowded. I've already seen enough accidents with just skateboards and manual scooters.

[Aquinasfan]

What Kamen should have done to promote the product was to sell a bunch of them to amusement/theme parks to be rented out for the day. People would have lined up to rent them - how many people come home from amusement/theme parks early because they are dog-tired after walking several miles in the hot sun?

Excellent idea. The only downside I see would be people bumping into each other. Maybe they could limit the top speed in those applications.

[RobFromGa]

Ten more of the machines were purchased for $9,000 each by the city's Ambassador Force,

They could have got them for $4950 each at Amazon for a quantity of 1. For Ten, you would have figured maybe a 10% discount.

Oh, I forgot, it wasn't their money they were spending. It was ours.

[discostu]

I liked Kamen, until he started spouting that his motorscooter with a thyroid condition would change the world. I lost all respect for him then. The day after Segway was made public I said it would be an abject failure. Glad to see I still have a grasp of the obvious.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

It's the perfect vehicle to ride to your obesity suit against McDonald's. Other than that it has limited applications.

[smith288]

I was hoping for some type of new fuel or something. Like "Cars can run 100 miles on 1 gallon of tap water with my new invention!". It was hyped up like society was about to change for the better. World peace was iminent, AIDs, Cancer and Alzheimers was cured...

but no...I got a lame two wheeled go-gay scooter that wouldnt last a week in Ohio.

[discostu]

Kamen already made that invention http://www.msnbc.com/news/285231.asp?cp1=1

It's really cool and predates the Segway. Still costs an arm and a leg but is definitely worth it.

[discostu]

While the Segway has failed I've noticed more of those Razor style scooters with a lawnmower engine pushing the back wheel. Those will do anything the Segway will do with a few advantages:
significantly cheaper, like around 1/40 the cost (depending on which of the seemingly random prices you select for the Segway)
Lighter, easier to carry when you run out of juice
Runs on gas, easier to not run out of juice
Isn't twice as wide as a person, doesn't increase sidewalk congestion
Doesn't look as dorky, still looks dorky but not THAT dorky
During my childhoood a friend with the old fashioned foot scooter rigged a way to tow a Red Rider, pretty sure it would work with the gas powered ones which means these things actually have a hauling capacity

[js1138]

I'm aware of the iBot, but there are tens of thousands of people who are able to stand and walk, but only with difficulty. Given a choice, would you rather go shopping standing up or confined to a chair?

I guess the lesson here is don't invent any new and expensive toy on the eve of a major recession. Perhaps the technology is just ahead of its time and hasn't found the killer app.

[smith288]

I dont have a problem with the Segway as an invention in itself... But the huge publicity it got when no one even knew what it was was rediculous. If its going to change the world, then it had better do it...otherwise, its a huge letdown. ala, the segway.

Those little motorized scooters are loud. They sound like mini chainsaws.

[discostu]

But if one has problems with standing and walking then one no longer has a choice, even the Segway requires you to stand and to flex, unless the problem is specifically with the impact of walking semi-ambulatory people won't be better off with Segway than without it. At least with the iBot you can elevate up to normal eyelevel.

The recession has nothing to do with it. The lesson is don't invent an overpriced toy with zero practical application and promise the world it will be revolutionary. The technology of the Segway isn't particularly exciting, it's just gyroscopes used as control mechanisms, same way autopilots work. The problems with the Segway are: too big, too expensive, too heavy, too short a range, only really usable by people who don't need it. Make it not much bigger than a person, reduce the weight to 20 lbs, double it's range and sell it for less than a grand and you've got something that's actually useful and would sell.

[discostu]

Yeah the two draw backs to the motorized scooters are the noise and the fumes, if they start taking off though expect that to change (can't be too hard to add a muffler to the beast).

[unixfox]

To prepare for the onslaught, Kamen leased a 77,000-square-foot factory near his home in Manchester...

Don't count your chickens before they hatch?

Sounds like this "genius" doesn't have much common sense.

[Glenn]

even the Segway requires you to stand and to flex

I'm seriously considering finding one to try out. A chemical labyrinthectomy has left me with only one gyroscope in my head for balance. I'm wondering if this puppy will get me mobile again. If it did, it would be worth the money.

[steve-b]

The bottom line is still that this contraption is too big and fast to ride on the sidewalk and too small and slow to ride in the street.

It might have some utility for warehouses and such if the price can be brought down a bit.