IS The SEDGEWAY Scooter a FLOP?

Great Debates
21

Then what did you base it on? Is it just a “I heard/read it once but can’t remember where. . .” type of thing, or can you provide a cite? Can you find the entry in any dictionary? Even if you can’t, it doesn’t much matter. Language is fluid and ever-changing, so there is no such thing as a complete dictionary. I also find language quite entertaining.

Also, I have ridden one of these things. Some guy had one at a party I spun at last year. They are pretty neat, but not cool for the overcrowded streets of NYC (where I live). At the time, it was discussed how cool it would be to play polo on on a bunch of the SPMs. Someone must have been listening, but they went with soccer instead. The first Human’s on Segways vs. Robotic Segways Soccer Match kicks off in March. There is some betting going on about how long it will take to come up with a robotic soccer team that can beat a human one. Based on the work being done on Asimo, QRio, all those bots from Robot Wars, and all of these Segway based machines, my guess would be in the next five or ten years. The Robotic Age is not too far off. Cheap advanced robot assistants will be common place before too long. Robotic soldiers are coming. In 20 years the Robot Wars will look like cage matches between Terminators. I can’t wait . . .

DaLovin’ Dj

22

The Segway actually may take off as a device for people with mobility impariments like MS. I can’t see it getting general use either, but then they don’t really seem to have pushed for that as of yet. No advertising campaign, no widespread availability. How can something flop if it was never really launched in the first place?

[q]Unfortunately, last I checked, they were going for about $20,000[/q]

For a medical device with insurance-aided financing, this is not necessarily all that bad. Electric wheelchairs in general are by no means cheap:

http://www.1800wheelchair.com/on2003asp/products.asp?CatID=337

You can easily get a nice used car for how much these regular chairs cost.

23

When I first heard about the Sedgeway, I was kind of hoping it would be a flop. It seems people get very little exercise as is, so a device that means you no longer even have to do daily walking (around the office, out to the car, over to get lunch, etc.) wouldn’t be a great idea.

24

I would put my killer robots on treads so they could roll over piled up dead bodies.
:slight_smile:

25

Kamen’s original announced target, the number they designed the factory around, was 100,000 Segways per year to start.

In the 2 years or so since it was introduced, according to the recall, they’ve sold roughly 6,000.

So yes, from a marketing and sales standpoint, it is most assuredly and quite definitely both a flop and a failure.

However, as others have noted, the technology is by no means useless- the Segway itself may never become more than an idle curiosity or an aid to those with certain disabilities, but the technology (which, to be perfectly honest isn’t all that revolutionary, it’s simply a well-done collection and adaptation of otherwise relatively conventional technology) and the self-balancing system will probably prove useful in the future.

26

I think Kamen should have talked to Sir Clive Sinclair first.

27

I’m not sure that we can tell yet. Revolutionary ideas take a while to catch on and may need to change hands before they do. (Thinking of things like automobile, personal computer, even GUI (Graphic-User-Interfaces for computers)).
On the other hand, the amount of hype the concept recieved before the actual machine was unveiled bordered on the rediculous and the actual utility seems questionable. Still, give it twenty years, and who knows?

28

A wonderful machine none the less. Too heavy to lug up the stairs, too small to carry much of a load, too expensive for my taste.

Like the scooter craze this too shall pass.

65+ yeasrs ago we (kids) fashioned scooters from a 2x4 the front and rear halves of one skate, and a orange crate. Wore the out and built more.

Beware he who makes vast plans based on half-vast ideas.

29

How is the hula hoop a “flop”? It’s a toy that works exactly as designed, enjoyed a brief fad of popularity in the '50s, and then was relegated to the status of an ordinary toy-store staple. I had one in the '70s, and I’ll bet I could still buy one today at Toys-‘R’-Us.

30

Probably.

I personally don’t see the point of it.

It goes too slow to be useful on roads, it’s too dangerous for sidewalks, it’s too expensive unless you really need it(I imagine for some kind of disability where you can stand but can’t walk), it’s too heavy to be lugging around much.

I also have reservations considering all these reports I keep hearing about an obesity epidemic and in that respect, most people need to be exercising more, not less. Personally, I find it easier to walk then to stand, so relief of sore feet seems to be out. Inter-city transport? A good bike and/or mass transit pass it likely more useful in all respects.

31

Eh, the electric bicycle/moped known as the eGO scooter seems like a better bet if you want to get around town faster or farther than walking but without the sweat of pedaling a bike. Carries cargo, goes 15–20 mph, cleaner than conventional scooter or moped, all for about a thousand bucks. (There’s even a solar-chargeable version, the WeGO.)

I agree that a device that allows people to walk even less than the small amount they do now has definite drawbacks. But let’s be realistic—for many people (including the exercise-averse, the mobility-impaired, and urban commuters in good suits or high heels), the choice is never going to be between driving and walking: the only possible choice is going to be between driving and using some smaller, more efficient, less polluting powered vehicle. The Segway may not catch on—I never really liked the idea of faster-than-foot-traffic vehicles on sidewalks anyway—but something of the sort certainly should.

32

Good thinking. And you could have actual legs that can extend out of the bottom of the robot, so it would have the option of walking or it could retract the legs and just use the treads. And we shoud put little rocket boosters on the side like R2-D2 so he can just fly over particularly large piles of bodies. And some thermo-nuclear mines, so he could just obliterate enemies without the worry of leaving any bodies. And a giant flaming sword . . .

Ouch. Talk about a groaner. Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. I quoted you, anyone want to make a sketch of this joker?

DaLovin’ Dj

33

IF you didn’t catch it in earlier posts this refers to the vast plans for production, how enthusiastic everyone was, the promise of powering IT or Ginger with a non-poluting engine, etc. promises promises, & still more promises that never became reality. Had to rename it to escape the connection to all the promises, and priced too high for any real ‘everymans’ sales potential.

How about a sketch of you?

ruasa2? :eek:

34

It seems to me that the Segway manufacturers are also artificially limiting their market by still only selling in the US. According to the this page of a determined German early adopter prospective foreign buyers must jump through hoops to obtain a Segway; among other things it seems a two-hour familiarization course is required and that is only available in certain US locations.

It might be a mistake of them to forgo the markets of less litigious countries (scroll down on the page for pictures of what happened to that user when a shopping bag dropped under a wheel and the Segway stayed upright but sharply turned by 120°, possibly as he speculates by a software bug. Did he announce to sue the manufacturer? Of course not, would be unreasonable.)

35

Oh, I understood perfectly. I was just giving you a playful ribbing for the groan-inducing “half-vast” - “half-assed” pun. Your points regarding the dangers of believing one’s own hype, and the perils of over-confidence (without a solid business plan) are all well and good. I agree. But there is no excuse for bad puns.

Really, I was just playing around. No offense or attack intended on my part.

Sounds good, just remember, according to Dickens there are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk. Make mine a smirk if you don’t mind . . .

36

Mangetout mentioned the eccentric English inventor (Sinclair)…what’s happened to this guy? I remember him as the man who came out with:
-very TINY calculators (that ate batteries at a furious rate)
-a tiny personal TV set (that didn’t sell)
-a PC (the Z-80?) that was of rather limited abilities (no hard drive)
-an electric car that had a range of about 5 miles (with suitable tailwinds)
Sir Clive is everybodie’s favorite inventor! he seems to have lost his shirt on just about every product he’s comeup with! Maybe Sir Clive ought to join up with Ron Popeil (the famous American inventor of useless inventions)! :cool:

37

American Heritage Dictionary’s entry is “incomplete” as well:

Now then – supe up may be a perfectly legitimate non-standard spelling. Perhaps it is a “jargonistic” spelling used within certain circles. But no dictionary has yet seen fit to endorse the “supe” spelling as of yet.

38

A search on Google shows 85,000 hits for “souped-up”, and about 11,000 for “suped-up”. Apparently, some here have managed to avoid ever seeing the latter spelling before.

Surprisingly, there does seem to be a dearth of dictionary entries for “suped-up”, even though this spelling makes more sense to me. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so: Word Detective. I’ll continue to use “suped-up”, but the rest of y’all have my leave to carry on just as you please.

It’ll be interesting to see what Dean Kamen comes up with next; he seems to have a knack for discarding preconceptions and looking at a problem in a new way.

39

I like the word detective site. Pretty cool. This is a tough one, as apparently the phrase “souped up” was coined at roughly the same time that superchargers were invented. In the 1920s the term “souped up” was being used to describe doped race horses, and conicidentaly the first supercharger was invented in 1923 by Ferdinand Porche (cite). So when some guy said “Hey let’s soup up the Ford!” some other guy said “Why not use a supercharger?” Technology and slang overlapped to create a coincidence that sidetracks conversation to this day. Fun stuff.

There is no “correct” way to use language, so I guess this is a draw. An interesting one though . . .

40

It’s kind of a cool vehicle and all, but come on. Remember the pre-release hype? Jeff Bezos and other visionary-types falling all over themselves declaring it was going to be “big, bigger than the internet”, the whole “cities will be redesigned” string of comments, and on and on.

It’s a scooter. Yes, the gyroscopic stabilization is cool, but its little more than an interesting gimmick; it doesn’t really accomplish anything new. If anything, a vehicle you stand on is going to be less practical than one you sit on, simply because you get fatigued riding it more quickly.

It’s slow, too. Top speed of 12mph? Uh, thats nowhere near fast enough for use on any roads, not that you’d want to ride such a thing on a public road, anyway. So maybe you can use it on sidewalks, right? Nope, people fell overthemselves to ban them from use on public sidewalks.

It’s expensive. It costs $4500. You can buy a very nice used car for $4500, which you can actually use to transport yourself for long distances. Why would you buy this, other than as a toy? Kamen is claiming these are going to be “everyman” vehicles; how is this supposed to happen? What “everyman” would buy an expensive, slow, electrical scooter over a car?

If the Segway cost, say, $1000, it might be more reasonable. $4500 is WAY too much for the product to ever reach a large customer base. The only thing most people buy that costs that much is their car and their home; what are the chances of them adding something of such limited use to this category?

So, to sum up: its kinda cool, but its definitely a flop. If it hadn’t been brilliantly hyped, nobody would even be talking about it.