I think it’s a great idea. If you want to go shopping, take your car. This is not replacing cars, it’s replacing walking. You don’t leave it parked outside, you bring it into your office. Raining? Wear a raincoat. People still have to walk in the rain from the bus stop or subway station, a little rain isn’t going to hurt. Pollution, overcrowding - both reduced. I think the future is going to be cars banned from cities. The Segway is perfect for personal transportation.
The video footage I saw this morning (yes, Cazzle I watch Good Morning Australia - and I’m not ashamed of it!) showed some of the Segways with wicker-like bags hooked in front, and stands on the side with briefcases and other bags perched, or attached to them.
(I’m thinking Miss Gulch and that wicker basket Toto jumped out of)
They seemed to mount small curb-size steps without problems, too, and to ride easily through shallow pools of water, without splashing the rider.
I’m entranced and envious.
Redboss
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Great, yet another device that helps Americans exercise less. I’m not all that sure this thing will replace walking anyway. They shouldn’t be driven on sidewalks or inside buildings. I wouldn’t want to see them in areas with heavy foot traffic like Munich, San Francisco, or Disney World.
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I don’t imagine every employer is going to want these things in their office. Imagine the wear and tear they’d cause on carpets or the difficulty involved in people taking them on elevators.
I seriously doubt you’ll see automobiles banned from cities any time soon. You’re more likely to see some sort of automated computer system to keep traffic flowing. And of course modern cars are polluting less and less each year. Automobiles powered by fuel cells aren’t to far in the future.
Marc
I’m just trying to picture being slammed into by a 200 lb man on an 80 lb machine going the speed of a linebacker at full tilt.
And is it just me, or does the front plate of that thing look like it was just MADE for breaking ankles of people who get in the way?
Sometimes inventors with great ideas and great engineering are blinded to the mundane everyday issues that make their invention impractical. The ‘Moller Skycar’ has some impressive engineering in it, and may even fly one day. But it doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of making it in the marketplace, and never will. But the designer is so married to his cool engineering and high concept that he can’t see the trivial little things that make his invention impossible for the masses.
The Segway is full of cool engineering, but to what end? If you want to talk about niche markets, great. This could revolutionize postal carrying, or airport ground ops, or beat police work, but it’ll NEVER be a mass people mover. As soon as there are a few spectacular accidents, the things will be banned from sidewalks, and then they are completely useless because they won’t be allowed on roads either when they can only go 12 mph.
And 12 mph is WAY too slow to make sense as a commuter vehicle. If you live 6 miles from work, are you really going to ride on this thing for 45 minutes, when you could hop in your car and be there in 10, or get on the bus and be there in 20?
And at 80 lbs, even a short flight of stairs will be a show-stopper for most people.
And let’s say you go shopping in one of these things. Can you ever let it out of your sight? What if you have to go to the washroom? If you go into a restaraunt, are they going to let you park it beside your table? If not, are you going to be willing to leave a $3000 device somewhere? A bike lock just ain’t gonna cut it for something this expensive.
And of course, it’ll be a real bummer to ride one to work and have it rain. And in northern countries it’s totally useless in the winter, which means you still need a car for 8-9 months of the year, which means you can’t ‘re-design’ your cities like Kamen wants us to do.
But it’s the accidents and product liability that will ultimately sink this thing. I can just see it now - a guy will lug his Segway up a flight of stairs, hop on it at the top, accidentally lean back a bit, and reverse himself right off the stairs. Or some old lady will walk out of a store and be killed by some guy late for work cruising at full throttle. Then the company will lose a hundred-million dollar lawsuit for advocating exactly this type of use (their web page is full of images of people racing along crowded sidewalks), and the Segway will be no more.
What I see coming from these things is class warfare.
Just think about the class divisions the Razor scooters created on playgrounds, and now contrast that with a similar, very conspicuous $3000 device with somewhat limited (even if practical) use.
It’s a toy of the bourgiousie, but nevertheless I want one.
MGibson, how about efficiency? Why use a 3,000 pound car to move 150 pounds of human flab two miles? Or five miles?
People who walk and bike for fitness will continue to do so, the people who like a ride to their office door will have the Segway. Employers will adapt, and lots of space will be reclaimed by not having to accomodate employee’s cars. Think of the space we could reclaim if cars weren’t allowed in cities!
About the banning of automobiles from cities…maybe not in our lifetime, but I feel it will happen someday soon. So many commuters drive alone in their cars to work each day, wasting both gas and space.
If that were the case, wouldn’t automobiles be dead? I think the human race is smart enough to adapt. Yes, people will get hurt, and some might even die. But what if your great-great-great grandfather had stuck with his horse and buggy and refused to embrace the motor car?
Stoid wrote:
You put a big, deep basket on the front of your Segway (attached to the main handle-bar shaft), and wear a big backpack on your back.
Heck, people transport groceries in their motorcycle saddlebags all the time.
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Same Stone came up with plenty of negative problems that may occur with the Ginger.
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You’re presuming that the Ginger is going to take off. I seriously doubt that it will. I suppose it might be an interesting toy for some people though.
Humans aren’t robots and they aren’t always concerned about being efficent.
Marc
Another vote for excessively-grandstanded expensive toy.
Again, it’s cost is more than prohibitive for most people, it is 80 pounds, easily stolen, will most likely skid on icy sidewalks during the winter. Redesigning a city to the needs of what amounts to a toy is a particularly poor option. Space reclaimed by not using cars – that would be an option if it became popular and economically viable, which for the above reasons, it is not.
As to the comment that it’ll allow people to use mass transit - mass transit is crowded enough (in New York at least) without filling subways and busses with people lugging their 80lb Segway’s around.
I don’t buy the easily stolen thing. You will bring it with you. You won’t be leaving it outdoors while you visit the doctor’s office, browse the library, pick up a gallon of milk. You bring it with you, and ride it the whole time. It will be an extension of your legs. Why is redesigning cities a poor option? Are we still using the dirt roads that were popular 100 years ago? What about the livery stables, blacksmiths, and wagonsmiths that our ancestors couldn’t live without?
You also forget. This is first-generation technology. Think about the first cars versus the first commercially viable automobiles. Think about the Wright Brothers versus the first commercial airplanes.
It is 80 pounds and $3000 now. The computing price will come down in the next few years by where the price will be negligible. Knock off $1500. Then, with demand increasing and fabrication price dropping, say $1000 or less. Better, lighter batteries come out every year and their prices drop as well. Look at what a notebook can do now versus even 5 years ago. Knock a few hundred bucks and a few dozen pounds off.
Next, add innovation. Perhaps sensing devices to prevent accidents. Perhaps built in communication devices. Perhaps faster, more manueverable, and lighter. It has the potential to be big.
Now imagine a place like Ho Chi Minh city, Hyderabad, Manhattan, or Shanghai in 20 years, with cars forbidden in the densest parts of the cities. In place of thousands of cars, motorcycles, and scooters, you have these things. With demand, there will be secure parking for them. It may be nice.
I live in Atlanta, in an in-town neighborhood, and I for one could easily use one of these things to commute to work (at least on nice days, of which Atlanta has plenty). There are bike paths connecting some of the older in-town neighborhoods with downtown, and I can imagine those bike paths filled with Segways during rush hour.
The Segway would pay for itself both by saving on gasoline, and by eliminating the need to rent a parking space downtown.
So for those of us with short commutes in congested areas, it could be very handy.
It would also be a nice alternative for short trips to neighborhood restaurants and stores that are a bit too far away for walking. Bikes are OK for this too, except with a bike, you are restricted in the kind of clothes you can wear, and in an Atlanta summer, you are apt to arrive all sweaty and smelly.
The more I think about it, the more I see why the City of Atlanta seems especially interested in the Segway.
I just wanted to add one more comment to Sam Stone’s post:
The way things are now are not the way things are going to be in the future. With handicap - accessible buildings being the norm in most structures built in these times, stairs could rapidly become a thing of the past. Anywhere a wheelchair can go, a Segway can go. Older buildings with stairs will give way to the stairless buildings of the future.
The argument of “where are they going to go, the sidewalks are crowded enough with people” is kinda lame too, if the city streets become auto free, there will be plenty of room for Segways. Concrete can be modified, with both the current sidewalks and streets becoming large ‘tracks’ for people-powered people movers.
Using a Segway will be as normal as walking on the sidewalk - and I know you aren’t constantly trampling and walking blindly into people as you walk along. Hitting a person with your Segway will be no worse than accidentally walking into them. You say “sorry” and move on.
How sad. We’ve now gotten to the point where we’re too lazy to walk thirty feet from a waiting room to a doctor’s office. I mean, that’s as pathetic as it can possibly be. Why not mount a sofa, a television, and a gigantic potato chip dispenser on it?
I do not think so. Hitting a person on a Segway will put them in the hospital, maybe break bones, and if the person is really old or a child, possibly kill them. Look, the thing goes 12-14 miles per hour; unless you’re an Olympic sprinter, that’s the speed of a healthy adult male’s full run. If I, a man weighing 250 pounds, plus my 80-pound Segway, hit YOU at top speed, you’ll be in the hospital for three days. That’s equivalent to being nailed by an NFL defensive tackle running at full tilt, and you’re not wearing a helmet or pads. You’re not getting up from that.
You can’t have it both ways. Either this thing will make commuting faster or it won’t. If it makes commuting faster, you have to deal with the fact that it’s dangerous. If it won’t make commuting faster there’s no point to owning one, is there? I certainly don’t need one to browse a library.
Now you’re talking!
I agree completely here. Also - if your state laws require a signal device, helmet and lights for the bicycle rider, won’t the Segway’s rider also need those same items?
Segway’s Hyped-up IT (or SHIT if you prefer) is exactly that. An overpriced overhyped piece of shit motor scooter. You want to travel a couple without using a car, try these miracle inventions under $500:
A bike
A skateboard
In-line skates (ie Rollarblades)
Razor scooter
Those odd-shaped lumps at the ends of your legs
FYI, those Segway things are useless in NYC. You would only be able to travel a couple of blocks before getting hit by a taxi or punched in the face by a pedestrian.
More seriously, there may be practical applications other than commuting. After all, no one could figure out what to do with the laser when it was first invented.
Ginger, as we now know it, will not change the world as we know it.
It is, however, a good testing-ground for the technologies it incorporates–like the self-balancing wheels, intuitive steering, and efficient motors that reclaim momentum in braking, thus conserving electric power.
I think it’ll help move forward efforts in designing electric and more fuel-efficient vehicles, but right now it’s a product without any market that I can see.
I live in Queens. My office in Manhattan is 4 miles from my home. I could, conceivably, take this into work and back every day on one charge. But for $3K? Not likely. As others have said, maybe when the price reaches the price of a bike, I might take it. But I wouldn’t want to walk in rain and snow all that way to work, nor ride a bike, nor a motorcycle. It gets cold and sloppy here, and I would rather take the subway, frankly, and only have to walk about 5 blocks total.
It’s a fair-weather vehicle. Maybe it’ll catch on in San Francisco, or Florida, or something, but I can’t see ANY open-air transport revolutionizing travel in a climate that gets tons of cold rain, ice, and snow.
What a strange thing to say. The exercize from walking thirty feet is not appreciable. Using a motorized device is thus a time-saver. Saved time could, perhaps, be used for exercize.
You realize, of course, that healthy people drive cars, too, right? Some of them even drive to the gym! :eek:
I read this whole thread wondering why no one had brought this point up (at least directly…it’s been alluded to here earlier as well).
There is no way in hell this thing would make it in Chicago where I live. I’m also 4 miles from work and could conceivably make it there and back on one charge. However, it rains a lot in Chicago. It snows a lot in Chicago (although oddly not this year yet). The sidewalks are so crowded I might as well be walking as be on a Segway. If I go on the street I have new problems. We have pot holes that could swallow most of the Segway in one gulp. If not the potholes we have cab drivers second in scariness only to New York cab drivers. Regular drivers in Chicago in endless traffic jams can be scary enough. Can you see hordes of Segway-riding people weaving their way between cars, busses, delivery trucks, bicycle riders, potholes, and pedestrians? Add in crummy weather to boot and this thing might make sense on a nice day or two in June at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
So maybe you suggest Segway only lanes like bicycle only lanes. Unfortunately, in Chicago, such lanes are almost universally ignored by motorists (stand on Elston Ave. between Damen and Western to see what I mean). A lot of people are going to get creamed if they show-up here in numbers.
Atlanta has better weather and probably better roads giving the thing a big advantage there. New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, etc. and you can forget about it.
As to cost the Segway has to get cheaper to stand a chance. Taking mass transit in Chicago to and from work costs me about $700/year. It’d take me over 4 years to payoff the Segway with those numbers and that doesn’t account for maintenance costs and the like and also assumes that I’d use the Segway 100% for my commuting (which I think I’ve aleady shown isn’t likely in Chicago).
It looks like fun but it’s more of a novelty than anything else and an expensive one at that. I doubt it’ll be world changing and make the investors richer than God (or at least Bill Gates) as was hyped. They’ll be lucky not to lose their shirts.