Spoke: I did some thinking about those types of uses. Trip to the video store? When I get a video, I usually stop in there on my way home from work. Run out at night for milk? Sure, there are a number of convenience stores near me, with the closest being about a mile away. So I hop on my Segway, and suddenly my quick milk run to the store eats up probably a half hour of my evening. (12 mph max speed. Average speed much lower because of time taken going over curbs, up hills, parking and locking the thing up, etc.
If I take my bike, I’ll be there and back in half the time. If I drive, the whole thing takes about 10 minutes. And anyway, plenty of studies have shown that people will tend to drive to a destination even just a few blocks away, because it’s just so much easier and faster than walking. It’s not so much laziness as it is a desire to just get the task done. And the people who DO walk instead of drive tend to do so for the exercise benefit, and not because it’s a better solution. But the Segway has no exercise benefit. So explain to me again why I would want to take one to the store instead of driving my car? What, to save 15 cents in gas? My time is worth a lot more than that!
I live in the suburbs, so other than my local convenience store, ANY other trip pretty much means five miles or more, and my Segway is a giant pain in the ass. Let’s say I have a friend who lives 5 miles away. That’s almost an HOUR of standing on a platform to get there and back, vs about 15 minutes by car. I would never, ever do this. If I wanted an alternative method of transportation, a motorcycle or bicyle makes WAY more sense, for a lot less money.
For this benefit I’m paying $3,000?
And no, we’re not all old crotchety people, but many of us are no longer students or single people with oodles of time on our hands. I have a family and a zillion commitments. I have a hard enough time finding an hour in the day to sit down and read the SDMB, and I’m supposed to waste a couple of hours a day standing on a $3,000 moving platform? Ain’t gonna happen. Ever.
I represent a much larger constituency than the young students or single adults do. And people like me have a ton of political clout. So you aren’t going to see the cities being modified to accomodate your Segway, which means it’ll be useless. Because you can’t drive it on the road, and IF they let it be driven on the sidewalk it will be with severe speed limits that will probably make the Segway more of a hassle than just walking.
I’m excited about this thing, but for niche markets. These things would be GREAT for University campuses, military bases, large factories, and for mobile workers like beat cops and postal carriers. And that’s such a huge market that the company is gearing up production for 40,000 units a month, just for industrial use! If they are right about that much demand, this will be the most popular vehicle in the world soon. Every factory will have a few of them sitting around for people to hop on when they need to get across the floor. Every university professor will have one to get from class to class. Groundskeepers and maintenence men will have them.
They might even be the new Golf Cart - hang the clubs on the front, and off you go. Maybe these things will be multi-purpose enough to make owning one a reasonable decision. If I can use it as a golf cart and never have to rent again, that’s a factor. And maybe I can take it on trips for use sight-seeing. And then maybe my kid can use it to get back and forth to the friend’s place before supper. There might be enough uses like that to make owning a Segway a reasonable decision for me. Hell, I could ‘power walk’ the dog, keeping up a good speed for her to get real exercise. That’s tricky to do on a bike, but might be easy on a Segway. So they WILL make their way into many homes.
And I may buy one for my mother, who is the prototypical example of someone who really COULD benefit from one of these - she’s 65, she never learned how to drive, and therefore she’s completely dependent on others to get her around. She’s healthy enough to walk and take the bus, but old enough that walking to the corner store or a friend’s place is a lot of effort and leaves her sore later. If she had a Segway, her immediate circle of mobility would expand by a factor of three, allowing her to really get around easily to the corner store, a friend’s place, or just tool around the neighborhood to get some fresh air.
As people age and start to lose mobility, there comes a point at which they don’t need a wheelchair yet, but getting around has started to become difficult. The Segway could fill that gap at a reasonable cost. That is a major life improvement for those people, and they are typically the ones who can afford to buy one. There’s another few hundred thousand units in sales.
So I’m not down on the thing - I think it will be a hugely successful product. It just won’t be a mass people mover, and it will NEVER cause automobiles to become extinct, even in crowded city centers.
