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Buy a Segway... Please
aedunn writes "Wired has an article about everyone's favorite Human Transporter - Segway. Seems as though the company is looking at some hard times. Among other things, the article cites Segway's price, low speed and tightened spending in the corporate world as reasons for Segway's slow sales."
knew this was going to happen. It's the dotcom bubble all over again; useless products at high prices, with expectations inflated by hype and spin. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
That they're rather pointless and only marginaly more usefull than a $50 bike?
The fact that you have to STAND while riding a Segway!
If they just stuck a seat on it everything would be different.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
The Segway, no matter how advanced it is, is not something people were anxious to have. Maybe there are uses for it, but people don't see them, and they don't want them.
Toss in the down economy, and it's no surprise.
I don't think the plans for selling Segway were any more than "it's so cool and the guy behind it has a great reputation," and that is NOT enough.
It's basic economics.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Its funny, if he hadn't had such high expectations, he could have a small but profitable and growing company, it sounded like he had orders for 10 per week or 520 per year, if he had not leased a 70,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility, and planned to revolutionize the world selling thousands a week, which increased his fixed costs, and the numbers he needed to sell to be profitable, this would be a completely different story. Google did it right, grow at a sustainable rate, and do not try to get too big too fast.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Anothe strike against the company, backlash from all the hype. We were promised an earth shattering, mind blowing, world changing "it" of an invention. "Something people would design cities around." Instead we get an expensive scooter that you can't take with you on public transit, use on many city streets, drive on the street, or fit in your car to take with you. After a year of magical mystery hype about this wonderful invention and "leaks" about the nature of it, even if it cost $50, I'd probably not buy one out of spite.
A company with an overpriced useless product and no business plan is having trouble surviving. Film at 11.
Actually, he had a business plan. He makes accessibility machines for people who are disabled. His stair climbing machine, Fred Estaire, gave rise to the name of Segway, "Ginger". The plan was basically this - selling Fred Estaires to disabled people restricts your target market. Ginger could be marketed to anyone, so the market would be immensely larger. The flaw is that this equipment is expensive to design and manufacture, which makes its price point well outside the range of what fully mobile people would consider paying for a simple vehicle. Disabled people will spend four figures on something that restores lost mobility and independence. Other people won't drop that much cash on what is for them a toy.
This is the dead on truth. When I first saw the unveiling of the Segway my immediate thought was, "This will be great for the disabled" and NOT, "Wow I can't wait to ride on that thing!"
Kamen erred in attempting to mass market an invention that occupies a niche in the entire scheme of things. Add to that fact design flaws like low top speed, crummy battery life and you have a piece of overpriced junk.
Look - the Segway is an attempt to alleviate the total unmitigated disaster that is modern automotive traffic.
If you could all be so kind as to take a step back.. waaayyy back. Think of cars, particularly in cities. The fatalities. The noise. The pollution. The cost. The traffic. The space they take up. Were a self-respecting geek to examine this system from above, encountering it for the first time, I imagine they would recoil in horror. I can't see it as anything but a giant cluster-fuck.
Look at New York, downtown. Practically everyone living there would tell you that traffic is nigh-on impossible. But still, we tolerate it. We love our cars. We cannot give them up, not now, not ever... in fact, we want bigger ones!
People will not come to terms with the fact that the responsible thing to do is to explore these options. We simply must.
Now, I am fully aware of the Segway's limitations. Obviously it has problems with inclement weather, battery life, etc. Again, I must remind the reader that this is the first of it's kind. The arguments presented against the Segway are often ludicrous:
- "i can't use my hands".. you can't when you drive either
- "i've gotta stand up".. that's part of the point, they take up less room
- "they'll kill people on sidewalks".. amazing, this argument. It's a total non-starter. Anyone on rollerblades or a bike is much more of a danger.
Come on! We are the ones who should be embracing this! Who's gonna convince Kamen to invent the Segway you really want? You know, the chariot version, that gets 5x the distance, and is 1/5 the price? It cannot get here by itself.
I'm sorry for the rant, but frankly the blank-faced pessimism disgusts me. Where is your sense of wonder, Slashdot? Don't be like those fucking lemmings who close the case on new technology before it's even been tried.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
At 80 pounds how do you get it out of your car's trunk? "It's easy," Smith chirps. "I grab one side and get a friend to lift the other."
Tell those engineers to put away the happy pills.
Dean Kamen designed some incredibly sophisticated electronics and computer controls that do the job of a third wheel.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Kamen's wheel chair design is excellent and well worth the money for the disabled, since it gives them much greater access to the existing infrastructure by allowing them to climb stairs. And it lets look people in the eye too, which I guess is good.
Unfortunately with all they hype, the statements that Ginger aka IT would "change the way future cities are designed," good ideas like the wheelchair were lost in the typical dot-com boom of investors trying to join the revolution. Unfortunately revolutions in urban design don't happen, cities are big and people don't like to redesign them very often. (I'd argue that this is why fuel cell/electric/gas/etc. cars will be a long time in coming.)
The amazing thing is that people "in the know" about what "IT" were willing to join the hype. Oh, well just call this natural evolution in business...
credo quia absurdum
I think that the 'angry' responses are from people who would buy one if they could easily afford one - much like linux users who put down macs, while secretly drooling over one.
Did it deserve the huge media hype? Does American Idol? Probably not. Will it make you fat? No. Will cities tear out roads to accomadate it? No. Was it overhyped? Yes. Is there any reason to kick it when its down? No.
The Segway seems to be a good product that is trying to fill a niche. Since it *is* overpriced, and fighting a cultural battle (SUVs driven to get the mail at the end of the driveway), it won't do well. I think the idea is ahead of its time. Change the way cities are built? Maybe. But not now.
Just remember, the Segway didn't have sex with your mom. I did.
What's wrong with the Hummer H2, and what about it would make the buyer an idiot?
Well, we are offtopic here, but since you asked...
The H2 is a Chevy Tahoe in some fancy body cladding that they are charging twice the money for. It doesn't have half of the offroad capabilities of the real Hummer (HMMWV), which was selected by the U.S. military because it was the best wheeled offroad vehicle they could get.
So, the people who are buying the H2 are doing it for the look-cool factor, but all they are getting is a minivan that uses three times as much gas. Sure, people might buy the original Hummer for the look-cool factor too, but at least they are getting the real deal.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Its amazon.com page tries in vain to sell it, protesting its uncanny ability to go backwards, go up slopes (gasp!), and even "self balance". The trouble is - people with fully functional legs can do all those things for free right now, and people without generally can't use a segway.
Can your fully functional legs carry you 12 mph for 5 miles?
The self-balance thing is what makes it different from the typical scooter that has a much larger footprint and turning radius, requires active balance by the rider, and generally prevents them from being used by anyone who doesn't have good mobility to begin with.
I fail to understand the hostility in the responses to Segway. Is it really that threatening to people's sensibility that there might be a real alternative to driving cars on short trips or in places where it is too congested to drive a car. Wasn't it like yesterday that they started charging a usage fee for driving in downtown London? I think it was something like US$8 a day just to enter the busiest part of town in a car, and that doesnt' include parking it once you're there.
I could be wrong with the figures but wouldn't a Segway pay for itself in a couple years if you could save $8 a day on that one fee alone? ($5000/8=625)
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
"I fail to understand the hostility in the responses to Segway. "
It looks stupid.
Its the price of a decent (second hand) car.
Battery power is ridiculous.
Large&heavy, so hard to stow away once you get where you`re going.
"wouldn't a Segway pay for itself in a couple years"
A couple of years? A lot of people don't intend on keeping their cars that long. This is new tech - you think they`re going to be working in 2 years? Where can you get one - online? So you can't check them out first? How about repairs. Advertising the company might have helped - I'm pretty well read on this sort of thing and i`ve not heard about them. Well, I heard the name.
Which bit didn't you understand again?
AH, but most of the market with enough expendable income to afford a Segway (upper middle class +) doesn't live in downtown london. They live in the suburbs.
New Jersey/Long Island/Other Major Suburban Areas have alot more room, and most of the people living there own cars that are more than handy enough for getting here and there.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Can your fully functional legs carry you 12 mph for 5 miles?
On a bicycle, easily. On foot, at half that speed easily.
I could be wrong with the figures but wouldn't a Segway pay for itself in a couple years if you could save $8 a day on that one fee alone? ($5000/8=625)
Or you could buy a really really nice bicycle for half that price (or a really nice one for under 1/5 the price). As an added bonus, you wouldn't be a fat lump looking stupid standing on a self balancing Jetsonesque piece of kitch.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
My legs can carry me at 5mph for hours. If the time difference between segway and walking (~20 minutes) in a 5 mile trip really matters that much, I'll drive.
This product is perfect for people who:
-Need to travel 5-10 miles (any less and walking's less hassle and doesn't take much longer)
-Are in enough of a hurry to use powered transport, but not so much of a hurry that they need to drive.
-Are solvent enough to plunk down $5k IN ADDITION TO a car
-Are environmentally conscious enough to bother using this instead of a car
-Live in a flat area (hilly neighborhoods drastically cut battery life)
-Live in an area that doesn't have regular rain or snow
-Live in an area with either wide streets or well-maintained sidewalks
-Can do their travelling in the daytime
-Live in an area without a decent public transportation system
-Lives in and travels to areas that provide a safe place to park a segway
Here in Pittsburgh, there are hills, it rains a lot, it gets dark early this time of year, the roads are narrow and the sidewalks are often cracked, we have a good bus system, and the places that are close enough to reach via a segway don't have any good places to park the thing. I could afford one, and I like the concept, but it's just too much hassle.
If they really want this thing to take off, they'll work with the parking authorities and malls to provide "segway locks" where people can leave their segways while they shop.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
I personally think it's cool, just not $5000 dollars worth of cool. I'd start considering one if it ever got to $300-$500 dollar range. About the cost of a decent bicycle.
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I admit that I'm looking at this from a NY perspective but...
How do you lock the dang things? Can someone just hop on your Segway and drive off? Even if you lock it, can't someone (according to the article) "just lift it into a truck"? And if you got a bicycle lock, where would you attach it?
Considering that, in NYC, most delivery people carry heavy chains and locks and drive beat-up bikes so no one steals them, I can't imagine that the lifespan of a Segway on the New York City streets would be much more than 5 minutes.
"Hey, guys! Come down and see my cool Segway. Hey, where did it go??!!!"