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+--- Thread: Speaking of a segway... (/showthread.php?tid=13887)
Speaking of a segway... - robkelk - 07-07-2020
Segway was the 'device of the future,' in the perfect moment to succeed. So why did it fail?
tl;dr: too high-tech, too expensive, too many high-profile crashes
RE: Speaking of a segway... - Labster - 07-07-2020
Some things not mentioned here, but brought up in a recent Hacker News discussion:
We don't have infrastructure for Segways. We have sidewalks, where people want to walk 2-5 km/h, and bicycle lanes, where bicycles want to go 25 km/h, and traffic lanes, where cars want to go 40+ km/h. None of these are good for the Segway, which has a top speed around 15 km/h. The wide profile left them with nowhere to go in existing infrastructure, outside of security applications like parking lots and malls.
There was a learning curve to using the Segway. Electric scooters are dead simple to use. As a city transportation device, an electric bicycle is faster and more efficient -- and uses existing infrastructure. So they essentially got out-competed in most similar markets based on features alone and ignoring the Segway's high price.
The quality of a Segway was really high -- so high that they didn't sell any new ones to existing customers. It was built with redundant systems for safety, which commodity e-bikes and e-scooters don't need. Once the best markets were saturated -- security and disability mobility -- there was nowhere to grow.
RE: Speaking of a segway... - Rajvik - 07-07-2020
add to that, there was no use for them, (unlike E-bikes and scooters) in the more rural areas. their only place of use was in urban areas
RE: Speaking of a segway... - Black Aeronaut - 07-07-2020
I think that what was really the final nail in the coffin was when one of the company owners was killed in an accident involving one of the off-road models. Apparently he rode it right over a cliff and into a ravine.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-europe/t/segway-company-owner-rides-scooter-cliff-dies/
RE: Speaking of a segway... - Star Ranger4 - 07-07-2020
.... That boggles the mind, BA