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Speaking of a segway...
Speaking of a segway...
#1
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
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
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RE: Speaking of a segway...
#2
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.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
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RE: Speaking of a segway...
#3
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
Wolf wins every fight but the one where he dies, fangs locked around the throat of his opponent. 
Currently writing BROBd

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RE: Speaking of a segway...
#4
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/wo...liff-dies/
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RE: Speaking of a segway...
#5
.... That boggles the mind, BA
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to rock the sky?
Thats' every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry!
NO QUARTER!

No Quarter by Echo's Children
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