Remember the Segway was going to be the best thing since sliced bread?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeper/cst-nws-roep30.html

Segway's flawed design goes beyond the recall

"{The Segway} will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy." -- Segway inventor Dean Kamen, interview with Time magazine, Dec. 10, 2001.

"The maker of the Segway Human Transporter has agreed to recall the motorized scooters because riders have been injured falling off when its batteries are low." -- From CBSNews.com, Sept. 26, 2003.

Guess we might want to hold off on that whole Segway-car-horse-and-buggy comparison for a while.

When the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the Segway recall last Friday, the most embarrassing thing to the manufacturer wasn't the fact that three people had been injured when their Segways powered down, but the revelation that only 6,000 of the personal transportation devices have been sold since it was introduced in December 2001.

Not that we hadn't already guessed that Segway sales were less than stellar. Put it this way: How many Segways do you see during your typical day?

As Wired magazine's Gary Rivlin noted in an interview with NPR last June, "In 2001, {Kamen} was promising {sales of} 40,000 a month. I think in its first year on the market he would have been lucky if he sold a few hundred. It's really been a total bust so far."

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[larryepke]

1. Well...

now the Republicans have an excuse to use if anyone brings out the pic of Boy George falling off of his!

[Akbar]

2. I Wonder What Would Have Happened

If everyone hadn't started driving cars six months after they had been introduced.

[bif]

3. Never seen one out there

n/t

[Akbar]

4. I See One Every Day

Under my feet on the way to and from the office. It's like flying!

[DCDemo]

6. I see one almost every day

A guy in my bldg has one and goes all around on it....but he honestly could walk, he live close and it's realy a toy for him and nothing more.

[dani]

8. I've never seen one either

My thoughts on them are: they're silly compared to a bicycle. But maybe I should actually see one in person before I condemn them.

One thing I've wondered about, how do you ride them around on a narrow city sidewalk with the wide footprint, don't the wheels crash into stuff?

[Akbar]

13. The Footprint Is Not That Large

Getting around obstacles is quite easy because the thing can turn on a dime (you can turn 360 degrees in place). The machine is about as wide as my shoulders.

Getting around people is tricky. I live in one of the busiest blocks in D.C. You have to say "excuse me" a lot. People don't have to stop (though they do), they simply have to refrain from swaying too much.

The trickiest obstacles are uncivil pedestrians who go out of their way to block the sidewalk. I've been surprised at how many people do this, though the vast majority of people are nice, considerate, and interested in the machine. I don't know how many times I've heard someone tell me "Hey, you got one of those things!"

[Maple]

5. A few people injured

and they recall it?

How many are injured or killed in car accidents each year, and they aren't recalled.

Silliness.

[BiggJawn]

7. Programming error...

The thing relies on a horizontal flywheel for stability. the battery was going flat too quickly or the drive motors were still active after the flywheel had started to spool down or something.

I'm not for knowing, but I'd be for guessing that the "software fix" they came up with cuts the drive motors out before the flywheel motor starts to fail. Can't go anywhere, but it won't fall over.

[Akbar]

9. Here's What Happened

The machine's software senses a low-battery condition. When you're getting to the point that the batteries are running out, the machine starts to run very slowly, no matter how far you lean into it. If you continue to run the battery down, the machine will start to shake, informing you it's time to get off. You get off, turn it off, drag it a ways to generate some power, ride it until the slowdown occurs again, repeat and rinse.

The recall problem had to do with a situation where a surge of power was required. The particular problem occurs if you're relatively low on power (but not to the slowdown or stick-shake situation) and you accelerate to the max. You accelerate by leaning toward the control shaft. You accelerate to the max by leaning into the control shaft, which you're not supposed to do.

The software flaw had to do with the quick acceleration requiring more power than seemed to be available. What was happening was that the machine was simply shutting down. The result is that the machine falls forward and you fall back.

Those of us with the new post-recall software cannot reproduce the problem. The software now regulates us so that we cannot accelerate too quickly when the power is low.

[dfong63]

14. actually, cars do get recalled because of safety problems

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. this guy's a victim of bad timing

Had he come out with this thing in 1998, when the internet and dot-com boom was hot, this might have caught on.

But in a Bush economy? Who's gonna want to plunker down the big $$$ for THAT!?!

[dfong63]

15. it wasn't just that

i'm glad the thing flopped. having the sidewalks overrun by motorized vehicles would not be a good thing.

[Akbar]

17. This is Why

Vehicles of this nature are eventually going to require modification of the infrastructure. In the city, there's an awful lot of pavement dedicated to automobile traffic. Eventually, it might make sense to slice this up to be shared by bicycles and personal transport vehicles. As more people move into smaller vehicles, less space would be needed in the cities for cars.

From my experience with the Segway, the suburbs won't need much modification--no one uses the sidewalks!

[tridim]

11. I thought it would be a good idea

before it was released when Steve Jobs and all the CEO's were wacking off to it. When it finally came out I realised it was poorly conceived and pointless for the average citizen, it was pure hype. It's really just a glorified scooter like the ones old people use. Americans are fat enough already, we should be walking more, not less.

The only good thing about it, is that it made Bush look like a jackass. Not that I needed convincing.

[buff2]

12. Well.......it could have been a good thing.....

But since the presi-DUNCE fell off his,now they have to figure out how to make "segways for dummies". :evilgrin:

[baldguy]

16. What's so great about sliced bread?

The Segway is a scooter. It's an expensive, high tech rich boys toy scooter, buts it's still just a scooter.

[Akbar]

18. Obviously, You've Never Been on One

It's a lot more fun to ride than a scooter, and not as much work!

[Maple]

19. Bush fell off one

That killed it

And you all go merrily along with it.

[amazona]

20. it was silly

It was never gonna replace the car, never gonna happen. How do you get your groceries on that thing? The old-fashioned bicycle is a better invention. Hell, even a horse and buggy is more practical.


they should have asked someone who actually had to go places and do things to critique their invention