Segway scooter bombing, some sales numbers
 

Segway's Breakdown

Inventor Dean Kamen promised that his superscooter would change the world. Then reality hit - hard.

Before he'd sold a single one, Kamen blithely forecast that by the end of 2002, his enterprise would be stamping out 10,000 machines a week. Meanwhile, his best-known backer, venture capitalist John Doerr, predicted Segway would rack up $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history.

Segway officials acknowledge their factory sat largely idle last year but refuse to disclose specific sales or production figures. "My sense is they're producing 10 per week," University of Pennsylvania professor Karl Ulrich estimated near the end of 2002.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/segway.html

I think those revenue forecasts were made during the dotcom days. Hy-Wire vehicles on the other hand... gimmie.

how much are those things anyways..? looks fun to ride around on drunk/stoned..

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...559856-2047218


$5000.

I think they would have a hard time making their sales forecasts if the price was $499.

for 500 i would get one

Same. That's about all it's worth to anyone. I can see it being good for mailmen, meter maids, etc, but no self respection person is going to drive that thing to work every day. People would buy them as a toy if they were less than $1000, but at 5k it's basically like buying a cheap used car.

Is it just me that pictured an arab terrorist with a backpack full of explosives riding a Segway?

I would feel like a dick scooting around on one of those things...

Exactly. If they were under $500.00 they'd be selling like mad. Plus, when they first went on sale, wasn't there a big deal about them NOT being available to the general public for a couple of years? I think a lot of people quickly lost interest when they saw both the price tag and the non-availability.

Lets see...

Costs almost as much as a car.

Only usable in good weather.

No cargo space.

No space for additional passengers.

Were do you park it? You can't just use a bike lock, because for $5k its going to be stolen.

Its got a very limited range and limited speed.

No headlight so only usable during the day (I may be wrong about this).

Seems useless as a real means of transportation. Its more like a bike but without the exercise benefit and about 10-20 times the cost.

Saw some punk on one the other day! Think I just might have to jack his ass and try it out for a year or two!

:glugglug

that's damn near a lot of automobile production... they thought they could compete with car production? lol.

Maybe in Europe. When I was in Amsterdam everyone there rode a bike. Maybe the people there would get this instead of riding a bike...but for $500. Not for $5k

Dean Kamen is from Manchester, I see the scooters downtown, HIS EMPLOYEES riding them
they are a joke for $5k

I liked this line

"Kamen has been trying for more than a decade to develop an external-combustion engine."

WTF?

Its called a Stirling Engine...

Stirling Engine Home Page
Stirling Engines

Oh come on. It's new, it hasn't reached critical mass for production where they can acheive some of the benefits of Economies of Scale.

It's not targeted to replace the car. It's for people who live in dense urban areas that commute less than 10mi to work.

You have to remember that outside the United States the percentage of people who own cars drops dramatically. In places like Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, NYC is where I think these will go into widespread use first.

As the pricepoint continues to drop you will see increased acceptance of these devices.

Something has to give, you can't just continue to add more and more cars to a finite number of spaces on the roads. I think segways combined with light rail will make a huge difference in congested cities.

I'm waiting to see an ultradense city begin raising pedestrian walkways that completly cover the street, allowing cars to have additional lanes where the sidewalks are, and getting the "first floor" of buildings moved up to the pedestrian level.

As for the external combustion engine, I don't know why we're all still driving cylinder based four stroke engines. They're terribly inefficent.

Check out the rotary engines at http://www.moller.com

Good luck Dean Kamen and Deka. Can't wait until I see some of the iBot wheel chairs being used.

don't know much about the Moller engines, but i've had a love-affair w/ the Wankel rotary for over 10 years now. mmm, FD3S..!

its a bust. The way the thing was hyped up as being the greatest invention ever, I thought it was going to be some type of hover vehicle or something. useless