You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access our other FREE features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, download files, upload your own photos and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
I was browsing around Slashdot when I came across a discussion about the hard times Dean Kamen's company was having getting Segways to sell. The discussion is based on a Wired article that said the "Segway's breakout year wasn't even a few months old before bad news started to hit."
Some of the problems the company has experienced revolves around it's inability to sell the big corporations who originally were planning to roll them into the hands of their warehouse and delivery staff. The lack of corporate customers leaves Segway marketing to individual consumers. However with a price tag of around $5000 not alot of people are biting.
"Price isn't the only hurdle slowing Segway's consumer launch. Consider this: The vehicle weighs more than 80 pounds and can travel maybe 11 miles on a charge, depending on terrain. Paul Saffo, a director at the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, describes a ride on a Segway as a "gas" but adds that the machine "costs three times what a consumer device should cost, and it's about 40 pounds too heavy." He believes the real Achilles heel is limited battery life. "If they don't come up with a Stirling engine or a killer fuel cell, this thing will go the way of the 128K Mac," says Saffo, whose office is something of a shrine to interesting but failed technologies. (Kamen has been trying for more than a decade to develop an external-combustion engine.)"
Linear Mode
