Mr Segway's difficult path

http://www.economist.com/node/16295592?story_id=16295592

by jlhamilton • 16 years ago

31 19 16 years ago

Aegean• 16 years ago

I may look too arrogant to say this, but I think this guy has a reality check problem.

He still says in 20 years people won't be having cars in cities. I don't see myself going out of the house for daily shopping with something like a segway. A car is comfortable, it has a moving chair, it has a roof, gives you the feeling of a house. I think there would be more car parks than more segways.

You fail a few times with your high-tech ideas and that's OK. After a few times you start to get it, and only look for building something you can sell, or simply make something people want. I think he is still off course with sustainability projects that come with difficult infrastructure problems.

Finally about comparing robotics olympics and real sports: doing sports is cool. You look cool when you play sports and sweat. Also there are the sports heroes that are real people. Do you think majority of people will find it so cool to see fighting robots? Not so sure.

my 2 cents.

pavlov2• 16 years ago

I don't see myself going out of the house for daily shopping with something like a segway.

What about the option of using your feet?

pmccool• 16 years ago

Or a bicycle. I gather there are any number of e-bikes around if pedalling is an issue.

This is what I never understood about the Segway: what does it do that a bicycle of some description cannot?

alextp• 16 years ago

This is actually true. Since moving the last time, I've found that a weekly trip to the farmer's market a few blocks away from home, with a stop in the butcher on the way back, solves 90% of my grocery needs. Beer, cleaning supplies, and grains I get monthly from the supermarket one block away.

Before moving here, I spent a long time making silly plans like carpooling with friends/relatives to shop in huge outlet centers away from the city centre, or looking for web sites where you can shop for groceries online. Living in a walkable neighborhood really changed my sense of perspective.

I live in São Paulo.

forgottenpaswrd• 16 years ago

Well, I think he is right.

Have you ever seen how many people each car have in on cities?.

I made the statistic counting traffic samples with friends(thousands of car samples)in Madrid, Spain.

Over 95%cars had only one person per car. That means moving +1500kg for really moving 75kg. 75/1575= 5% efficiency. We are wasting so much energy, nobody cares because oil is dirty cheap. This will change as oil prices(energy prices) go up.

A super kart could do the same thing cars do on cities moving 75kg of kart, that means 75/150 > 10 times better efficiency. It could use much less road space too(and parking). But some changes are needed to make this practical(individual karts for each person or luggage(autonomous car) if needed).

The classical segway is just nerd and impractical(nobody likes it), but I really love the Segway centaur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ntCYYc7lw

cma2• 16 years ago

Car efficiency isn't directly proportional to mass.

asmithmd12• 16 years ago

He is not worried about selling you anything, he has enough FU money that he takes his own helicopter right from his house to downtown or to the airport where he keeps his jet if he has to go farther.

Do you think "cool" is some property you can measure with an instrument? Cool is whatever we decide is cool.

Society can and does change. Part of his FIRST pitch that resonated with me: 100 years ago Thomas Edison was a cultural hero -- The Wizard of Menlo Park -- delivering miracle inventions year after year. About the same time James Naismith nailed up a peach basket in a gym and called it basketball. Today kids can recite Kobe Bryant's stats in detail yet have no idea who invented the MRI. What do we want the world to look like 100 years from now?

stcredzero• 16 years ago

A car is comfortable, it has a moving chair, it has a roof

Roofs are great. Chairs are highly overrated. A community built on human scale for walking is wonderful. I miss my days in Clifton Gaslight in Cincinnati.

I think he is still off course with sustainability projects that come with difficult infrastructure problems.

The Gates Foundation or someone like that might fund him. If the goal is to make money, you may have a point. If the goal is to help people, I think he's looking in the right place.

(Note that his Stirling engine and pressure distiller are moves to eliminate infrastructure as much as possible.)

melling• 16 years ago

You didn't say where you live. In the New York City area the reality is that driving a car is neither fun or convenient.

Have you ever spent 40 minutes looking for a parking spot? We already have a problem and providing alternatives to driving is the only solution.

dagw• 16 years ago

While I agree that all cities won't be car free in 20 years, I do think in 20 years we'll be seeing cities that have "no cars" as one of their major selling points. Personally I consider owning a car in a city an expensive hassle would love to live in a city that has successfully optimized away the need for a car.

pavlov2• 16 years ago

I don't have a driver's licence, because I've lived most of my life in a city where I haven't felt the need for a car.

pmcginn• 16 years ago

I think his projections are absurd, but honestly, the man has a dream and a product, so I don't begrudge him his enthusiasm.

That said, I live in Philadelphia, and I used to live in NYC. I have a license and have driven in both cities, but I don't own a car now and garaged it with my brother when I was in NYC.

Driving in what most people would consider "downtown" is a pain and brings along expenses and difficulties you don't have in suburbs. Like others have mentioned, cheap parking is hard to find, and easy parking is hard to afford.

But what people who haven't actually lived for long periods of time with out a car tend to ignore is that there are times, even in the densest parts of the city, where having access to a car is almost indescribably convenient. Making multiple trips to the grocery store every week because you can only hold X bags in your hands/on your bike/in your granny cart is a pain. Walking a mile to work (like I do) in the rain because all the cabs are taken is a pain. Biking home from the beer distributor with a 30-rack in your messenger bag can be a pain :)

So I think the real task isn't making cars unnecessary for city life, but making cars easily accessible for the time or two a month they'd be convenient. Thankfully for me, innovators like Philly Carshare and Zipcar are already operating in this space. Even Home Depot will rent you a pretty well equipped work truck by the hour.

I don't see what problem the Segway solves--it's not particularly faster than a bike, it's not as convenient as just walking somewhere for a short trip, and it seems like people with mobility issues would be better served by a traditional scooter or wheelchair. It doesn't protect you from rain or give you extra cargo space.

cma2• 16 years ago

"Making multiple trips to the grocery store every week because you can only hold X bags in your hands/on your bike/in your granny cart is a pain."

It is a pain, but then the same person will go spend as much (if not more) time a during a week walking on a treadmill at the gym...

nhooey3• 16 years ago

One of the advantages a Segway has over a bike is that you don't sweat when you ride it.

You can only ride your bike to work if you don't care if you're sweaty, or if you have a shower and the time to use it once you get there.

And one major problem I see with not having cars is being able to go somewhere outside of the city on a weekend, when all the ZipCars are taken. If you reduce the amount of cars a city needs on average, everyone is seriously screwed during peak time. Maybe a graduated pricing scheme would fix this: With all of the cars being more expensive on the weekend, you could have a special set of reserve cars which are even more expensive on the weekend so people who really need them and are willing to pay can depend on that reserve.

However the advantages gained from people sharing cars instead of everyone having their own, far outweigh the costs.

nhooey3• 16 years ago

Also most important, a car has heat and a car has air conditioning. There are parts of Canada that are so horribly cold in the winter that it's unbearable to walk around even if you're all bundled up. It would be even worse on a Segway because you wouldn't be generating body heat with your muscles.

Waiting for the bus really sucks in cold places in the winter, way more than when it's too hot in the summer.

Maybe if everyone had personal super-small Popemobiles that went slow enough they were no more a threat to pedestrians than bicycles.

joubert• 16 years ago

As cities get more dense, people walk and cycle. For longer distances they take public transport, which is far less accident prone than 100s of people zooming by on segways.

JoeAltmaier• 16 years ago

His views of scientists in the media are outdated - apparently he hasn't watch tv since he was a teenager.

Mr Segway's difficult path

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