Picture from Time mag of Segway.
Posted on 12/02/2001 5:00:19 PM PST by Timm
IT' REVEALED; 'SEGWAY' SELF-BALANCING PEOPLE MOVER, BILLED AS ALTERNATIVE TO CARS
After months of hype, an inventor is set to unveil an electric scooter being billed as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars.
Dean Kamen's long-awaited, secret invention, the Segway "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy," he tells TIME on the eve of his product's unveiling.
Kamen imagines them everywhere: in parks and at Disneyland, on battlefields and factory floors, but especially on downtown sidewalks from Seattle to Shanghai. "Cars are great for going long distances," Kamen says, "but it makes no sense at all for people in cities to use a 4,000-lb. piece of metal to haul their 150-lb asses around town."
In the future he envisions, cars will be banished from urban centers to make room for millions of "empowered pedestrians" - empowered, naturally, by Kamen's brainchild, reports John Heilemann in next week's issue.
The invention is set to be unveiled Monday morning during ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA.
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The Segway is a self-balancing people mover - powered by batteries and controlled by tilt-sensors and five solid state gyroscopes - that looks like a rotary lawnmower. The magic is in the balancing act ð no matter how hard you try, it won't let you fall.
For the past three months, Kamen allowed TIME behind the veil of secrecy as he and his team grappled with the questions that they will confront - about everything from safety and pricing to the challenges of launching a product with the country at war and the economy in recession.
There is no denying that the Segway, previously code-named "IT" and "Ginger," is an engineering marvel, reports Heilemann, who rode on the machine many times. Developed at a cost of more than $100 million, Kamenis vehicle is a complex bundle of hardware and software that mimics the human bodyis ability to maintain its balance. Not only does it have no brakes, but also no engine, no throttle, no gearshift, and no steering wheel. And it can carry the average rider for a full day, nonstop, on only five cents' worth of electricity.
Kamen explains how the Segway works: "When you walk, youire really in whatis called a controlled fall. You off-balance yourself, putting one foot in front of the other and falling onto them over and over again. In the same way, when you use a Segway, thereis a gyroscope that acts like your inner ear, a computer that acts like your brain, motors that act like your muscles, wheels that act like your feet. Suddenly, you feel like you have on a pair of magic sneakers, and instead of falling forward, you go sailing across the room."
As Kamen and his team were working on the IBOT wheelchair ð a six-wheel machine that goes up and down curbs, cruises effortlessly through sand or gravel, and climbs stairs - it dawned on them that they were onto something bigger. "We realized we could build a device using very similar technology that could impact how everybody gets around," he says. The IBOT was also the source of Gingeris mysterious codename. "Watching the IBOT, we used to say, ÈLook at that light, graceful robot, dancing up the stairsiÐso we started referring to it as Fred Upstairs, after Fred Astaire," Kamen recalls. "After we built Fred, it was only natural to name its smaller partner Ginger." With Ginger, as with the IBOT, Kamen explains, "the big idea is to put a human being into a system where the machine acts an extension of your body."
With the Segway, Kamen plans to change the world by changing how cities are organized. To Kamenis way of thinking, the problem is the automobile. "Cities need cars like fish need bicycles," he says. Segways, he believes, are ideal for downtown transportation. Unlike cars, they are cheap, clean, efficient, maneuverable. Unlike bicycles, they are designed specifically to be pedestrian friendly. "A bike is too slow and light to mix with trucks in the street but too large and fast to mix with pedestrians on the sidewalk," he argues. "Our machine is compatible with the sidewalk. If a Segway hits you, itis like being hit by another pedestrian."
Ordinary consumers wonit be able to buy Segways for at least a year, a consumer model is expected to go on sale for about $3,000, Heilemann reports. For now, the first customers will be deep-pocketed institutions such as the U.S. Postal Service and General Electric, the National Parks Service and Amazon.comÐ institutions capable of shelling out $8,000 apiece for industrial-strength models.
TIME also takes a hard look at the question of whether this product will really make it in the consumer market. "The consumer market is always harder," Intel chairman Andy Grove, who also rode the Segway, told Heilemann. "But when you think about it, the corporate market is almost unlimited. If the Postal Service and FedEx deploy this for all their carriers, the company will be busy for the next five years just keeping up with that demand."
Golf carts can't climb stairs.
Oh.
I never thought of that.
Very funny, especially to the millions trapped in wheelchairs by an inability to walk because of emphysema and congestive heart failure. They could die laughing.
Good to know the Post Office and National Park Service have such deep pockets.
Considering the wild claims he is making, I think it's safe to say that he would parade any advance in batteries that the segway (sic) has presently.
I have my doubts, but this thing seems to be designed to meet these problems, most specifically, it does not seem to have a counterweight, that is the invention.
The comment in the article that getting hit by the scooter would be like getting hit by a pedestrian, sounds silly. Suppose it is only 20 lb. Imagine getting hit by a pedestrian on skates. Even moving at walking speeds, that is going to be a significant impact.
Since we're talking walking speed, I don't see how the impact of a 150 pound person with one of these things would be worse than the impact of a 290 pound plus person without one.
In any case, it certainly seems worth checking out.
Now you've done it, I haven't had dinner yet.
Picture from Time mag of Segway.
Not all mass marketed gadgets, with high tech materials or design, decrease in price. Of the ones that do, not all of them decrease in anything like the way computers, VCR's, or DVD's have done. Electric wheelchairs, electric assist devices, motorcycles, mopeds/scooters, telescopes, binoculars, guns, and even high end bicycles have not dropped drastically in price in the past ten years.
In any event, before the inventor can hope for the prices to drop, he's going to have to find some demand for the thing as it is. The comparisons to IBM's misjudgment about personal computers require more than just the fact that this invention is dismissed. They require that the skeptic be wrong.
Yet, the problems with widespread adoption of this scooter as a "people mover" have been mentioned by many posters already. Most of these problems aren't specific to this device, and have been the pitfall of other purported car substitutes. Weather, range, carrying capacity, and discomfort are problems for mopeds, bicycles, and scooters you can fall off of. We have plenty of experience with these other devices. So far, huge numbers of people haven't gotten on them, and city planners are still shy about banning cars. There's no obvious reason to think these new scooters will be different.
Always glad to help out a fellow Freeper!!
If this thing means that mailmen walking a route can carry more mail, it could pay for itself.
the National Parks Service
I, for one would love to rent one of these things for a few dollars in order to walk through Yosemite Park, or walk down a Grand Canyon trail. These things could make the parks profitable.
Which you will note has also cornered approximately 0% of the market. Quite fascinating technologically, but which nobody can afford.
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