Remember the last two-wheeled, gyro-stabilized future of transportation? The one that was largely a commercial flop, and which the company president (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heselden) _drove off a cliff_.
No shower at the office, otherwise I'd have given up the Volvo for my Raleigh a long time ago. I agree with you about the fitness aspect of bicycle riding, and used to do distance stuff (no racing) until I wore the cartilage down in my left knee. Nowadays I treat that knee with respect.
Bicycle goodness notwithstanding, the Segway is a hoot to ride, and five years in I haven't tired of it.
The segway does what it's supposed to do. I think it has it's useful niche. It was marketed as a replacement for all transportation, but that is silly because only because of the cost.
They did mention that rev two would be around $16,000, assuming they're still in business. That's getting closer to a realistic price relative to competing products. Keep in mind that this is competing with commuter cars, not motorcycles.
You can also deduct the cost of fuel over the vehicle's lifetime. For someone commuting one hour each way to work five days a week, the cost of gas for a big car can exceed $200/month, $2400/year, or $12,000 over the course of five years. That makes the up-front price seem quite a bit more competitive with gas-powered alternatives.
You need to factor in the medical bills, though. With a loaded weight of under 1000lbs, in any sort of collision, this thing will lose. Doesn't really matter how strong the frame is, it's just simple physics.
Similar situation with the "Smart" car. The passenger cell can take a 60mph impact into a barrier just fine. The passengers - not so much, the g-forces inflicted are much higher than a traditional vehicle. Even 12-18 inches of crumple zone would make a BIG difference.
Unless the person you crash into is also driving one of these, in which case you both win, relatively speaking.
Safety does remain a very important consideration here, and I'm also wondering how safe those heavy gyroscopes under your seat are in a collision. They had better be extremely well-shielded from the passenger compartment.
Even hitting another one of these or a similar super-light vehicle, you both still lose. For survivability there is absolutely no replacement for deformable structure aka crumple zones.
That's the arms race - on the road the more massive vehicle in a collision wins.
So if you care about your dear little children you have to buy the M1 Abrahams tank. A mere $4.3M for the peace of mind of knowing your little ones are protected in a collision with an Escalade.
(ps the 120mm cannon is also useful against Volvos)
Well, you're still paying for fuel/energy unless you recharge at work. ;)
Of course it's a much more efficient vehicle than a car, due to it's weight, the higher efficiency of electrical motors[1] and regenerative braking. One figure in the article is 220 miles on an 8kWh battery. I think I pay something like €0.25 per kWh, most of you probably spend less. So about 100 miles/€, and about €2 to recharge the whole battery.
[1] Not that they're readily comparable, since "regular" motors convert a primary fuel into motion, while electrical motors convert electrical energy. Which itself is often generated from a primary fuel, introducing significant inefficiency.
Power plants operate at a much higher efficiency than internal combustion engines, on cheaper and more diversified fuel sources, including renewable.
[Electric motors and batteries also have relatively little energy waste, making the system as a whole more efficient to operate, especially when you consider being able to leverage the superior distribution infrastructure of the electric grid versus the relatively sparse network of fuel stations. Consider that most fuel stations receive their supply by tanker-truck, which introduces yet more inefficiency.]
A small common rail diesel engine in a car gets close to 40%, a coal power plant runs at about 45%.
Add in transmission losses and charging/battery/electric motor and the diesel g CO2/km is probably better.
The US is presently doing a lot to switch over to natural gas, which has a lot less carbon-per-kWh than coal. If that's what they have in your area, the figures look better. Also good for the figures: if you happened to be doing your charging off-peak such that you're not actually adding to the emissions that would otherwise be emitted by idling power plants. (Or if you live in an area with good hydro/nuclear and the like.)
Of course, that's not really transparent to the electricity user in most cases.
You should really check out modern diesels. A VW TDI engine has cleaner exhaust than a typical modern gasser. You could hold up a white handkerchief to the tailpipe and it'd stay clean.
Coal stations have flue gas sulfur filters, but still emit a lot of CO2 (and a lot of radioactivity), road diesel is ultra low sulfur in civilized countries.
Well, no- it was supposed to revolutionise personal transportation. At least, that's what they said when it launched. And the "future of transportation" sounds eerily similar.
This was what I thought they were talking about when I saw the headline. I assumed this was an amused look back on the good ol' days.
I never did understand why anyone ever thought the Segway would revolutionize anything. I don't see the big advantage, and - frankly - you look downright ridiculous riding it.
And yes - I did get to ride it. It's kind of cool for the novelty factor, but I fail to see any incredible advantage over the more traditional alternatives.
One place I've seen them where I thought they really made sense were in large parks where security guards ride around on them, able to cover a lot of ground using the walking paths.
The first picture in the Wired article shows the driver's unhelmeted head poking out of the roof above the rollbar. Prototype or not, how could the CEO even let a photo be taken of such an obvious safety flaw, let alone allow a journalist to take it for a test drive? Demonstrating a lax attitude towards safety is enough to scare off investors.
