I’m not sure if I like it not. The geek in me thinks “cool”, but the hiker in me can only forsee paths cut everywhere for these things so the fat and lazy can pretend to interact with nature.
The Segway Personal Transporter x2 provides enhanced performance on varied terrain with minimal environmental impact. Featuring all-terrain tires, a robust fender design, lithium-ion batteries and specially tuned software, the rugged Segway x2 will go practically anywhere in the wild that you want to go, whether it’s along nature trails, over hilly terrain or on the beach.
As an electric vehicle, the Segway would have a minimal impact on noise and emissions, but it does need a wider path than a bike or person on foot. It would be great on snowmobile trails in the summer, though.
Oh, for the love of crap. Stick a fork in that company, it’s done.
I don’t think the company will ever be very successful, it has found a strong niche market in the public sector. You know the park rangers will get some of these.
Whats the range of these things??
Can you see getting stranded on a tail with one??? I DONT think they are light.
LOVe to see it, and ALL the muggers Waiting for you.
dont think it DOnt happen on the trails…It does..
Everytime I see something like this, I can’t help thinking that humans are slowly moving farther and farther away from using their legs for anything but balancing.
I just picture a tree stump in front of the dude in the picture and him flying about 10 feet in the air.
I think the translation from adspeak on this is…
The Segway Personal Transporter x2 provides enhanced performance (better than a Big Wheel and can traverse pathways littered with acorns up to 1 inch in diameter) on varied terrain (flat or slightly sloped pavement, gravel or wood chips) with minimal environmental impact (won’t make it far enough down trail to cause significant damage). Featuring all-terrain tires (all terrain found in a landscaped suburban backyards), a robust fender design (looks macho doesn’t do crap), lithium-ion batteries (can be used to create an explosion to signal for help once you are stranded deep in Central Park) and specially tuned software (designed to reboot faster after device shorts out in a puddle), the rugged Segway x2 will go practically anywhere in the wild (urban nature center) that you want to go (within the beltway), whether it’s (it had better not be tougher terrain than…)along nature trails (at Busch Gardens), over hilly terrain (in Kansas) or on the beach (as long as you avoid getting tangled in sea oats).
There has to be a big demand for this, I was in REI just the other day looking for something to take the hiking out of hiking. There will probably be an even bigger demand for cans of aerosol cougar pheromone to spray on any of these that make it as far a trail-head parking lot.
What will be fun is when these quiet, electric-powered vehicles are going 12-mph in one direction, and come around a blind-corner and smack into:
a. a hiker
b. a bicycle rider
c. someone on horseback
d. wildlife [deer, moose, bear, skunk…]
—-
I can easily imagine all the “eco-tourist” companies using these to tour:
Yosemite – which already limits automobile traffic.
Grand Canyon – rim tours are a no-brainer, but do these have enough range to go down into the canyon & still make it back out? [swap for a charged one at the bottom, for the trip back up?]
makes me wonder what the uphill/downhill ratio for battery capacity would be. The quoted 12-mile range is probably for “rolling” terrain, while the Canyon trail would take less energy to go down, but much more to make the climb back out. Maybe only a mile or two down into the Canyon, and the remaining battery capacity to climb back out?
Yellowstone – all the boardwalks amongst the geysers & paint-pots.
—
And of course, it is only a matter of time before we have people “PT’ing” or “Segwaying” the Appalachian Trail…
When will these people realise that electric vehicles are just as polluting (if not more so) than petrol/Diesel vehicles? Sure, they don’t pollute the area in which they are used, they just shift the pollution to somebody else’s back yard. That electricity has to be generated somewhere, usually in a thermal power station producing large heat and CO2 emissions or a nuclear power station. Somebody (I forget who right now) once calculated that if all the cars in Europe were electrically-powered, we’d need 500 more nuclear power stations to generate the power…
When will these people realise that electric vehicles are just as polluting (if not more so) than petrol/Diesel vehicles?
Some of them know…
the ones who want sustainable energy – like wind, solar, geothermal…
the ones who drive a Prius because it is extreamly low emissions vehicle – not because of gas-mileage concerns…
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/2005/prius/faq.html
7. What is the emissions rating of Prius?
Prius is certified as an Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emission Vehicle (AT-PZEV), [6] a standard created by the California Air Resources Board and adopted by other states. [6] AT-PZEV certification means Prius has near-zero tailpipe emissions, zero evaporative emissions and a special extended warranty on emission control components. [6], [7] It is one step cleaner than the previous generation’s Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) certification.
What will be interesting is when fuel-cells become workable, and the Segway’s batteries can be augmented/replaced… and the 12-mile range limit disappears.
I’m getting really tired of these things. Who in their right mind is going to spend upwards of $5k (it wasn’t in the article, but I’ve read it elsewhere) on a vehicle that can only travel 12 miles and is so heavy (120 lbs!!!) that they’ll never be able to get it out of the woods once the batteries die.
If my ranting isn’t enough to sway you, go into ANY bicycle shop (a real one, walmart doesn’t count) and see for yourself that, for less than half the price of one of these Segways, you could buy a mountain bike that will be technically sophisticated enough to satisfy all but the most picky gadget geek, while at the same time being more high performance in every possible respect.
The Segway is nothing more than a toy, period. I’m all for new innovations, but when I hear people paint this thing as the greatest for of personal human transportation ever, my BS alarm goes crazy.
I am a big fat IT Troll and I would rather walk than be caught on one of these things.
That guy from Apple bought one and uses it to play polo..
Yes he looks like Kevin (Clerks)…
“I don’t think the company will ever be very successful, it has found a strong niche market in the public sector.” –Smartalix
That’s because it’s easy to get excited about a geeky product when you are spending someone else’s money.
The Segway has always seemed to me to be a product in search of need.
Mr. Fusion agrees finds himself agreeing with, me, and now I find myself agreeing with Improbus.
I’m going to take some of those ice cubes from hell and make myself a drink. 🙂
This reminds me of the unicycle craze of 30-40 years ago.
But unicycles were a lot cheaper.
I’ve done quite a bit of hiking in my day and I can think of many trails that no automated vehicle could possibly traverse. Someone mentioned Yosemite and that brings to mind the Upper Falls trail. There is a rather substantial stretch that is steep inclined kitty litter (imagine hiking on beach sand). Sorry, but no segway regardless of tread is going to handle that. Then there are the rather large, uneven and sometimes unstable rock steps and lastly we have the generally rocky and uneven trails with large boulders. It would probably take longer on a Segway than just doing the hike yourself or hiring a helicopter to drop you at the summit or just having a glass of wine at the Ahwahnee and admiring someone else’s photographs.
@IBC
OOH! An off-road, unicycle segway! Now THAT’s a toy!!
I hear a lot of conjecture in these posts, but nearly zero experience with the real deal is coming through. I heard Dvorak on TWIT giving his standard “it’s so geeky” rap, but I doubt he has spent more than a few moments with a Segway. If you ride one of these around there are catcalls from SUV drivers that “you’re so LAZY” and ironically they’re on a couch at the time…
A Segway is a FOOT AMPLIFICATION DEVICE not some alternative to walking for the lazy. You can spend your hour going two miles, or you can spend it amplified 3X or 4X and experience much more of whatever the environment holds. Your choice.
You can also move it so slowly and delicately that dense crowds are completely negotiable. You become 8 inches taller, too.
They’re not silent, as some assume. It’s a whirr of sorts but street noise masks it, so you announce your way past walkers in urban areas, just as you would if you were walking briskly among slow folk. Collisions are exceedingly rare. You can stop these things on a nickel.
It’s rather interesting to see how people with zero direct experience with a Segway are so quick to punch all sorts of irrelevant, spurious and outright mistaken points of view. Go rent one for a couple of hours, then come back and spew. I’ll bet your tune changes.