Michelin Tweel
 

It would be great if Segway could incorporate these:

http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/michel...-ai-1661116195

So glad they're starting out by putting them on lawn mowers. We all know how frustrating flat tires can be when mowing your grass.

http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1b5d4a57.jpg
I completely agree, I hate when that happens because it puts the blades off balance and all the sudden your perfectly flat lawn now looks ugly.

Actually, flat tires on lawn and garden tractors is a fairly regular issue, and is a source for some annoyance if you have a slow leak in a tire.

I believe that these wheels were determined to be good in certain environments, and not so much in other ones. How better to test them than to release them in certain limited applications?

I don't understand your comment. While I am a segway fan to be sure, I recognize there are other situations and applications for small tires out there other than my segway... I do not begrudge anyone an improvement, especially one that may cross platforms into something I may use and find helpful...

Limited applications?
Ayah, can't think of a more limited application than Segways. ;)

Of course you can't.


However, a lawn tractor tire is exposed to a more limited environment in operation that a segway tire might be exposed to, in appropriate operation.

A lawn tractor is not generally required to be able to cross a sewer grate, in proper operation, as an example, yet a segway needs to be able to do so.

A lawn tractor and a segway should be able to operate on a grassy surface, including a cross slope.

A lawn tractor has no operational requirement to be able to navigate a paved cross slope, however, where a segway does.

There are lots of other examples I could use, but they are unnecessary.

JohnM, could you point out any posts you have on lawn tractor forums where you go to troll? Or are we the singular recipient of your vitriol?

In my neighborhood, lawn tractors from lawn-cutting services often have the possibility of crossing sewer grates. Likewise, some homes in my neighborhood have lawns with high slopes. Lawn tractors have to cross such slopes, which can include driveways. In that case, lawn tractors DO have to cross a paved slope. Maybe better examples would help.

One selects one's "tires" for the intended application. I could see the possibility of Segs for in-plant transport being equipped with tweels, just as one example, if there were an operational advantage.

John M's comment regarding Segs being a "limited" application may be based on the relatively tiny number of Segs built each year.

Oh, and the short-version of the TOS says "2. Don’t personally attack, bully or harass other members."

I know you are trying very hard to poke holes in my examples, but you sound like you have never mowed a lawn. Professionals will not spin the blades over sewer grates, and while a lawn tractor may roll over a driveway, they again are not designed to mow driveways, but lawns. My examples were just that, and not absolutes. I have even driven over curbs with my lawn tractor, but that does not mean it was designed to mow over them.

If, as you say, better examples are needed, then by all means, offer them up.

And while I appreciate your para quoting the TOS, but if he doesn't personally attack, bully or harass other members, he wouldn't have anything to say at all. That unfortunately is the entire domain of a troll.

Going back just for a moment to the original post, those of you with long memories will remember other threads here on the subject of tweels and also videos of them on cars being driven in a very aggressive manner. The real advantage from the Segway's point of view is that they get around the problems caused by the absence of suspension. Against this is the fact that they have quite a narrow optimal load range so that the same tweel will not work for a rider of 140 lbs and one of 250. I suspect this is the same problem that has kept them off cars.

On the Segway, it's not clear to me that there won't be another, perhaps more serious problem.

Segways have separate motors for each wheel.

The Segway control algorithm (essentially) assumes that the two tires have the same, constant radius from the axle. Under some conditions, that will not be the case with Tweels. It seems to me that uneven terrain will affect that parameter more with Tweels than with the regular tires (even on the X2/XT with 4 psi pressure).

Not sure it's a problem, either - not enough information.