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Old 03-20-2017, 11:21 AM   #13
Don M
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Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Ocean Springs MS
Posts: 242
5 yr Member
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When you develop a new technology, you have to be very careful of the end result of any failures once you start selling them - If you don't, the public perception of your new gee whiz thing can turn 180 degrees almost overnight and the many millions you have invested are gone in an instant

For example, electric cars - Occasionally we read about a good ole gasoline car which catches fire in the garage and burns down the house - Doesn't happen very often, thankfully, but there was a problem with a brake light switch on a certain model that actually caused a few houses to go up in flames. If this happened even once to a newly marketed EV, the 'stain' on all EV's would be catastrophic and would set the industry back many years.

Three Tesla's caught fire as a result of an accident breaching the battery pack and the public was up in arms, calling them 'unsafe' even though not a single person was burned or killed - Never mind the fact that 17 gasoline powered cars catch fire every hour in the USA, killing more than 200 people every year. Public perception of anything new is critical and you've got to get it right the first time

Hoverboards - Everybody was tripping all over themselves to get the cheapest hoverboard on the market in time for Christmas not too long ago. Obviously, they cut corners everywhere they could to save money so they could sell their model for less than their competition. Various models caught fire all over the place and finally this month, one burned down a house and killed a three year old. Many recalls, but obviously the problem still isn't 100% fixed. I would NEVER have one of those in my house!

When Segways were first developed it became obvious very quickly that there was a real probability that almost any malfunction in the machine could toss the rider off and maybe even kill him/her depending on what they got tossed into. A product that they had hoped to bring in quickly and at a much lower cost became much more complicated as they sought to make it safe for anyone to ride. In the book, they relate how in the early development stage nearly everyone who tried it had an episode of getting tossed into a wall or worse

Back to the drawing boards! Each time they discovered any malfunction that could seriously harm the rider, they went to work to eliminate that possibility . . . . . and the complexity and price kept soaring. What they hoped would be simple and cheap to build so that everyone could afford one, making it possible to revolutionize personal transportation ended up being so complex and expensive that almost nobody could afford one - Just like the wheelchair that preceded it - Great wheelchair, but at a price of $25K there weren't many buyers. It had to be literally perfect . . . . if a wheelchair killed even one disabled occupant, the news would have literally shot down the entire project and every dime they had spent developing it would have been lost

What we got with the Seg was a very safe machine *because* they eventually found the only safe way was to have dual everything - If a failure of any single component or series of components could toss the rider into traffic, there are two systems so that when one fails, the redundant system can sound the alarm and safely bring the machine to a stop - Very few riders ever get tossed because the machine has a failure. You should be able to ride a Seg on only one battery for about 10 miles, but you can't, can you? For 12 or 14 years, Segs have built up a remarkable reputation as a very safe means of transport with few problems

'Segway' has been sold now a couple of times. What did the current owners actually pay for? Mostly that reputation, and now they're beginning to trade on it - They are making the cheap, affordable machine that Dean Kamen dreamed of and they're selling them for only a few hundred dollars - Why couldn't Dean have done that?

Mini-Pro buyers see the 'Segway' brand on it and assume it's built to the same standards as the machines that built up that reputation. If I didn't know a darned thing about the technology (and most buyers don't) I would see all these cheap Chinese attempts at building a $500 Segway-like device and steer clear of all of them, especially after seeing all the Chinese hoverboards catching fire, *but* when I see the Segway name on a $750 'personal transporter' I'm automatically impressed . . . . by the name, even if I don't have a clue exactly what I'm buying. Surely Segway wouldn't sell anything that's unsafe . . . . would they? They never have before

I hear "It's better than a real Segway because it only weighs 28 pounds and you can carry it with you" and I guess some people actually think that - All of the amazing Segway safety technology has been reduced to 28 pounds and $750. Truly remarkable!

Do you think they left anything out?

Don
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