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View Full Version : Steve Steinberg Segway of Oakland on View from the Bay Ch7 ABC San Francisco TV




slide4less
06-28-2007, 09:59 PM
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=viewfrombay&id=4624229




macgeek
06-29-2007, 07:45 AM
Excellent segment steve,
I fondly remember when SF was ANTI segway,
what a turn around!


Jonathan

BillK
06-29-2007, 08:12 AM
My wife and I did the tour in Sausalito and also SF just this past week. In Sausalito we had a wonderful time. People were friendly and it was relaxed. In SF we had to go on roads and the people were actually hostile at times. It was a new experience for me to have hostility that was not caused by something that I had done or was actively doing to someone aimed at me/us. We were merely riding.
Bill

bentbiker
06-29-2007, 12:00 PM
Steve,

This was probably the most positive media exposure I've seen for the Segway. Nice job and good luck.

I think you can update the 450 MPG equivalency figure, based on the current price of gas, to perhaps 700+ MPG.

Sal
06-29-2007, 01:17 PM
Great Exposure...

A question... did the newscasters have any prior experience on the two Segways? They seemed to get right on them, and were pretty good on 'em without bucking at all.

-Sal

slide4less
06-29-2007, 01:52 PM
I taught them for 5 min before the show

quade
06-29-2007, 02:52 PM
Steve,

This was probably the most positive media exposure I've seen for the Segway. Nice job and good luck.

I think you can update the 450 MPG equivalency figure, based on the current price of gas, to perhaps 700+ MPG.

Uh . . . that don't make no sense at all.

The 450 MPG figure would actually be a conversion from the amount of energy, not price. See; http://www.segway.com/downloads/pdfs/energy_efficient_segway_whitepaper.pdf

Price 'tain got nuthin' to do with it.

hellphish
06-29-2007, 03:11 PM
I was thinking the same thing! I don't know what dollars have to do with Miles and Gallons.

ryan_walters
06-29-2007, 10:46 PM
I look at the (segway) miles per gallon figure this way: Instead of spending X amount of money on GAS, if I spent it on electricity for my segway instead, how far would I go? This will of course vary with the changing price of gas, and electricity.

Gas (here) is about $1.04 a litre. $3.93 per US gallon. $4.72 per UK gallon.

Electricity (here) is around $0.07 per KW/hour. The segway takes 1.1 - 1.2 kw/h to fully charge. Lets say $0.10 for a full charge.

For the money of one US gallon of gas, I could charge the segway 39 times for a total distance of 936 miles.

For the money of one UK gallon of gas, I could charge the segway 47 times for a total distance of 1128 miles.

In comparison, my car on the highway gets 36 / 43 miles per US / UK gallon. A more fair comparison, in the city (like the segway), I'm down to 25 / 30 miles per US / UK gallon in my car.


A per energy comparison instead of a per money comparison might not change much, but most people see things in relation to money.

cmonkey
06-29-2007, 11:13 PM
I don't use the Gas Energy Equivalent, most people don't get it. What they do get, is how much they pay for a tank of gas and how far it takes them.

Since it costs less than a penny per mile (for my electricity), I make it even simpler.

I tell them my fuel (electricity) costs about a penny per mile.
Then I ask them how much they paid for a tank of gas. (SUVs are the best!)
A fill up sometimes runs them about $70-$90. Then I ask them how far they go on a tank. (usually around 250-350 miles). Then I tell them, that for their $85 fill up, I can go 8500 miles.

This they seem to get.

People always seem to understand better when you make them think with their wallets.

bentbiker
06-30-2007, 12:44 AM
Uh . . . that don't make no sense at all.

The 450 MPG figure would actually be a conversion from the amount of energy, not price. See; http://www.segway.com/downloads/pdfs/energy_efficient_segway_whitepaper.pdf

Price 'tain got nuthin' to do with it.

I was thinking the same thing! I don't know what dollars have to do with Miles and Gallons.

Paul,

By the time I finished writing my defense, I see Ryan has probably given a simpler explanation along the same lines, but I've spent too much time writing my defense to trash it.

If you found the 450 MPG derivation within the white paper you cite, you did better than I. The first usage of that number was, I believe, in a news release in 2004 where it bragged about the 450 MPG making it a very economical transportation option. If it were only the energy equivalency in joules, it really doesn't mean much from an economical standpoint, because energy supplied in different forms cost vastly different amounts. Thus, it was always my assumption that this was the equivalent mileage required by an auto to achieve the same cost per mile as a Segway. That is the only meaningful way in my opinion to make such a comparison, since the cost relationship between gasoline and electricity change over time, as we've seen.

Based on my assumption, electricity being relatively unchanged over that time frame and gas going from roughly $2.00/gal to $3.25 now, you get the change in equivalent mileage I mentioned (700+ now instead of the previous 450 MPG).


If my assumption about Segway's number is incorrect, I think the 450 number that Segway throws out is not very meaningful to the average person when comparing the economies of different transportation options; it might be great from the standpoint of global warming, but that wasn't the nature of the press release.

I have not tried to wade through the numbers and conversion tables to see whether your assumption is correct. I have used numbers previously provided on this site as the average cost of fully charging a Segway to go 22 miles (10 cents avg est somewhere), and the aforementioned $3.25/gal to calculate a 715 MPG auto equivalency -- ($3.25/$.10)*22

Desert_Seg
06-30-2007, 01:20 AM
Uh . . . that don't make no sense at all.

The 450 MPG figure would actually be a conversion from the amount of energy, not price. See; http://www.segway.com/downloads/pdfs/energy_efficient_segway_whitepaper.pdf

Price 'tain got nuthin' to do with it.

Uh, wrong. Price has got everything to do with it and always been a measuring stick. If you would take the time to do a little research you would find that:

a) the original, and continuing, comparison was based on the average cost to "fill up" your car vs your Segway (remember the USA Today ad?)

b) the paper you cited was released for Earth Day and was in relation to lessening CO2 emissions. Hence the emphasis on energy use.

Marketing and selling concepts are based on triggers. The average person doesn't t think in joules or energy usage, they think in dollars and cents (or their countries equivalent). That's the trigger.

Steven