Thread: Segway is over?
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Old 06-24-2020, 04:11 PM   #8
Philip
Junior Member
Philip will become famous soon enough
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Auckland, New Zealand.
Posts: 81
5 yr Member
Default PTs, parts ands service will continue for some time yet

This news is very upsetting and disappointing for many of us here, including International Distributors, Dealers, Tour operators....and just about every person who ever owned a Segway PT.

But for the time being there are still brand new Segway PTs available to buy, and will be for some time. The party is still going!

Segway, Inc. are well-stocked with spare parts for years to come, and the service centres will continue to remain active into the future. With so many PTs out there in active use, I hope and imagine there will be a good business case to continue to provide technical repair service for many years.

Here in New Zealand my business intends to continue offering RST repairs for the foreseeable future. This includes Level 3/4 (factory-level) repairs such as replacing and programming CU Boards and BSAs, replacing motors, power supplies. etc). I imagine that many other International Distributors also intend to do so.

Locally, we have hundreds and hundreds of active Segway PT users who rely upon their devices for work, tour businesses or for personal mobility. Larger countries have thousands.

One day, a fresh full-sized PT will appear, designed and built with the benefit of 20+ years of experience. At various intersections of price and weight there is definitely a market of full-sized PTs, and now the world has experience of self-balancing machines, getting over the conceptual hurdle of making sale will be easier in the future. We know where that point sits for a ~$10,000 machine with LeanSteer that weighs 50 kg. We also know were that point sits for a ~$1,000 machine with knee-steer that weights 15kg. Last year hundreds of thousands of self-balancing machines were sold, and has been the case every year for a while now (most of these units are being sold in China, where last year I watched them coming off the production line in enormous quantities).

I still believe that - one of these days - a very significant portion of people who currently think e-scooters are such a good idea will come round to the benefits of self-balancing devices - be it in small or large form factors. For example, it is my opinion that 50% of people who currently buy and use e-scooters would prefer and be better served by S-PRO (miniPRO) or S-PLUS (miniPLUS) devices....but they just don't know it yet. And in that scheme of things hardly anyone knows the benefits of full-sized wheels for a safe and comfortable journey from A to B.

I guess only time will tell, but I still think that in the future we will all dive standing up - or so it has been said :-)

https://segwaynz.wordpress.com/2012/...talking-heads/

Philip
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