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

[bentbiker]

Originally Posted by quade

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...whitepaper.pdf

Price 'tain got nuthin' to do with it.

Originally Posted by hellphish

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]

Originally Posted by quade

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...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