Tesla Motors in Trouble?

[polo_pro]

Originally Posted by quade

Hmmm . . . that kinda seems like a waste of concept.

What might be more interesting would be a bus-like vehicle that you ride your Segway into, it docks into place and then you're able to sit down on some sort of seat. This wouldn't require the bus or driver to do anything "exceptional" other than opening the normal passenger door an wouldn't slow down the forward progress of the bus any more than a "normal" walking passenger. This same concept should also be adapted to trains and subways.

A separate storage bay would require FAR too much time to accommodate the Segway rider to stow and retrive the device. The "normal" passengers would toss fits.

The way to make it mainstream is to subtly change the infrastructure to accommodate the devices without disturbing or delaying its "normal" operations.

I don't view this as a solution for a typical bus service. All the riders would be commuters, and there'd be no normal riders. If you need some examples of viable bus services like this, look at the Clean Air Express and the VISTA bus. Both bring commuters from far away towns like Lompoc, Santa Maria and Ventura into downtown Goleta and Santa Barbara.

In each case, segways would facilitate people covering that last mile (possibly allowing the route to have fewer stops...heck, depending on how fast the segways are put in the underfloor storage, the route might take even less time to complete).

Maybe the best way to do introduce this service would be to buy the segway, offer free usage for a month and then ask the commuters to either buy it (or go back to regular commuting and walkling a mile to the bus stop).

[SEGsby]

Since no such designs are in the works, I guess you'll have a while to wait...

SEGsby

Originally Posted by polo

I'm still waiting for the Flexstreme bus which carries 18 segways in the underfloor storage. Once commuters adopt this transportation solution, segways will truly be mainstream!