Why Segway Failed To Reshape The World of Transport
How did one of the most buzzed-about innovations in modern times flop?
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The Segway PT (Personal Transporter) is a two-wheeled, self-balancing battery electric vehicle invented by Dean Kamen. It was launched in 2001 in a blaze of publicity. Yet it has failed to gain significant market acceptance. And 2020, Fast Company reports that production of the Segway PT will officially end.
The Segway “will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy”
said the inventor, Dean Kamen.
So what went wrong?
The Segway story is a classic case of too much focus on technology and not enough on the actual needs of customers. The technology was brilliant and was protected from competitors by patents. However, keeping it under the wrap was one of Segway’s downfall as no user feedback or iteration was involved in the design process. It became an invention rather than an innovation.
A ‘cool’ technology nobody wanted.
Expectations were high as the Segway was described as the future of transport. But there were no clear need or target users. Nobody inherently needed a Segway. Everyone was getting around by our existing way of moving — on foot, bikes, motorcycles and cars just fine.
It was a product, not a solution.
The Segway is great but it’s not a great solution that fits into our existing way of moving. One of the core vision for the Segway was to be a better alternative to walking. However, some problems were not taken into account, such as ‘Where and how do you park it?’, ‘How do you take it with you on a bus/train or in a car?’, ‘Where can you ride it? On the sidewalks or the roads?’, ‘Where and how do you charge it?’, ‘Is there insurance for it?’
The Segway failed to answer all of these, hence failed to revolutionize urban transportation.
Fell foul of regulation.
The Segway is technically considered a “consumer product” rather than a motor vehicle. It fell foul of regulation in many countries where it was banned from both sidewalks and roads because it did not fit any existing categories.
So, what can we learn from Segway’s failure?
There’s no one path to innovations, but your innovations must fulfil unmet users need. People don’t need innovations just for the sake of it. Don’t just build products, build products as part of a solution. Get real feedback from customers and iterate while the development costs (and the risk of failure) are low. Remember, you’re building products to solve problems.
