The Toyota Winglet is a new competitor to the Segway. But with the Segway failing to sell in any great number, is there actually a market for these kinds of personal transporters in the first place?

I remember being intrigued and excited when a new product was being talked about in industry circles back at the turn of the millennium. The details of this new product, which was being shown to high-profile people such as Steve Jobs, were not yet known to anyone outside of the circle, but that didn’t stop a huge buzz from erupting all over the Internet. Jobs himself even claimed that the product would be “as big a deal as the PC”, proving even he can get things massively wrong.

The so-called revolutionary device turned out to be the Segway, a personal transporter that is propelled via gyroscopes working with your body’s movements. It is an amazing contraption, and one which does turn heads when it is being demonstrated or used, but years on from those buzz-heady days and the Segway has completely and utterly failed to revolutionise anything.

They’re expensive to buy, which has got to count as a major reason for their lack of mainstream acceptance, but there’s also the fact that they’re not actually all that useful. And now, according to Wired, the Segway has a competitor, although what sort of consumer base the new contender is vying for is a mystery.

It’s called the Winglet and it has been unveiled by Toyota just a year after the Japanese manufacturer took over Sony’s robotics division. It uses the same sort of gyroscopic technology as the Segway, but is smaller, lighter, and if it ever becomes a commercial product, will likely be cheaper too.

It is nowhere near as fast as the Segway though, managing just 3.7 miles per hour compared to the Segway’s 12.5. It can also only travel 3 miles before needing to be recharged. I hate to say it, but it also looks brittle, and I wouldn’t fancy taking it over any rough ground.

The Winglet will be tested in Japanese airports later this year, before moving in to shopping complexes during 2009. The results of these tests could then determine whether it becomes a commercial product or just the domain of local authorities and amenities.

I personally can’t see the point of this, as surely the Segway’s relative failure to entice consumers shows that there is no market for either of these products. I suppose the Winglet is good for one thing though: securing Toyota some headlines on websites and in newspapers around the world.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 6:48 pm under Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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