Segway to stop making original scooter -media
The Segway personal people mover will be the butt of jokes no longer.
The company behind the often maligned self-balancing scooter will stop making the device after a 20-year run, according to media reports published on Wednesday.
Hyped as a revolution in transportation when it first came on the scene....it later became more famous for its spills than thrills.
President George W. Bush tried his hand at one back in 2003 but famously jumped off after losing control...
And then there was that run in with Jamaican Olympic Gold Medalist Usain Bolt. The fastest man in the world was knocked off his feet when a television cameraman on a Segway crashed into him at a world championship track meet in 2015.
And part of its darker history… Jim Heselden, the British millionaire businessman who at the time owned the company making the Segway, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff with one of the two-wheeled scooters near his body. The incident was described as a freak accident.
In the meantime, the device failed to catch on with the public. Its commercial use mostly relegated to tour guides, police departments and it even had a supporting role in the 2015 Hollywood comedy "Paul Blart Mall Cop 2."
The Segway PT will reportedly no longer be in production as of July 15th.
But Ninebot, the Chinese company that now makes the Segway, is already on to the next thing.... earlier this year it unveiled the Segway S-Pod, a self-balancing sit-down transportation unit that's still in the concept phase. Unlike, the original Segway - this one uses a joystick and a built-in smartscreen pad to control movement and speed.
