On second thought, I can see how a product like this would be attractive to city-dwellers. I remember being continually frustrated at how hard it was to get around in SF: driving was impossible, BART was limited, buses were unreliable, it was often too big to walk.

But living in Chapel Hill, where there's a central walkable downtown and campus, not to mention ample parking, I feel justified in scoffing. ;)

It's definitely cool the way it doesn't fall over. But it's also a little too reminiscient of the Lark for my tastes. It would be nice for going up hills in SF I guess. But it wouldn't really fit on BART. How does it handle stairs, anyway? All these questions dangle... Steve Jobs said that cities would be redesigned around this product. Another way of saying that is "Our cities aren't designed for this."

I think that this product will find a niche or two, kind of like the razor scooter. It's got definite appeal for the aged and handicapped, and it looks fun enough to ride. But I doubt that it will become the next mass form of transit. Mr. Business riding it to work is the stuff of marketing videos and nothing more.

What *I* don't really understand is all the naysaying. What could be bad about a personal transport that doesn't produce polution (no engine, no brakes)? What's bad about improving personal mobility? I can't think of a single thing that's bad about decreasing our reliance on automobiles in an environmentally friendly way.

If nothing else, maybe the Segway will help the Girls who have "Gone Crazy" get to my place more quickly.    ;-)

Andy - it supposedly is or will be designed to be carried up the stairs in a mode that will give you some boost from the wheels as you lift it up each stair. Not exactly easy, but better than lugging it.

I also agree
that it doesn't exactly fit into the way most cities work.

I'm not so sure that the aged or handicapped will benefit much from it, though. For one thing, although it makes walking easier, you still have to stand for the duration of the trip. It doesn't appear that you can lean fully on the handlebar for support. And for those who can't stand, a motorized wheelchair is still a better option, and arguably just as efficient.

Brad - the naysaying is a pretty typical response after a year's worth of mystery and hype. I mean, when you're told (by Steve Jobs, no less) that this invention will change the future, the natural response (at least from this cynical mind) is, "hmm, maybe there's more to this than I'm being told."

I think few people doubt this invention is, of itself, very cool. But we can't let the marketers have the last word, can we?

The "cities aren't designed around this" comment is so missing the point. American cities are currently designed around cars. If anything could seriously break that monopoly, it would give every other form of human-centric transportation a better shot. Bicycles, walking, motorized wheelchairs, Razor scooters -- all of them would be far more popular if no one had to worry about being run over by a car all the time (your essay on bikes, Brad, while very cogent was awfully youth-centric IMHO). Just imagine what life would be like here if, say, one lane of El Camino was reserved for non-cars.

In most big cities like Chicago, besides traffic, the other big barrier to entry is snow. "Sure, it would be great if there was more alternate transportation, especially in the downtown area -- but Joe Businessman isn't going to ride a bike around the Loop when there's 2 feet of snow on the ground." One of the big advances of Ginger is that it can apparently handle snowy streets without any problems. Chicago has experimented with closing down parts of the Loop to cars before, and it's possible that if something like Ginger became popular they would try it again.

I was also interested by the fact that after 9/11, they more or less shut down Manhattan -- closing the bridges and tunnels to cars for days. Will security concerns increasingly dictate the closing of urban centers to auto traffic? That's a factor that has never really been important in the discussion of American urban planning, but maybe will become more so.

So I don't know that Ginger in its current state is worldchanging -- but it seems like a step in the right direction. Add a Stirling engine, make it lighter, maybe have municipal ones that would automatically turn off if taken out of the designated area, etc. The point, it seems to me, is to chip away at the issues one by one -- not make the whole discussion be about whether this thing deserves the hype or not.

Oh sorry -- not Brad, the link from Todd's comment.

If you consider "Girls Gone Crazy" and anything Playboy has to offer hardcore, you have bigger problems than being out of the IT loop.
Ginger will make a difference in the way urbanites move around. It's overpriced and less than useful, but so are automobiles. Maybe if people travelled more by Segway, we would have to fight silly wars over Uzbekistan oil.
Also, have you heard the new MJ album? What's that proverb about a book and its cover?