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| U2 |
Posted
on 04-Dec-01 03:35 AM
The revolutionary development of battery powered scooter by Dean Kamen is perhaps a good news for Nepal. With such ITs roaming in the cities, Nepal can look forward to reducing its dependency on diesel and petrol import and using its domestically produced electricty for transport in the cities. IT scooter would probably will be very suitable for small cities like Kathmandu, where all you need to travel is less than 10 km a day.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011203/ts/secret_invention.html
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| joie de vivre |
Posted
on 04-Dec-01 10:02 AM
I saw this on TV and thought 'what a neat gadget'. But do you really think it's feasible in a place like Nepal? For one it’s battery-powered and a six hour charge only gives you about 15 miles worth of energy. With the constant outages and weak power voltage (or whatever you call it) I doubt if one could really fully charge the scooter. They run $3,000 a piece right now and even if the price does go down dramatically, I can't see those Nepali's rich enough to afford it going around in them - egads! think about their social status - no, no, it wouldn't befit them to go around in anything other than an imported Hyundai or Toyota. At the most, it might be a popular toy for the brats with parents whose pockets are stuffed with ghush ko paisa or black money, but I doubt if it would ever be anything more than that.
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| U2 |
Posted
on 04-Dec-01 11:54 PM
I think this would be most feasible transport medium for nepal in future, when its price falls down to, I hope to less than 500 $. I hope its price will crumble down just like those price of PCs. In KTM, many still go to work in bicycles and motor bikes. Cars are still luxury and expensive and do not really suit for 4 or 5 kms of travelling. People use cars in KTM just to show their status, I guess. And remember, oil is running out in the world. They say it has life for next 30 or 40 years only!! meaning it is going to be too expensive to fill the tanks in your car in next ten years from now. Safa tempos are already popular here and in future there will be IT scooters roaming in city, I hope.
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| diyalo |
Posted
on 05-Dec-01 01:50 AM
Ginger aka IT aka Segway demonstrated
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 03/12/2001 at 14:00 GMT
Inventor Dean Kamen demonstrated his 'Segway Human Transporter' in New York's Bryant Park Monday. With him for the staged festivities were Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson from ABC's "Good Morning America" which aired the event live.
So what is it? Well, it looks like a push mower, but it's actually a battery-powered scooter accommodating a single, standing rider. It's very quiet and is said to be able to travel fifteen miles on a single charge.
A computer-controlled apparatus keeps the thing stable and enables it to turn on a dime. It goes forward and backward and rotates in place. Rider input is essentially a matter of shifting one's weight and steering with the handle bars. Top speed is 12 mph, and the cost will be about $3000.
Yahoo! has a good photo of it here.
So, will it revolutionize urban life as the press-hype surrounding its initial disclosure dared predict? Probably not.
First off, it's expensive. On top of that, it weighs 65 lbs, making it a real monster to drag home on an empty battery. But then again, it's not so heavy that it can't easily be grabbed and tossed into the back of someone else's pickup truck.
And anyway, they'll be banned from municipal sidewalks the split second some 18-month-old toddler gets crushed and paralyzed for life. Teenagers will re-jigger them, make them go very fast, and break their necks in Extreme Ginger exhibitions in front of admiring babes, leading to further restrictions by official killjoys. Small children will ride them down stairs, to very bad outcomes. And dogs will chase them relentlessly.
For dogs, surely, Ginger is proof of God's infinite love and generosity. For the rest of us, it's an amusing novelty, possibly a fad, but we don't quite see, as Steve Jobs reportedly did, cities being designed around it. ®
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| arnico |
Posted
on 05-Dec-01 09:43 PM
JDV,
What becomes status symbols changes over time. It is not only large things. Look at cell phones!
The barrier to success for this scooter in Nepal, though, is the ability to ride safely and comfortably on pot-holed streets without sidewalks while Tata trucks go past... not to mention all the problems in the monsoon...
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| joie de vivre |
Posted
on 05-Dec-01 09:46 PM
My goodness arnico, I've been online for the last 1/2 hr and every since new posting's been yours!! (sorry to digress from the topic...)
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