Originally posted by Leshrak
I'd like to believe that their not recovering investment costs has more to do with the fact that the Segway is more of a silly gadget than a serious means of transportation. I mean, really, who wants to ride around sidewalks on a personal scooter? Are we that lazy as a society? Aside from the visual silliness of it, it's impractical. If you rode that to the office, where would you park it? at your desk? Inside a typical office that thing would be bulky at best, and at worst (i.e. in a cubicle office) a pretty big nuisance and moderate safety risk to pretty much everyone in the office.
It has a number of excellent uses. However, it is not (as its inventors(?) originally envisioned) a replacement for the automobile. If you look at it as an alternative to either Shank's Pony or a bicycle, it has more validity:

* Security personnel can patrol a larger area than they can on foot, yet can still conveniently enter doorways and such (which is awkward with a bike)

* Adam Savage can glide away with ease in search of the object they just fired out of who-knows-what, while Jamie Hyneman walks up eventually behind him

* Instead of using a 4WD with surfboard rack to say "Hey look, I have more money than I need", use a Segway instead, and say "Hey look, I have lots of money and I'm a geek".