Comment by cycomanic

I seriously doubt that was the problem. The issue was always that these things were essentially a walking aid for the price of a motorbike/small car and were particularly useless in Europe where you had to transverse cobble stone roads or take one onto the metro (good luck with that).

They were a complete hype product, their projections that they would essentially replace walking and pushbikes were just crazy. I don't think I know anyone who wanted one for more than as a toy.

As a side note, at a ee department where I was teaching around 10 years ago, one student build one as his final year project. Pretty awesome, he essentially did everything himself from software to all the mechanics/electronics... Worked very well as well.