jer Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 These were supposed to have landed by now. If it is not gone belly up some kind of statement would be handy. If it has gone belly up, then it won't make much of a difference. Thanks Jer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmethvin Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 The construction quality of the units they demonstrated months ago seemed very good and the industrial design was top notch, but the batteries were very small which affects safety. You can swap batteries to improve range but pairing a supposed 1500 watt motor with a single 132Wh battery is quite a mismatch. At this point I am not sure it makes sense to release the product they announced back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 It never made sense... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 14 hours ago, dmethvin said: The construction quality of the units they demonstrated months ago seemed very good and the industrial design was top notch, but the batteries were very small which affects safety. You can swap batteries to improve range but pairing a supposed 1500 watt motor with a single 132Wh battery is quite a mismatch. This is the point I've continually made, but people on this forum are not understanding. The small battery does not necessarily effect safety, you are comparing apples with pears by comparing Lithium Ion experience with LiFePO4. LiFe cells hold 3.3V for almost their entire discharge by the time they hit 3.2V they are down to less than 18% capacity. They also have lower internal resistance and a much much greater cycle life. They can also be discharged deeper without significant permanent damage. People are going for 640Wh and higher Lithium Ion batteries, not because they intend to drive miles and miles but because they need those multiple parallel cells for power safety. I.e. Very few LiIon wheels are truly safe at speed once the battery is much below 50% charge. Ironically that then makes those wheels every bit as expensive as the Uniwheel. That is not such an issue with LiFe cells. Using a smaller, albeit more expensive, LiFe battery makes the whole thing lighter, will give something like 11Km range which is more than enough for most commuters, means they are safe to carry on airlines (whether the airlines will allow it is another debate!) and, of course you can plug in a spare battery if you need it. Like everyone else it is worrying that launch has been delayed so long that it feels like vapourware but, interestingly they are much more active on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/theuniwheel?lang=en-gb than they are here. To me it looks like they don't see the members of this forum as their true customers and are not very interested in our views. A pity as IMHO we would be great ambassadors for them if engaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmethvin Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 @Keith I had forgotten those weren't LiIon batteries, so good point there. Still, even their claimed range of 11km is pretty low and no doubt optmistic. Perhaps we aren't their target customer but at this point nobody is their customer because they aren't selling product. They wasted a lot of good PR exposure by not shipping anything yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddylaz Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Anyone got any updates? I have a feeling this wheel has been keyser soze'd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardmech Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 I looked up a few of the engineers, their linkedin profiles say they finished at uniwheel in July. They gave the impression the product design was finished and ready for production. I suppose either it's in production and will be shipping soon or they opted to cancel production for some reason, possibly they wanted a certain amount of preorders before going ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 20 minutes ago, lizardmech said: I looked up a few of the engineers, their linkedin profiles say they finished at uniwheel in July. They gave the impression the product design was finished and ready for production. I suppose either it's in production and will be shipping soon or they opted to cancel production for some reason, possibly they wanted a certain amount of preorders before going ahead. Clever investigation Chief Inspector @lizardmech ;-) Does it look like they kept any of their design team? Would they really declare a product complete, ready for market and then sack their designers? Would they be that confident the design would have zero issues on launch and the product is so perfect they couldn't improve it? Hmmm..... Doesn't sound good does it? I really liked the wheel, but I wasn't going to commit to something that wasn't out, particularly as it REALLY needs a spare battery and they couldn't even give a price for one. I liked even more that there would be somebody in the UK helping to fight archaic pointless laws that do nothing more than restrict the development of 21st Century low carbon transport. I wonder if failure to achieve any headway there that might be a reason to quit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardmech Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 It's possible they just hired them as contractors until it was ready to release. Looking at the people that worked there it gave the impression most of the resources went into industrial design, plastic molding designs and production. They must have spent quite a bit on marketing as they had stalls at various shows and a car show. One of the linkedin profiles implied R&D was spending 25,000 GBP per month. I was looking back through their videos and other releases, it looked like the battery+bms, foot sensors and case was complete but there was never anything about the motor controller section being complete, they were giving details on everything else even down to which CAD program they used for the case, so I am unsure if the controller was completed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 Didn't they have (at least) prototypes they we're showing at some of the shows? I think some people here actually got to try it sometime... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 2 hours ago, esaj said: Didn't they have (at least) prototypes they we're showing at some of the shows? I think some people here actually got to try it sometime... Indeed that is so. There is a Which report (March 2016) with video footage of at least 4 working Uniwheels with journalists trying to stay upright on them here: http://blogs.which.co.uk/technology/transport/is-the-uniwheel-the-future-of-personal-mobility/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=whichtecht&utm_content=uniwheel170616&utm_term=twtechdaily. There is also an interesting Russian article from December 2015 http://www.yugopolis.ru/news/auto/2015/12/10/88937/tehnologii-transport-evgenii-chichvarkin-monokoleso-timur-artemev Google translates a key part of it as:" The Project42 has 50 people working today, two offices of the company - in London and Moscow. Artemyev, in his "rough estimate", has already spent on the development of $ 5-6 million is not going to stop investing in the company (he does not name a specific amount of planned investments). "To attract investors, while not prove that it is running a business that makes a profit, it is meaningless. First commercial success, then investors ", - said Artemev. The businessman said that the patent for an invention he does not, but the corresponding applications have already been submitted. He admitted he did not know when the investment will pay off, and the company will begin to earn, because it is "difficult to predict". However, Artemiev expects that in a few years <electric wheels> from Project42 will ride 3-5% of the population in the world." So perhaps patents like this one: http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20090266629 are what is causing launch delays? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardmech Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 9 hours ago, esaj said: Didn't they have (at least) prototypes they we're showing at some of the shows? I think some people here actually got to try it sometime... The problem is with EUC startups is anyone can take a generic chinese controller and motor to use it as a demonstration model. Until they talk about their motor and control hardware you have no way to tell what is inside. There was an Australian one like that as well, money spent on marketing, a demo model with nice looking case but few technical details and they appeared to be looking for investors and preorders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 4 hours ago, lizardmech said: There was an Australian one like that as well, money spent on marketing, a demo model with nice looking case but few technical details and they appeared to be looking for investors and preorders. The one where Firewheel sto... loaned their design from? Mono Electric Wheel: http://www.ewheels.org/catalog/single-wheels/mono-electric?sku=0 Firewheel: http://www.ewheels.org/catalog/single-wheels/firewheel?sku=[sku] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardmech Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 8 minutes ago, esaj said: The one where Firewheel sto... loaned their design from? Mono Electric Wheel: http://www.ewheels.org/catalog/single-wheels/mono-electric?sku=0 Firewheel: http://www.ewheels.org/catalog/single-wheels/firewheel?sku=[sku] Actually I looked that company up, it looked like just an advertising guy and an industrial designer so I didn't think they made any electronics. If only firewheel had ripped off the design correctly, the monowheel cover is one piece, while firewheel just cut it in half and have a seam running down the middle like every other EUC, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gimlet Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 On Sunday, August 07, 2016 at 5:26 AM, lizardmech said: The problem is with EUC startups is anyone can take a generic chinese controller and motor to use it as a demonstration model. Until they talk about their motor and control hardware you have no way to tell what is inside. There was an Australian one like that as well, money spent on marketing, a demo model with nice looking case but few technical details and they appeared to be looking for investors and preorders. Having ridden & seen the internal workings of the uniwheel I can say that their design is definitely different and not just another Chinese copy. The wait is getting very frustrating but having waited much longer for the delivery of my Tesla I am still keeping my order in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardmech Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 They are posting on social media again, hopefully it was just a small delay and it's still being released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddylaz Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 My friend had to wait quite a bit but he's just received his Uniwheel. HE LOVES IT! : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 @Paddylaz, really! Can you get him to give us a review after a week or two of use? And, if you get e chance, how it compares with the V5F+? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgen Posted August 20, 2016 Share Posted August 20, 2016 The Chinese put their money, time and effort in building EUC's instead of dreaming up a perfect marketing campaign for a future perfect product. I know a guy, (ex-marketeer in big pharma) that started his own business, and wanted me to throw in some money. When I asked him his business plan, he showed me a slide set with pictures of the new office and the assistant (he himself was "too busy preparing the business plan to answer calls") and THE marketing strategy. After I politely congratulated him on his ambitious plans, I asked him again if I could see the business plan, and he went over the slide deck a second time. Six months post-startup he still had zero customers but a much more detailed Marketing Plan slide deck, which helped him to find a moron that invested a lot of money in the project, so he finally went bankrupt after 12 months instead of 6. For new products you have first clients that are called the innovators, then you'll get the early adopters, follow by the large middle majority (the "mass"), and after the hype is long gone and the product has become mature/reliable/boring you'll get the laggards too (if all goes well). It's clear that money starts pouring in when the middle majority starts buying your product when it has matured and reduced it's price (or gives the impression of being better "value"; see Tesla 3).....if the business plan is sound. Trying mass-marketing of a new niche product like an EUC (high price, steep learning curve, potential safety issues, etc) without the full and unwavering support of the innovators to win over the rest of the client chain, is a bit like starting up a public marketing campaign for condoms in Vatican City without the sanctioning from Essay and his Bishops. If you already own the market place with a different product, it could be done, if at great expenses. But a new product plus new market minus the support of the innovators, just forget it. Plus, when launching a new product you have only one (1) shot at it, the pickup curve of the first 6m post-launch is extremely difficult to increase, Uniwheel is now 6 months into their launch, and the curve is flat, zero sales, and no BS Musk pep-talk to boost speculation on the stock market..... It's sad, no only for Uniwheel but also because other innovative EUC companies now will have even more difficulties getting investors interested: "this has been tried before, bla, bla, remember Uniwheel, never sold one wheel, ...." So sad. @Uniwheel, please prove me I'm wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardmech Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 @Paddylaz You sure he got one? Haven't seen anything more about them anywhere. They did have a job listing for checking production in Shenzhen about 3 weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddylaz Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 1 hour ago, lizardmech said: @Paddylaz You sure he got one? Haven't seen anything more about them anywhere. They did have a job listing for checking production in Shenzhen about 3 weeks ago. no I was only joking!! Was just mocking them for the fact that this is clearly just never coming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgen Posted October 5, 2016 Share Posted October 5, 2016 They could've made a fortune through crowdfunding....but it's too late now, everybody probably realises by now this is vaporware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxLinux Posted October 8, 2016 Share Posted October 8, 2016 On 10/5/2016 at 4:10 AM, Jurgen said: They could've made a fortune through crowdfunding....but it's too late now, everybody probably realises by now this is vaporware. "Take the ride of your life" "The urban head turner" "No detail compromised" "Designed to last" Wow, this is awesome! How do I order? "Leave your email address to be the first to learn about our wheel" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rehab1 Posted October 8, 2016 Share Posted October 8, 2016 On October 5, 2016 at 4:10 AM, Jurgen said: They could've made a fortune through crowdfunding....but it's too late now, everybody probably realises by now this is vaporware. That may have helped but looked what is going on with the Lily Drone! That company raised over $30M on Go Fund Me and they are now 18 months behind their promised release date! Customers are now cancelling their pre-orders due to the long delays along with the recent release of the Mavic Drone and upcoming release of the GoPro Karma on October 23rd. Hopefully people who preordered the Lily will be able to get their refunds. @Questor did you receive your Lily refund yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Questor Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 On 10/8/2016 at 0:30 PM, Rehab1 said: @Questor did you receive your Lily refund yet? On 10/8/2016 at 0:30 PM, Rehab1 said: @Questor Hello Rehab. We did send several messages back and fourth and I do have an email saying they will return my funds in 15 days. But that was September 30th and I have not received the refund yet. Q~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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