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is euc growth dying?


John Eucist

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John, I did do a search on Baidu Predictions (China's version of Google trends) for EUC (their term is 电动独轮车 Diàndòng dúlúnchē or electric wheelbarrow) and there didn't seem to be enough interest to generate a chart (but Baidu is not nearly as good as Google).  A worldwide search on 电动独轮车 and self balancing unicycle on Google turned up charts that reflect what you found for the US with English.   In truth I don't see that many when I am in China.  Singapore and Russia seem to be the Asian countries that are enthusiastic about EUCs.

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11 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Annoyingly so... Last weekend I showed someone half my age how to ride... and 10 minutes later he's riding better than me (not that I let him know that).

Getting old pisses me off! 

Ha. Ha. Same here. My GF's daughter was able to ride mine in a straight line after 10 minutes. I spent 1 1/2 hours to get to that point. Bloody kids. Lol

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the search term gyroroue within France doesn't support a dying trend and I found similar (non-dying) trends for Ninebot or Inmotion, in contrast to Solowheel which is down since end of 2015.

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1 minute ago, MoNo said:

the search term gyroroue within France doesn't support a dying trend and I found similar (non-dying) trends for Ninebot or Inmotion, in contrast to Solowheel which is down since end of 2015.

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Which supports the publicity / awareness theory...

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Newsflash! 

This just in, can't be good for the EUC cause in Europe. There's a poll on the website, where 83% thought that the penalty that the magistrate gave him was unfair.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-ended-up-six-points-12031624

Kamrul Islam, 46, said he was delivering menus in Tyntyla Road in Ystrad, Rhondda , when he fell while riding his electric AirWheel Q3 on the pavement.

He said after a dispute with a motorist, police arrived and he was taken to court.

He said: “They charged me for not having insurance but you cannot even get insurance. You can’t get motor insurance if you do not have a number plate.”

He said he is now considering appealing.

The £850 unicycle was seized by cops for destruction.

Kamrul said: “The police said if I did not provide proof of insurance then they would dismantle it.”

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, it is “a matter of fact and degree for a court to interpret as to whether or not a vehicle is a motor vehicle at the time of the incident”.

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@Jason McNeil thanks for the example. But not all state/continent regulations are equal.

I live in Europe, France, Paris.
In Belgium (neighbor state) EUC are enhanced pedestrian. 

But here, in France, as long as they do not exceed 25 km/h EUCs are not motor vehicles. When they can, by spec, exceed 25 km/h, they can not be certified because to be certified a street vehicle shall have 2, 3, or 4 and more wheels to enter a category.

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21 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said:

Newsflash! 

This just in, can't be good for the EUC cause in Europe. There's a poll on the website, where 83% thought that the penalty that the magistrate gave him was unfair.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-ended-up-six-points-12031624

Kamrul Islam, 46, said he was delivering menus in Tyntyla Road in Ystrad, Rhondda , when he fell while riding his electric AirWheel Q3 on the pavement.

He said after a dispute with a motorist, police arrived and he was taken to court.

He said: “They charged me for not having insurance but you cannot even get insurance. You can’t get motor insurance if you do not have a number plate.”

He said he is now considering appealing.

The £850 unicycle was seized by cops for destruction.

Kamrul said: “The police said if I did not provide proof of insurance then they would dismantle it.”

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, it is “a matter of fact and degree for a court to interpret as to whether or not a vehicle is a motor vehicle at the time of the incident”.

GB must be the worst place to own and ride an EUC/SBV as it seems those people are being almost "prosecuted" more strict than real criminals...

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5 hours ago, Jason McNeil said:

One of the profound impressions I had on visiting China, especially recently, is pervasiveness of 'Western branded' high-end consumer goods. You'll see more Rolls Royces, Jaguars & Land Rovers flying through the central streets of Shenzhen, than any day in London.  

Owning an expensive piece of western brand is seen as a symbol of status or material success in China. Although in most cultures people wants status symbols, the importance of ``having face" making the demand of such symbols much higher there.  Being a status symbol, the item must be expensive, the more outrageously expensive the better. One of my Russian friend told me that in Moscow, the wifes or girl friends of newly riches compete to see whose stuff is more expensive, not whose is better.

EUC cannot be symbol of status. But it is cool, addicting. Jason is right that this is where celebrities can make a huge difference. Celebrities can make drinking sugar water cool, so can they make EUC known and ``in". 

Jason can consider a sales promotion program similar to the Speedyfeet's ambassador program. Many people ask me where to buy EUCs when they saw me riding one. 

 

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5 hours ago, Jason McNeil said:

Newsflash! 

This just in, can't be good for the EUC cause in Europe. There's a poll on the website, where 83% thought that the penalty that the magistrate gave him was unfair.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-ended-up-six-points-12031624

Kamrul Islam, 46, said he was delivering menus in Tyntyla Road in Ystrad, Rhondda , when he fell while riding his electric AirWheel Q3 on the pavement.

He said after a dispute with a motorist, police arrived and he was taken to court.

He said: “They charged me for not having insurance but you cannot even get insurance. You can’t get motor insurance if you do not have a number plate.”

He said he is now considering appealing.

The £850 unicycle was seized by cops for destruction.

Kamrul said: “The police said if I did not provide proof of insurance then they would dismantle it.”

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, it is “a matter of fact and degree for a court to interpret as to whether or not a vehicle is a motor vehicle at the time of the incident”.

that IS horrible

"FOR DESTRUCTION?"

what a bunch of jerks

you are correct, of course.... this is NOT good for the EUC cause

thanks for posting this

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China has a big hobbyist subculture; models, paint guns, drones, eucs, etc.  So I suspect EUC sales in China are pretty good.  Europe and Russia also seem to rank high in English searches for EUCs, so I would guess together they are pushing the market.   US is pretty faddish; it's hard to say whether something like EUCs with a learning curve will stay popular in the long run.

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37 minutes ago, Chris Westland said:

it's hard to say whether something like EUCs with a learning curve will stay popular in the long run.

Having to spend more than 30 seconds learning is the biggest challenge... Even though it is no harder to learn than a bicycle. The biggest challenge may be to get people to want to learn!

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2 hours ago, Chris Westland said:

China has a big hobbyist subculture; models, paint guns, drones, eucs, etc.  So I suspect EUC sales in China are pretty good.  Europe and Russia also seem to rank high in English searches for EUCs, so I would guess together they are pushing the market.   US is pretty faddish; it's hard to say whether something like EUCs with a learning curve will stay popular in the long run.

But the problem are countries with no regulations and no toleration: 

UK, Austria, Germany, Netherlands,.. EUC can bei seized and rider can get high fines.

Everytime the sales rises (peak before fall) in a country without regulations EUC gets attracted by police. The Chinese manufacturer are searching for countries with a "grey"area of definition/ tolerance. So even countries which have regulated (Scandinavian countries) can change their mind or control compliance to regulations. Even in Scandinavia the safety standards are valid. 

If there would be some energy put in fulfilling regulations things could be much easier. 

EUC can be matter of questions: Last weekend a guy from here drove to Zermatt by train. On the Matterhorn Railway they put his EUC in a storage because of fear of explosion. Looking on this: We're unknown and we're not trusted to be good/ safe.

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9 hours ago, Chris Westland said:

it's hard to say whether something like EUCs with a learning curve will stay popular in the long run

I agree. My hunch is that EUCs will only become a real mass product (like that 10+% of all households have at least one of them) if the kids get hooked, that is, if most adults will already know how to ride them at the point when they become adults. The same goes for bicycles which wouldn't be nearly as popular if adults would need to learn how to ride them. This part is fun for most kids and some adults but for most adults it is an annoyance and a time sink with a too uncertain outcome.

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On ‎16‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 4:37 AM, Boxer Rebellion said:

Or, have buy-back option on the practice EUC, and depending on how badly wounded it is, the wounds will determine the credited price. This may or may not be profitable, but would certainly push more EUCs in the market.

Those could be refurbished and sold to next new "venturer" into EUC world ;)

With the search analysis it's always problem of the terminology used. May people still call EUCs "Solowheel" independent of the brand (as they were the first "popularized" widely) - even now you can still see all the Chinese online sellers "sneaking" in the solowheel word in the item description. Segway and ninebot are closely behind followed by other "brands" like airwheel and so on. So about 20-ish terns would need to be analysed and compounded together to get more precise picture here (much more if you'd like to include another 40-ish national terms with some major ones like in France and so on).

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11 hours ago, Greg Spalding said:

that IS horrible

"FOR DESTRUCTION?"

what a bunch of jerks

This is common in UK and used regularly for uninsured cars. If you don't provide insurance the seized car is destroyed. As it's almost impossible to get "cheap" insurance on the already seized vehicle many people simply give up if it's some old "banger" as it would cost more than replace it.

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23 minutes ago, HEC said:

So about 20-ish terns would need to be analysed and compounded together to get more precise picture here

Exactly right. Even more annoyingly, it is also necessary to see whether the search term actually refers to the meaning we want to investigate. For example, EUC also means Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (among other things) and it is not unlikely that this meaning actually dominates the search statistics.

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1 hour ago, MoNo said:

Exactly right. Even more annoyingly, it is also necessary to see whether the search term actually refers to the meaning we want to investigate. For example, EUC also means Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (among other things) and it is not unlikely that this meaning actually dominates the search statistics.

Wait, wait, wait...

Are you telling me that this isn't the Emedded & Ubiquitous Computing Forum?

Doh!

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http://www.acronymfinder.com/EUC.html

Electric Unicycle isn't even in that list.  And on eBay it means "excellent used condition" supposedly.  Imagine while selling a second hand euc and posting "euc euc". :P  Anyways, if it were called EU I think it would be even worse.

UPDATE: I just submitted Electric Unicycle to that acronymfinder.com list along with citations, links, and remark.  They said it would be added if approved in a few days.  Let's give it a chance and wait and see.  If it doesn't get added then I'll make a new topic with the link and ask everyone to submit. :) 

UPDATE 2: Hey look at this other acronym/abbreviation site!  It's in there already!  http://www.abbreviations.com/term/1795731

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10 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Having to spend more than 30 seconds learning is the biggest challenge... Even though it is no harder to learn than a bicycle. The biggest challenge may be to get people to want to learn!

Ha ha ... I'm still working on my learning curve, and I think I might 50% agree with you on this.  EUCs present unique challenges... that said, I did have my aha moment when it all came together, just like bicycles, etc.  More than the learning curve, many people are afraid to even try EUCs (particularly my age group) ... though these same people seem edgy even about bikes.

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