Hoverboard

choi

Scott Cendrowsk,. Boom! Goes the Hoverboard Fad.  Chinese factories created the hoverboard industry practically overnight -- THEN CAUSED IT TO GO UP IN SMOKE. The rise and fall (and possible rebound) of a tech fad opens a window onto the erratic, trillion-dollar world of copycat manufacturing. Fortune, Mar 1, 2016.
http://webcache.googleuserconten ... p;ct=clnk&gl=us

Quote:

"Ten days before Christmas, Jerry Feng 冯建 got the bad news.  His company, Shenzhen Bojulong Display Technology [Co, Ltd 深圳市博聚龙显示科技有限公司], was wrapping up a terrific 2015. His factory was one of hundreds in China cranking out no-name versions of the two-wheeled devices Western culture has adopted as 'hoverboards.' 电动双轮平衡车 [known as 懸浮滑板 in Taiwan]"

"the battery-driven gadgets had shown a distressing tendency to burst into flames, occasionally burning down owners’ homes in the process.

"Razor, an American company best known for its two-wheeled scooter, bought licensing rights from the hoverboard’s US patent holder and began cracking down on copycats by suing a big American reseller.

"Despite its dangerous rep, the hoverboard is as ubiquitous in American culture right now as the Big Wheel once was. It doesn't actually hover, of course. It’s more like a Segway minus the pole and handlebars, a platform that riders steer with subtle shifts in weight. A well-coordinated hipster can learn to ride one in a couple of minutes. Hoverboards started catching on in the US last May, after Jamie Foxx wheeled one onto The Tonight Show’s set. * * * By the end of 2015, 40,000 boards were coming into the US each day. While nobody tracks total sales, manufacturers have shipped more than $2 billion worth of hoverboards over the past year and a half, by Fortune’s estimates.

"China is home to more than 250,000 small manufacturers like Feng's, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics, accounting for about $1.3 trillion in annual output. The nimble operations can switch production lines on a dime * * * And if not all the [Chinese-made[ production is of the highest quality, well, do you really need the best flat-screen TV on your [city] block when a cheaper one will do?

"The first reports of boards’ combusting because of shoddy lithium-ion batteries hit social media late last fall.

A Chinese company "created the hoverboard hype, after all[:] * * * Hangzhou Chic Intelligent Technology [Co, Ltd 杭州骑客智能科技有限公司], aka Chic Robotics * * * It’s a division of Innoworks 杭州亿脑智能科技有限公司, a partly state-owned company that matches academics with businesses to help China meet its goal of accumulating patents. Last year Chic recorded about $30 million in sales—80% of it from hoverboards.  Until recently Chic was best known for turning out imitation Segways. * * * on a 2014 trip to Hangzhou, he [a 34-year-old American named John Soibatian] saw Chic’s hoverboard prototype for the first time. * * * Chic CEO Ying Jiawei 董事长 应佳伟

American "Shane Chen argues that it wasn't Chic’s board to begin with. Chen grew up in China and moved to the US at 30 * * * He’s the creator of * * * a gyroscope-powered unicycle without a seat called the Solowheel. Chen also invented a hoverboard, one he patented in the US in 2014 and started selling under the brand name Hovertrax.

"Since December, US Customs officers in Los Angeles and elsewhere have been seizing incoming Chinese hoverboards, citing both safety and intellectual-property issues. * * * None of Chic’s boards, or Chen's, have been linked to fires. * * * But Chic's own boards and IO Hawk’s are getting through customs, Ying says, because they have safety certifications and patents.

Note:
(a) Quotation 4.
(i) rep (First Known Use  circa 1705): "slang: REPUTATION; especially :  status in a group (as a gang)"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rep
(ii) big wheel (tricycle)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_wheel_(tricycle)
(Introduced by Louis Marx and Company in 1969 and manufactured in Girard, Pennsylvania; "Big Wheel" was a registered trademark)

(b) Quotation 8.

Solowheel
http://solowheel.com/