Minneapolis Segway tour operator Mobile Entertainment told the country in May 2024 that it was set to manufacture a safer successor and offer its franchise model far beyond the Twin Cities. On the company's own site in June 2026, that machine was still a vision.
The May 8, 2024 announcement, distributed by PR Newswire, said Minneapolis-based Mobile Entertainment, LLC, was "set to offer safer tours utilizing the technologically enhanced Segway 2.0." HumanOnaStick, the brand the company says it introduced in 2003, was "preparing to go global, offering the franchise model to national and international markets." Preparing is a roomy verb.
Safety Systems, as Described
The release said the announced design would use Swarm Navigation Technology, a system it claimed "ensures safer, smoother navigation by collectively minimizing risks during tours." An Auto Co-Pilot was "designed for new and casual riders" and would provide "step-by-step guidance." Those are company descriptions of what the transporter was supposed to do. They are not a test result, a delivery date or evidence that the hardware ever left a drawing.
In June 2026, HumanOnaStick's site was still introducing the successor in the future tense of a brochure: "oTo is our next-generation vision for a purpose-built, tour-specific human transporter." The company says it is pronounced "auto" and completely powered by renewable energy. Twenty-five months after a manufacture announcement, the public description had not been promoted from pitch to product.
An Experience, on Purpose
Bill Neuenschwander told the Star Tribune he started with 21 Segways and launched the company at the State Fair in fall 2003. "I'm not trying to get people to rent this from me and drive it to work every day," he said. "I'm about people trying this as an experience." He also said, "We've had 40,000 people ride."
A 2004 Minnesota Public Radio report said riders on those tours could propel themselves up to 12 miles an hour. By June 2009, the Pioneer Press reported that Neuenschwander's company had offered group tours at St. Anthony Main in Minneapolis since 2004 and was about to start the same thing in downtown St. Paul. That article also noted a Segway tour directory had recently recorded its 300th listing, including 115 U.S. locations. For a while, the guided two-wheeler was a national category, not a Twin Cities quirk.
What You Can Actually Book
HumanOnaStick says it offers Segway Tours of Minneapolis and Segway Tours of St. Paul. Each tour, the company says, starts with 30 minutes of Segway-certified training from professional guides. That is the operating business: a half hour of instruction, then a guided ride, in the two cities the company has been working for years.
The 2024 release framed the successor as the thing that would make those outings safer and then portable, via franchises, to other markets. The tours people can book are still the older arrangement. The global model remains something the company said it was preparing to offer.
The Payout That Got Another City's Attention
The safety pitch is not an abstract branding exercise in this line of work. In October 2018, San Diego proposed requiring Segway tour companies to obtain permits, follow safety procedures and carry commercial liability insurance of at least $2 million per case and $4 million a year, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The proposal followed a $1.7 million settlement that June in a Segway injury case. The tour company that rented out the machine did not contribute to the payout, the paper reported, because it did not have liability insurance and had limited assets.
A reservation in the Twin Cities still buys the tour already on the schedule: training, a professional guide, Minneapolis or St. Paul. oTo, renewable power included, is the machine the company has so far been willing to describe.
