They are solving the last mile problem in public transportation. That's a very large market.

Hmm..classifying a motorised skateboard as a possible solution to public transportation's last mile problem is a far stretch.

The folks that could really benefit from a solution are the elderly, physically disabled and young kids. For the life of me, I would find it difficult to see the majority of these folks riding a skateboard.

think about everything YC/PG has said about 'toys' and the Altair BASIC/Microsoft comments

I don't really see the analogy. MS bootstrapped fairly naturally (with the help of a great deal of luck along the way) from BASIC to progressively more sophisticated OSes, each of which closely followed well-established pre-existing models. AFAIK (I'm not an expert) there are no viable existing models out there for a big next step from the Boosted Board.

Even assuming infinite battery life, what's the form factor? A wheelchair won't cut it. A Segway-like thing won't cut it. A unicycle won't cut it. A conventional bicycle won't cut it. A recumbent bike or trike won't cut it. Roller-skates won't cut it. Exoskeletal legs won't cut it. Many of these things are of proven usefulness, but they've never been general-purpose substitutes or augmentors for pedestrianism. A version of some of the above which folds into something unprecedentedly small and light might begin to cut it, but how is that achievable within present-day engineering constraints?

You're looking at a solution that solves the problem for 100% of people. Most products don't do that. The popularity of bikes proves that.

You only need to solve the problem for the majority of people ( >50% ) to be considered a good solution. The solution may prove to be elegantly simple.

But isn't that their current ambition? Where's the bigger picture?

Well, it makes sense that they'll keep focusing on the last mile - but I'm hoping the next product will appeal to more people. Boosted boards are amazing, but few are going to experience them because of the learning curve and style of longboarding.

I believe their ambition is solving the problem presented in one of YC's requests for startups -- specifically short-distance personal transportation for everyone.

This caught my attention as well...he said it with the same kind of passion that Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos had for Segway. Obviously Segway didn't live up to the anyone's expectations. Hopefully pg isn't nearly as far off the mark as those guys were.

The boards are a way to make sales while they create better batteries. Batteries are often the limiting factor in current tech products.