alt Hacker NewsIt’s not that small of a market if you consider how many wheelchairs the European public sector buys. Take your average Danish hospital and they’ll have at least 10 wheelchairs placed at every major entrance. They’re basically like shopping carts in a lot of public healthcare places. These are semi-regularity replaced because of wear and tear. If you could supply them with a cheap, solid be easily repairable version you could disrupt that market.
Of course you’re not going to have a very easy time entering the market. But even though they buy these things on regulated supply deals, they’re not cheap. If you could get a certified electric one on top of a (I’m not sure if it’s called regular), then you would be posed for disrupting the market.
$1000 is not cheap for an off the shelf wheelchair such as hospitals make available for patients (in the UK, at least). That was my first thought on reading the article - "$1000 for a wheelchair, really?" - and a quick Google shows that you can buy what looks like reasonable quality wheelchairs for less than that. But the ones on the article are custom-made for each buyer, which is clearly a vastly more expensive option.
But, to the point, hospitals don't buy custom wheelchairs.