Tesla held its Robotaxi occasion tonight to introduce a complete new car that can operate solely as a driverless car. However along with the Robotaxi, it additionally unveiled one other robo-vehicle – an autonomous van that can be utilized for both 20-person mass transit or for cargo hauling duties.
The “We, Robotic” occasion was primarily anticipated to give attention to the upcoming 2-seat Robotaxi, with an anticipated replace on Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robotic.
We bought updates on each of these, with Robotaxis shuttling passengers across the Warner Bros. backlot the place the occasion was held, and Optimus robots serving drinks and handing out goodie luggage to attendees.
However one other rumor was a couple of potential “Robovan.” We talked about this briefly earlier than the occasion in our Electrek watch occasion, and there have been varied rumors for years, with Tesla supposedly making a 12-passenger van for Boring Co. tunnels and seeing a leak of a peoplemover prototype lately.
And right this moment we noticed the primary glimpse of what the ultimate model would possibly really feel like, because it pulled up and emptied a number of occupants throughout the occasion.
We didn’t get a lot details about the van, besides that it is going to be able to carrying 20 individuals (although the above pictures present solely 14 seats), or even be able to carrying cargo. The configuration we noticed was the people-carrying model, and Tesla has put up a number of pictures on its web site to see what the inside of the van would possibly seem like.
These are simply the passenger configuration – we don’t have any pictures of the cargo configuration but. Though the passenger configuration seems to be to have important cargo house obtainable (this might actually be helpful for one thing like an airport shuttle).
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the Robotaxi would have the ability to get the price of transport all the way down to round 20 cents a mile, however that the Robovan would take that even additional, all the way down to 5-10 cents a mile.
A car like this might be helpful for shuttle routes that want frequent pickups (like airport or scholar shuttles), for municipalities that don’t have sufficient ridership for a traditional 80-passenger bus, and naturally for metropolis last-mile supply in a cargo configuration.
Musk additionally repeated his line that “the long run ought to seem like the long run,” which is actually obvious within the design of the Robovan, which seems to be form of acquainted…
The design of the Robovan is actually fairly out-there, however given Tesla’s historical past with out-there ideas, it’d truly come to fruition in a state considerably like this.
Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be stunned to see a change in floor clearance. It appears uncertain that the maybe ~1-2 inch floor clearance on the demo car can be notably helpful on metropolis roads….
Not like the Robotaxi, Tesla didn’t share a launch date for the Robovan. Whereas Musk mentioned the Robotaxi could be obtainable within the subsequent two years, he gave no date for the Robovan.
Electrek’s Take
One factor that the Robotaxi has been criticized for is its variety of seats. Whereas 2 seats is sufficient for lots of driving duties, you’re not going to have the ability to deliver a complete household, or a bunch of mates, and so forth.
And including a bunch of 2-seat automobiles to the street does nothing to cut back congestion, as a result of we’ll nonetheless find yourself with about the identical common car occupancy as we now have proper now – or possibly even much less occupancy since you wouldn’t have the occasional 3-5 individual car. Which may even imply extra congestion.
However the Robovan provides the promise of having the ability to carry an precise important variety of individuals, and with its bigger capability, deadhead miles could be diminished as nicely as a result of it may run hop-on hop-off routes.
I may actually see this working on any variety of smaller shuttle routes that may profit from frequent pickups. There’s a summer time shuttle the place I grew up in California which simply runs individuals to and from the seashore to assist alleviate parking points, and this may be good for that. Or how concerning the new electrical shuttles at Zion Nationwide Park.
However like each Tesla promise, this one must be taken with a grain of salt.
In spite of everything, Tesla plans to change the world in 6 large methods subsequent yr already (Robotaxi, Semi, an reasonably priced EV, next-gen Roadster, unsupervised FSD, and Optimus), and now we now have yet one more unreleased product so as to add to that pile. And most of these current ones have been pushed again a number of instances. I assume at the very least Robovan can’t be pushed again, if it doesn’t have a date but to start with.
Tesla additionally confirmed a imaginative and prescient of the long run it desires tonight, with parks taking the place of parking heaps in varied city settings.
Which is all nicely and good, besides that the CEO who offered this imaginative and prescient has just lately donated $180 million to a candidate who desires to hurt EVs, and who simply right this moment mentioned he’s “involved” about autonomous autos and would ban a few of them from the street if he wins. Odd horse to hitch your self to, actually.
As for the Robovan, we solely noticed it pull up and park, it didn’t shuttle individuals round throughout the evening, past the preliminary pul up. The Robotaxi was at the very least driving individuals round, albeit in a closely mapped space at low speeds, moderately than in an actual world state of affairs with all of the sudden nonsense that comes up.
Humorous factor although, I truly suppose the Robovan could be extra doable than Robotaxi from an autonomy perspective, as a result of these types of autos usually tend to run a set route, and thus can have a extra restricted operational house which is less complicated to program for. So it virtually looks as if it may/ought to come before Robotaxi, which might want to basically be SAE stage 5 succesful (whereas a set route would definitionally be stage 4).
And if it does occur (once more, massive grains of salt right here), the extra mass-transit-focused nature of that is extra thrilling to me than Robotaxi. Now we have to chop congestion and sprawl, so having autos that may assist to allow that is fairly necessary. For sure cities, the place subways or gentle rail are unfeasible for no matter purpose, a mid-size electrical shuttle like this might be a incredible strategy to clear up the roads.
Now, let’s see if it ever occurs…..
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