Tesla held its Robotaxi occasion tonight to introduce a complete new automobile that may perform completely as a driverless automobile. 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 concentrate on the upcoming 2-seat Robotaxi, with an anticipated replace on Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robotic.
We acquired 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 few potential “Robovan.” We talked about this briefly earlier than the occasion in our Electrek watch celebration, and there have been numerous rumors for years, with Tesla supposedly making a 12-passenger van for Boring Co. tunnels and seeing a leak of a peoplemover prototype in recent times.
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 will probably be able to carrying 20 folks, or even be able to carrying cargo. The configuration we noticed was the people-carrying model, and Tesla has put up a number of photographs on its web site to see what the inside of the van would possibly appear like.
These are simply the passenger configuration – we don’t have any photographs of the cargo configuration but. Though the passenger configuration seems to be to have important cargo house accessible (this might definitely be helpful for one thing like an airport shuttle).
Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged 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 automobile like this could possibly be helpful for shuttle routes that want frequent pickups (like airport or scholar shuttles), for municipalities that don’t have sufficient ridership for a standard 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 appear like the long run,” which is definitely obvious within the design of the Robovan, which seems to be sort of acquainted…
The design of the Robovan is definitely fairly out-there, however given Tesla’s historical past with out-there ideas, it would really 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 automobile might be significantly helpful on metropolis roads….
In contrast to the Robotaxi, Tesla didn’t share a launch date for the Robovan. Whereas Musk mentioned the Robotaxi could be accessible 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 carry a complete household, or a bunch of buddies, and so on.
And including a bunch of 2-seat vehicles to the street does nothing to cut back congestion, as a result of we’ll nonetheless find yourself with about the identical common automobile occupancy as we’ve proper now – or possibly even much less occupancy since you wouldn’t have the occasional 3-5 individual automobile. Which may even imply extra congestion.
However the Robovan provides the promise of having the ability to carry an precise important variety of folks, and with its bigger capability, deadhead miles could be decreased as properly as a result of it may run hop-on hop-off routes.
I may definitely see this operating on any variety of smaller shuttle routes that might profit from frequent pickups. There’s a summer time shuttle the place I grew up in California which simply runs folks to and from the seaside to assist alleviate parking points, and this might be good for that. Or how in regards to the new electrical shuttles at Zion Nationwide Park.
However like each Tesla promise, this one must be taken with a grain of salt.
In any case, Tesla plans to change the world in 6 large methods subsequent yr already (Robotaxi, Semi, an inexpensive EV, next-gen Roadster, unsupervised FSD, and Optimus), and now we’ve one more unreleased product so as to add to that pile. And most of these present ones have been pushed again a number of instances. I suppose at the very least Robovan can’t be pushed again, if it doesn’t have a date but to start with.
And we solely noticed it pull up and park, it didn’t shuttle folks round throughout the evening, past the preliminary pul up. The Robotaxi was at the very least driving folks round, albeit in a closely mapped space at low speeds, reasonably than in an actual world state of affairs with all of the surprising nonsense that comes up.
Humorous factor although, I really suppose the Robovan could be extra doable than Robotaxi from an autonomy perspective, as a result of these kinds of automobiles usually tend to run a set route, and thus can have a extra restricted operational house which is simpler to program for. So it nearly looks as if it may/ought to come earlier than Robotaxi, which might want to primarily 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. We have now to chop congestion and sprawl, so having automobiles that may assist to allow that is fairly necessary. For sure cities, the place subways or gentle rail are unfeasible for no matter motive, a mid-size electrical shuttle like this could possibly be a implausible option to clear up the roads.
Now, let’s see if it ever occurs…..
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