It’s Oct. 10, and Tesla has finally shown off its vision for a robotic taxi of the future, imaginatively called the Robotaxi. It kinda looks like a Volkswagen XL1 from Alibaba. Weird, but a neat concept for taking two people from one place to another place. However, what if you theoretically need to carry more than yourself and someone else? Well, this is the Tesla Robovan, and it’s something else.
Right off the bat, the Robovan looks like a fever dream, like a blend between an Apple mouse and a toaster and the character design of Robots, that animated film. Enclosed wheels, full-length strakes, a true monobox silhouette, surely there’s no way this could make production, right?
Well, at Tesla’s big robotaxi presentation on Thursday, that’s exactly what Elon Musk claimed. The long-term plan, allegedly, is that the Robovan will be there for sports teams, church excursions, mobile orgies, you name it. Alright, maybe the last one wasn’t alluded to, but come on. It’s theoretically a van without a driver. People will be attempt to procreate in there.
Tesla did also unveil a rendering of a robotic vacuum but something tells me that won’t be enough for certain situations. Wait, doesn’t the Boring Company sell flamethrowers?
Like the Cybercab, Tesla expects the Robovan to have no steering wheel, no pedals, no traditional controls of any sort. It begs the question: What would happen if it gets stuck? Presumably, in all of Tesla’s autonomous forecasts, there will be intervention from the cloud or something, but this thing’s still a stretch as far as timelines go, so who knows?
Hell, we don’t even have a rough guideline of when Tesla expects the Robovan to be roaming the streets of America, which is uncharacteristic considering the firm’s, um, optimistic timelines for future products. Has anyone seen the second-generation Tesla Roadster recently? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
There are still an unbelievable number of kinks to be ironed out in order for the Robovan to even be feasible for production. We’re talking regulatory approval, production ramping hell, feasibility of manufacturing, and even whether or not the vision-only approach to Level 4 autonomy will even work. Still, on form factor alone, I’m interested in seeing where this goes. America needs more weird vans, and this is definitely a weird van.
(Photo credits: Tesla)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
We’re Liveblogging The Tesla ‘We, Robot’ Event With The Cybercab And Probably Other Stuff So Join Us
-
Here’s Everything We Know So Far About Tesla’s Upcoming Cybercab Robotaxi
-
Some Geniuses Are Tuning Tesla Model 3s For Up To 150 Extra Horsepower
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
I hate it. But if you give it this wrap I will hate it much less… at least from a design perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1AXekfYBpU
“For a limited time, when you buy a Robovan, you’ll get a free Segway! Operators are standing by, since we don’t have any money left over for chairs after blowing it all on this stupid piece of shit.”
The production model will look more like this.
I disagree, it is EXTREMELY challenging to bone in something that doesn’t exist.
Its more of a Shelbyville idea…
Wait just a minute. We’re twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville!
Definitely has a retro-futurism thing going for it. It might as well be nuclear powered
Is this a bad time to point out that Zoox has already been doing this for quite some time now, and has actual vehicles out on the roads?
But is their founder / CEO incredibly weird and attention seeking? That seems to be the path to profit these days 🙁
chewbacca_roar.mp3
Watch the whole fleet go scurrying away
“There are still an unbelievable number of kinks to be ironed out”
That van looks like it has plenty of space to accomodate lots of kinks.
It’s all vaporware, obviously. But Thomas mentioned the Gen 2 Roadster – how about the Tesla Semi?
But is it “3 Laws Safe”?
https://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1843/irobot023-1540505506.png
This exactly. A way to distribute the robots and attack Audis!!!
Whenever I ride in a (real) train or bus, nobody wants to sit in the backwards facing seats unless all the others are taken. I think something in our brain doesn’t like being transported facing backwards. Why design this fake bus with a bunch of backwards facing seats?
The couldn’t think of a number between 2 and 20? I wouldn’t mind a few extra people’s worth of seating capacity for my family of 4, but 20 is a bus.
So here’s an innovative idea for Tesla – take several of these, link them together and have them run in that tunnel loop they built in Las Vegas.
And maybe put them on tracks with steel wheels to cut down on wear
You might be on to something. This could revolutionize travel for millions
Let’s not get crazy here.
This looks like one of those transportation pods from the Prime Video series Upload which isn’t a good thing since one of the darned things was reprogrammed to kill the MC.
Eventually, these things will be everywhere, at least in warmer climates, once the autonomous bugs are worked out, proven to be safe, and those of us who don’t like to drive or own vehicles get used to the idea of anywhere/anytime personal transport on demand right around the time a progressive state like California starts bouncing around ideas to eliminate non-autonomous vehicles.
Yes, imagine a world of transportation for the public? If only we could do that today.
Don’t we already have vehicles designed to transport ~15 adults? Isn’t this just an E350 but with more steps?
(and yes, I’m intentionally ignoring the laughable claims of full autonomy in the next two years)
It doesn’t and it wont. The data vision only system intake is far too limited. Radar and Lidar provide critical, high repeatability distance data that vision never can. Vision only autonomy lives and dies by the strength of the algorithm, but is entirely limited by the fact that ML has to be perfect in order to accurately asses every situation, which is simply cannot ever be. Put another way, radar gives you an actual distance measurement, cameras require an algorithm to guess distance based on training data, but it is, ultimately, a guess.
Tesla is pushing for Vision only due to cost, but the reality is, every single other automaker uses radar for Adaptive Cruise control, and those that are promising production grade L3 systems are intending to use Lidar, for the simple reason that it is the objectively correct solution to the task at hand.
There’s innovation that truly pushes the industry forward, and then there’s the “we know better than everyone else” Approach. Famous examples of the latter include: Oceangate Titan submersible, Theranos blood testing, Kodak abandoning the digital camera after inventing it, and so so many more.
It would seem like a better idea to crack the nut first, and then set about ways of making it easier, cheaper and more repeatable.
This is just worse public transit.
You can always guarantee techbros of the bay area to “reinvent” something that was always there. Elon is definitely one
The solution is always trains and then buses for where the trains don’t go.
Boring company = Literally a train and subway but worse because it still creates traffic
This taxi thing = Literally a bus but worse because it still creates traffic
Melon Husk just reinvented the bus. Pretty much any silicon valley “mobility revolution” is a bike, a scooter, or a bus invented by people who only sniff their own farts.
Selfishly, I’m glad to live in a small city nearer the east coast. Presumably the tragedies resulting from trying to push fsd on the public will happen far from here
Just ask Ogdenville, Brockway, North Haverbrook, and Springfield about that.
One of those things is not like the others! I suppose it depends on the sports team or church though…
The players and coaching staff from the St Gregory’s boys’ baseball team covers all three!
Calm down, it’s a bus.
“The Tesla Robovan Looks Insane And People Are Definitely Gonna Bone In It”
So thanks to Tesla’s fondness for cameras on all the things I suppose we can look forward to TeslaOnlyFans.
By summoning or entering a Robotaxi or Robovan, passengers give up any and all rights to any and all content derived from their trip, whether audio, video, demographic and/or financial.
Maybe this is Elon’s true genius. Give away the vans. Sell the porn content.
He’s onto something. And given the crap on twitter lately, he has the perfect distribution channel.
Art Deco styling on an airport terminal tram. I’ll pass. I am going to wait for a Chrysler version with a nice Rococo motif.
Bone in it unless your girlfriend has a headache and says there’s just no way
That’s what the Tesla Robots are for
I concur on weird vans. Hell, we need more normal vans, too.
Anyway, I hope that headline wins you a Pulitzer.
More like a Pull-It-Sir…