Tesla held its Robotaxi occasion tonight to introduce an entire new car that can perform completely 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 deal with 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 social gathering, 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 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, 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 to be.
These are simply the passenger configuration – we don’t have any photographs of the cargo configuration but. Though the passenger configuration appears to be like to have vital cargo area obtainable (this might definitely be helpful for one thing like an airport shuttle).
Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged that the Robotaxi would be capable to get the price of transport right down to round 20 cents a mile, however that the Robovan would take that even additional, right down to 5-10 cents a mile.
A car 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 longer term ought to appear to be the longer term,” which is definitely obvious within the design of the Robovan, which appears to be like type of acquainted…
The design of the Robovan is definitely fairly out-there, however given Tesla’s historical past with out-there ideas, it would truly come to fruition in a state considerably like this.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a change in floor clearance. It appears uncertain that the maybe ~1-2 inch floor clearance on the demo car will probably be notably 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 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 carry an entire household, or a bunch of mates, and many others.
And including a bunch of 2-seat automobiles to the street does nothing to scale back congestion, as a result of we’ll nonetheless find yourself with about the identical common car occupancy as we’ve 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 vital variety of individuals, and with its bigger capability, deadhead miles is perhaps decreased as properly as a result of it may run hop-on hop-off routes.
I may definitely see this working on any variety of smaller shuttle routes that may profit from frequent pickups. There’s a summer season shuttle the place I grew up in California which simply runs individuals to and from the seaside to assist alleviate parking points, and this might be excellent 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 12 months already (Robotaxi, Semi, an reasonably priced EV, next-gen Roadster, unsupervised FSD, and Optimus), and now we’ve 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 a minimum of 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 individuals round throughout the night time, past the preliminary pul up. The Robotaxi was a minimum of driving individuals round, albeit in a closely mapped space at low speeds, quite than in an actual world state of affairs with all of the surprising nonsense that comes up.
Humorous factor although, I truly suppose the Robovan is perhaps extra attainable than Robotaxi from an autonomy perspective, as a result of these types of automobiles usually tend to run a set route, and thus can have a extra restricted operational area which is less complicated to program for. So it virtually looks like it may/ought to come earlier than 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. We’ve to chop congestion and sprawl, so having automobiles that may assist to allow that is fairly vital. For sure cities, the place subways or gentle rail are unfeasible for no matter cause, a mid-size electrical shuttle like this could possibly be a improbable solution to clear up the roads.
Now, let’s see if it ever occurs…..
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