Tesla held its Robotaxi occasion tonight to introduce a complete new car that can perform 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 baggage 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 in the present day we noticed the primary glimpse of what the ultimate model may 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 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 pictures on its web site to see what the inside of the van may appear to be.
These are simply the passenger configuration – we don’t have any pictures of the cargo configuration but. Though the passenger configuration appears to have important cargo area accessible (this might actually be helpful for one thing like an airport shuttle).
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said 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 may very well 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 appear to be the long run,” which is actually obvious within the design of the Robovan, which appears sort of acquainted…
The design of the Robovan is actually fairly out-there, however given Tesla’s historical past with out-there ideas, it’d really come to fruition in a state considerably like this.
Nevertheless, 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 shall 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 many others.
And including a bunch of 2-seat vehicles to the highway does nothing to cut back congestion, as a result of we’ll nonetheless find yourself with about the identical common car occupancy as we have now proper now – or possibly even much less occupancy since you wouldn’t have the occasional 3-5 individual car. Which might even imply extra congestion.
However the Robovan provides the promise of with the ability to carry an precise important variety of individuals, and with its bigger capability, deadhead miles may be diminished as effectively as a result of it might run hop-on hop-off routes.
I might actually see this operating on any variety of smaller shuttle routes that will 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 is able to be excellent 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 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 have now 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 occasions. I suppose at the least Robovan can’t be pushed again, if it doesn’t have a date but to start with.
Humorous factor although, I really suppose the Robovan may be extra doable than Robotaxi from an autonomy perspective, as a result of these kinds of autos usually tend to run a set route, and thus can have a extra restricted operational area which is simpler to program for. So it nearly looks as if it might/ought to come ahead of 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, large grains of salt right here), the extra mass-transit-focused nature of that is extra thrilling to me than Robotaxi. We’ve got to chop congestion and sprawl, so having autos that may assist to allow that is fairly useful. For sure cities, the place subways or mild rail are unfeasible for no matter purpose, a mid-size electrical shuttle like this may very well be a incredible strategy to clear up the roads.
Now, let’s see if it ever occurs…..
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