I think it's awesome. But, it obvious that the current implementation will inspire the creeps in lots of people. Sci-fi horror has put an unfortunate bad rap on robotic tentacles and chromed vertebrae.
I bet if you exposed another mammal like a monkey or a cat to that recharging tentacle, it would be frightened by it too. We are wired to be afraid of snakes and snaky things. It's one of the most common phobias. Sci-fi horror merely tapped into that fear.
"Experiment 1 results indicated that observer rhesus monkeys acquired a fear of snakes through watching videotapes of model monkeys behaving fearfully with snakes.
In Experiment 2, observers watched edited videotapes that showed models reacting either fearfully to toy snakes and nonfearfully to artificial flowers (SN+/FL-) or vice versa (FL+/SN-). SN+/FL- observers acquired a fear of snakes but not of flowers; FL+/SN- observers did not acquire a fear of either stimulus.
In Experiment 3, monkeys solved complex appetitive discriminative (PAN) problems at comparable rates regardless of whether the discriminative stimuli were the videotaped snake or the flower stimuli used in Experiment 2. Thus, monkeys appear to selectively associate snakes with fear."
Experiment 1 shows that monkeys become afraid of snakes through watching videos of other monkeys being afraid of snakes. Experiment 2 shows that monkeys don't acquire a fear of flowers if shown a video of other monkeys being afraid of flowers. Experiment 3 shows that monkeys can still be conditioned in other tasks using videos of either flowers or snakes.
"Although considerable controversy has existed over the extent to which this fear of snakes is “innate” as opposed to based on learning, current evidence suggests that learning is necessary for the fear to manifest itself, at least for some primate species in which wild-reared but not laboratory-reared monkeys show a fear of snakes (see Mineka & Cook, 1988, for a review). For example, Mineka and Cook demonstrated that laboratory-reared rhesus monkeys who were initially unafraid of snakes rapidly acquired a fear of snakes after watching wild-reared model monkeys exhibit a strong fear of snakes (Cook, Mineka, Wolkenstein, & Laitsch, 1985; Mineka, Davidson, Cook, & Keir, 1984). The naive laboratory reared observers initially reached rapidly for food placed adjacent to a series of stimuli, including a real snake, toy snakes, and neutral objects."
My dog has instinctively done many high level things, peeing on tall things, sexing anything, responding to scolding despite I have never been violent to him, shaking water off with a weird reflex, pooing away from his home etc. It's like those behaviours are already preprogrammed. Being scared of certain classes of animals is no more.complex, I think humans probably have tons of preprogrammed behaviours we later add a narrative to. Perhaps belief in unseen agents is one of them.
While its not very hacker news to post funny cat videos there's one here of one reacting in what looks like an anti snake way to a cucumber. I doubt the reaction was a learnt fear of cucumbers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Ov_ptXsE8&feature=youtu.be...
'Wired for it' is a problematic term to use, as it is often interpreted to mean the outcome is deterministic.
Humans are wired for noticing snakes. There are neurological mechanisms [1] that have evolved in humans to prioritize visual detection of snakes [2] and other common threat-related stimuli. I don't know what the science says about this perceptual mechanism being inherently linked to a fear response, but it would make sense given the hypothesized selection pressure that gave rise to it (i.e., not only noticing, but avoiding, the snake before it bites me raises the chances my genes will be passed on)
More anecdata... I was never afraid of snakes as a child (much to the dismay of my mother) nor am I now, but the times I've heard the rattle of a rattlesnake caused me to react in a way that was undeniably involuntary. Seemed pretty primal.
Stuffed toys are exactly that, toys. They aren't representative of real lions and tigers in many ways, including most relevantly that they are cute, not ferocious, and are usually much smaller.
If you had a lifelike stuffed tiger and you posed it in contexts where it wasn't immediately obvious that it wasn't real, I bet you'd get some amazing startle reactions. It sure works with dinosaurs, even though dinosaurs haven't existed for millions of years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSup2gj2Gn4
Yeah but that's the same startle reaction you'd get from any large object traveling towards. I bet if you just moved a steel beam at those speeds out at someone and had it track their position like the "dino" seemed to then they'd be startled too.
It just suggests that we've evolved fears of some, but not all, things which are dangerous to us?
An analogy might be, many people are afraid of heights, and fewer people are afraid of water. That's despite the fact that water is also dangerous. But none of this proves or disproves the notion that fear of heights may be "hardcoded".
It's funny, if that thing were simply anodized, say, a diffuse white with some blue accents, I imagine it would look far less threatening than its current "Terminator" chrome appearance.
Considering Elon Musk's public statements about the risk of advanced AI, perhaps he finds it helpful to cultivate a sense in society that "Terminator-like" AI is starting to happen now.
Imagine you pull up to a Supercharger on Friday night of a holiday weekend. All the stalls are taken and there is a line of a handful of cars in front of you.
Today, you wait in your car until the people in front of you finish charging.
Tomorrow, you leave your car in line and go get dinner.
Imagine you pull up to a Supercharger on Friday night of a holiday weekend. All the stalls are taken and there is a line of a handful of cars in front of you.
I'm wishing I still had my gasoline-powered car at that point.
The "energy current" when pumping gasoline into a tank is larger than what those achieved by Tesla's Superchargers (which take ~40 minutes to 80%). Thus gas stations can have much larger throughputs than comparably sized Supercharger stations.
Which is not a fair comparison because gas stations must meet 100% of the refueling demands of gasoline cars and charging stations only need to meet a tiny percentage because most charging takes place at home or at work.
Apart from the coolness of it, I think this is the main actual use-case.
As the cars get more autonomous, being able to initialize charging robotically (either in a supercharger-queue, or when the car parks itself at home) is useful.
There are several much simpler ways a robot car could connect itself for charging. This is just gee-whiz tech for its own sake, and it's fine for Tesla to do, don't get me wrong.
But as someone who can't afford to buy a Tesla, and who wouldn't spend that kind of money on a car even if I had it, I'd rather see the R&D going into more affordable, more practical EVs that I might actually consider purchasing.
Because the people who are skilled with robotics should instead be working on chemical engineering and process management?
I'm tired of seeing this fallacy of "one thing being developed means that another thing is being put on the sideline". It looks to me like Tesla have the best people on the jobs they need to be on, and just adding "more" isn't going to speed things up more than having more mothers will speed up pregnancy.
> There are several much simpler ways a robot car could connect itself for charging.
I was wondering if Tesla would introduce conductive charging at some point; install a base in your garage, park on top of it, car's charged by morning. Perhaps not feasible with the amount of energy they need to transfer?
There are several much simpler ways a robot car could
connect itself for charging
That's a bold assertion. What's your suggestion that would be simpler than a cable driven arm like in the OP? A couple linear actuators in the base, no precision bearings.
Wouldn't it be faster to just have a post that would align with the vehicle, being already at the correct height to start out with, quickly find the connector and wham-bam thank you ma'am.
Snake version will always be slow due to the number of motors needed, imo.
Nice. Robotic fueling has been done before [1][2], but this is much less clunky. This looks like the OC Robotics snake robot.[3] Finally, a use for snake robots, which have been around for 25 years but are not used much. Tesla has a good application for this - the car end is cooperative and standard. The car's parking guidance system can be programmed to recognize visual targets and get itself into the proper position.
The mechanism is simple. There are many linear actuators in the base pulling on cables that run through the snake segments and attach to plates at the joints.[4] Cable wear is a common problem, but that can be overcome. Charging robots won't cycle that fast; tens of cycles per hour, not thousands.
Isn't this a little over-actuated for the problem at hand? It shouldn't need to go around complex barriers, just connect with the charging port. I don't see why something much simpler/cheaper with 3 or 4 degrees of freedom shouldn't be able to do the job. This is pretty cool though.
Call me a pessimist but I look at that thing and I see it breaking. Drive over it, vandalism, one of the hundred little motors having a defect... Why not just have two or three axis of movement in a more static, 90° construction??
The whole point of snake robotics is that one motor being a defect shouldn't render the entire robot useless. Of course that depends on intelligent control systems (algorithmic or mechanical) that can deal with limitations on any of the joints, without explicit damage sensors.
As for vandalism or getting driven over, well, that's not really a vulnerability exclusive to this approach.
For protection from vehicles, put a bollard on either side. If the cables have overload springs, which they should, forcing it to bend won't hurt anything.
The tentacle approach is mechanically elegant. The base mechanism is obviously a prototype, but that can be cleaned up for production.
Ice, water, and sand in the mechanism will be a problem for outdoor installations, so the base unit has to be protected against those.
That could probably be made to work today, with the gear used by container cranes to slot containers onto ships, trucks, and railroad cars. It would be more complicated than the snake, because stabilizing a hanging load is hard.
Once in a while it would probably scratch the car body.
What a lot of people here aren't getting is that snake robots are mechanically simple. They're unusual, but neither complex nor expensive to manufacture.
Would the claw still work if it was coated in soft rubber?
Alternately, I'm imagining the cute-but-ridiculous solution of making the claw and the car magnetically repel one another, so as it the claw plumb-bobs downward and swings toward the car, it just sort of naturally veers away from the surface, rocking around it in an arc until it stabilizes.
Make it so that the magnet is recessed inside a rim of soft plastic or rubber. Then it will still be able to slot onto the charge port but will not be able to hit the car body.
Some variation of this could potentially work with the Model S, or Model X, however the Model III will most likely have steel body panels instead of aluminum. I would imagine it would be next to impossible to line up the magnet correctly.
After watching this GIF, I imagined what it would feel like walking past a charging station with this thing on it. How it slowly turns its 10KV-charged head towards me.
"- You definitely do look like a charging socket to me.
- I really do not. Look, I am human...
- No, you really do. You just need a quick charge..."
Just keep your mouth closed and it won't notice there's a socket to plug into. Once you start talking though, it may keep applying greater and greater force in a valiant attempt to insert the charger...
well, it can be used as a home protection device - once home security is armed anything the computer identifies as intruder can be chased and Tasered by this thing.
After watching this GIF, I imagined what it would feel like walking past a charging station with this thing on it. How it slowly turns its 10KV-charged head towards me.
"- You definitely do not look like a charging socket to me.
Are there any engineering advantages from choosing this design vs. a more traditional arm, or plug that just moves on two rails up or down and then extends out?
In theory, there is minimal height distance from where such a charging station would be in relation to the car and the charging port height, even when accounting for different Tesla models. As such, I'm not clear why they went with something that on the surface appears overly complicated unless it was for the "wow" factor.
The snake arm is quite simple. The "snake" part is a set of dumb hinged segments; it's all cable-driven from the base. The application does not require much rigidity or repeatability. The load is low; it's just carrying a power cable. There's probably a camera at the end of the tentacle to guide the connector to the car's power socket. The car opens the connector cover, so there's no need for a mechanism on the robot to do that. This is much simpler and far less bulky than the automatic fueling systems that have been built to refuel cars.
The marketing value of this is enormous. People won't have to get out of their cars and get their hands dirty handling a gas hose. This is going to go over big with women.
The huge benefit will be when this is used in conjunction with the self parking system. You drive up to the front of your house, get out, and the car drives itself into the garage and plugs itself in.
I completely agree. I came here to say this but see you beat me to it! I might add that this could be used to park your car miles from where you live. You would simply let your car know when to pick you up and it would come to you like calling the valet at a hotel before heading out. If tesla had overnight parking garages/chargers scattered around we could use all that garage space in our houses for more activities!
That's a really interesting thought once you consider where autonomous vehicles are going with Uber and Google's self-driving vehicles.
It makes a ton of sense that any such vehicle, in addition to going to pick you up, drive you around and drop you off needs to be able to park itself at home base and refuel in an automated fashion.
I'd always seen electric vehicles and fully autonomous vehicles as synergistic technologies for this reason. Certainly, in the part of town where I live, no one has garages or even driveways, so electric cars as they stand would not be practical here.
> The marketing value of this is enormous. People won't have to get out of their cars and get their hands dirty handling a gas hose. This is going to go over big with women.
I think you're underestimating the benefit here. From my talks with Tesla owners, some of the Supercharger stations are pretty far out in the middle of nowhere (for coverage, they have to be).
Late night charging in a rural area without a lot of people around driving an expensive car?
On the plus side, I'm sure the creepy prospect of Terminator-esque robotic snakes dancing idly (maybe Stravinsky's "Infernal Dance" over speakers?) would in and of itself help to deter any would-be muggers from loitering.
I assume the purpose is for a driver to just pull into the garage and have the charger hook up automatically, so a two-rail system would probably not be able to deal with the car being parked at a slight angle and not completely perpendicular to the plug.
The dead-simple solution for aligning the car is to make it drive onto alignment rails. Or, given that it can auto-park, just give it an auto-pump-align routine based on that.
The true benefit of a "smart pump-side alignment" system, I think, is that it copes with different models of vehicles (e.g. EV SUVs, EV 18-wheelers, etc.), with their charging ports in different places and orientations.
Beyond being able to handle almost arbitrary orientations and alignment between the car and charger, Elon is probably planning on reusing this tech at SpaceX for docking or other purposes (just like they share battery tech).
He's a pro at coming up with "synergies" between his companies.
TBF, for space technology it seems far too complicated; you'll want less components, not more. Less components means there's less chance of failure and less weight. I mean I'm pretty sure each segment is motorized or has cables running to it with separate motors.
While something bound for space needs tons of testing, loads of refinement, and to be the absolute minimum weight possible, the worst that could happen with this in your garage is... what? It can't find the socket so it beeps angrily at you until you move the car closer.
So, it might be partway through it's development cycle for Space X, but good enough right now for use here on earth.
I'm guessing it's because the charging cable is fairly thick, making bending it arbitrarily fairly difficult. This design will make sure that the cable isn't too strained while integrating it as one piece.
You can definitely solve the problem using a traditional arm though -- so maybe it's just for the cool factor for now.
The weight of the battery needed to charge a Tesla at anything like a 'fast' rate would be huge ... there's no efficient way of then propelling such a heavy battery along without then needing even more heavy batteries or a big ICE engine. So nope.
I think this is meant to complement the (as yet unreleased) Tesla can-park-itself-in-your-garage feature.
I bet there could be creative situations where it could work. Imagine a rig that joins to an electric overhead line (like a light rail). The rig could move at the speed limit around the ring-loop of a city's interstate. Cars can pull alongside it to charge. If it had enough arms, and was narrow enough you could charge quite a few cars. If its then charging from the grid it needn't actually be propelling a battery at all.
Or in a situation where moving the battery already happens. Maybe where a whole fleet of trucks have purchased into a booster pack scheme. The booster packs fall on and off at various cities along a long route. Kind of like jettisoning a space shuttle's boosters. On either side of the city you have 50 packs charging. Radio that you need more juice and as you hit the city limits a booster latches on, you trail it through the city charging your main pack back up, and drop it off on the other side of the city where it charges and waits for someone going the other way. The truck never stops, it just keeps going and gets 'boosted' by a self-driving battery trailer every time it's within 100 miles of a city.
Or, cars become a shared resource and you just call up basically a driverless Uber when you need it. That's the future I want to see in e.g. areas where mass-transit is blocked politically (e.g. BART from SF to SJ) or where the population density is such where it doesn't make sense.
Imagine your robo-tentacle in drab safety black-and-yellow, have a hundred of them waving in the dark waiting for their JohnnyCabs to come in for a charge between fares...
In stunt mode you could just gang several Model S batteries together (which would fit in the back of a pickup). I guess the idea isn't very practical though.
They should have made the charge port in the back center of the car. Then while driving along a charging vehicle with a snake on the front would drive up behind and charge you up! Now that I would pay to see. You could even make it a detachable accessory on all electric cars so any car could give any other car a mid-flight boost. The future is bright and potentially very funny.
A battery swap while on the move might be more efficient/faster then a charge on the move. (But it would be nice if the next-gen solar panels installed on a car would be efficient enough to provide enough power for a car drive)
(But it would be nice if the next-gen solar panels
installed on a car would be efficient enough to provide
enough power for a car drive)
You only get about 1.5KW of light per square metre, on average. A car has maybe 4-8 square metres of usable solar panel space, so guess you could get 3-6KW of power using superexpensive cutting-edge 3-junction solar panels that manage 50% efficiency.
Model S has a 310KW motor. Assume you only run it at 10% of rated power when cruising, and that's 31KW of power draw. More than that, of course, since the motor controller won't be perfectly efficient.
No way you can run a consumer vehicle on solar panels built into the body.
It can work as a range extender, though, especially if factoring in charging while you stop for a bite to eat, shop, visit the office, etc. In addition, if you're an occasional driver, it can be charged and ready to go if you simply park it in a sunny spot.
I've long been disappointed that, even as far as we've come, most robots or moving computer-controlled things have been a box with something going round on it (car, washing machine etc.) or sometimes back and forth along a straight line. This therefore pleases me greatly.
There are days when HN really begs itself to turn into (the worse parts of) Reddit... Seriously though, the gif, video and various comments invoke a mix of various weird feelings in me, most of them not positive.
Can you imagine how pets are going to react to this?
A real-world use-case involves this in a garage, and you pull into the garage (or tell the car to) and it parks and then this snake starts its dance and finds the chargeport and connects and starts charging... and your dog goes completely ape-shit. And barks and shrieks and jumps and snaps its teeth and gets a nice vise-grip with the snake in its jaws and next thing you know, just like in cartoons, you suddenly see a black silhouette of the dog and inside the silhouette the white skeleton bones of said dog flashing brightly as it electrocutes itself at 80 amps and 240 volts. Tesla 1, Dog 0.
I doubt that any current is being passed through that snake until it has made a connection with the car. Then once it is charging it will be protected with an RCD, so your dog might live.
Not strictly on-topic or generally interesting, but for any of us who've read Neal Stephenson's new novel 'Seveneves', this reveal has a thin extra layer of interestingness:
In that book, a character who is an obvious analogue for Elon Musk sponsors the development of a variety of asteroid mining robots, including a type that superficially resembles this thing. 'Siwis' are, unlike this real thing, modular, semi-autonomous, self-propelling, and meant for operating in zero-gravity.
But still... snake robot sponsored by Elon Musk, out of nowhere.
Somehow this feels like an overcomplicated / expensive solution given that they control both the car and the charger. How much would it cost to install a robosnake in my garage.
Could they put a charging port on the back of the car that you back onto something? Or something on the floor that you drive over? There has to be a cheaper solution. If a Roomba can do it we must be able to.
I mean, that wouldn't be backwards compatible with existing teslas but I wouldn't think the installed base would be so high that that is a big issue yet.
Tesla's #1 goal seems to be "show people fun" then "be practical" is a few more numbers down the list of how to promote the brand. (Though, we all agree that "in seconds battery swap" was a scam, right? They just did it to meet regulatory guidelines temporarily by playing an on-stage magic trick.)
Tesla is like if Apple showed all their designs as they are developed (then 95% trashed) instead of waiting 3 years to show only magic finished products.
that wouldn't be backwards compatible
The MO of Tesla so far has been "BACKPORT ALL THE THINGS!" They don't seem to be fans of creating new-model-only features when they can engineer even a complicated solution for all existing models.
This probably isn't meant to be installed in your home. Additionally I think Tesla's philosophy has been to popularize electric cars first and foremost, regardless of whether it's their own cars, so designing proprietary stuff won't help.
Elon Musk in general seems to go for "inspire other people to make shit, even if I personally go down in flames in the end". Of course, that doesn't mean he takes unnecessary risks, he just values doing inspiring/world-changing things more than doing profitable things in the long term.
(Also this would probably be great for self-driving electric cars)
I think tesla would be very happy for other companies to be making electric cars and using tesla for batteries and other components. Really I think this is the long game, to goad other companies into making electric cars and then to be the control the primary means of powering / recharging them.
As a native Michigander I continue to be amazed at how Tesla is able to out innovate Detroit. After 100+ years of gasoline powered automobiles where is the gas robo snake?
Thanks, but note that it wasn't created by a member of the Big 3 ;<(. I cannot wait to be able to order fuel Uber-like on my phone and have it fill the tank. Detroit needs this now as it would practically eliminate car jacking.
..which is odd, because the hacking stories are suggesting "everybody gets hacked", and Tesla are the only ones with the capability to do an OTA security fix (which they have done).
Why isn't it a bottom/base charging devise? I imaging placing a plug at the bottom of the car (perhaps at the back or front of the battery pack) isn't difficult.
This is what I think they may secretly be working on for instant charging. Like you stop by a Tesla Super Duper station, and the battery in part or as a whole is just hot swapped with robotics and you're on your way in say 5 minutes
It's no secret – they've promised and demoed that capability for a while – but the rollout has been slow, and may be primarily motivated by gaming the tax-credits available if the Model S has a 'fast-fueling' option. See for example:
Why not put that thing into the car? It would take both space and weight (i.e impact range and performance) but then we could install outlets anywhere. The car (fleet) owner would be responsible for everything, including maintenance and replacements.
Maybe there's a reason why cables are part of the appliances instead of the outlets? Also, car owners would certainly prefer a snake that works everywhere and not just at home.
Really? Is the need to get out and hook up the hose yourself really what's holding back electric cars?
There is certainly a cool factor with this thing, but think about how it will work at a real fuel/charging station. The driver will only ever see it in a mirror. And it looks like the range of motion is very limited, requiring the plug to be within a 30x30cm box. A later model will probably have a greater range of motion but I cannot see that be any less cumbersome. Give me a wire and a plug.
But maybe Tesla has done some market research. Maybe their target market is old people for whom getting out of the car is a real struggle. Maybe they fear large electrical cables more than rubber ones filled with gasoline. Or maybe they so distrust attendants that they prefer a mechanical octopus fuel their precious car ... until it misses the mark and does some actual damage to the paint.
While most if not all "concept technology" has its roots in the "we can do it, even if we don't know why we should" school of thought, I imagine this will be valuable for self driving cars. Imagine a car that can drop you off at work, drive itself to the closest robo-charger, and return to pick you up with a full charge, all without needing an attendant.
Given the current limited range of EVs, tech like this will likely encourage behavioral change in EV owners, reducing one of the negatives of EVs (forgetting to charge/not having enough charge to make it to your destination/having to remember to plug in every night), and ultimately spurring wider adoption.
Then again, sometimes you have to say "I wonder if we could..." before you fully understand why in order to advance technology.
That's how we end up with inflatable bbqs. This really looks like a rich person's toy, of no practical use.
Many people have talked over the years about self-driving cars dropping people off and heading home. That sounds great in terms of the number of parking spots, and might make sense in cities where parking costs more than rent, but I cannot see how doubling the number of trips can reduce traffic congestion. The far simpler solution would be to install simple (ie cheap) chargers at each parking spot.
Many people have talked over the years about self-driving cars dropping people off and heading home.
Have they? I've just seen references to cars finding nearby charging stations, not just driving themselves all the way home.
Either way, I think the more likely prospect is that people stop outright owning cars at that point. Why invest in a complete vehicle when you can just pay for a service that has a car pick you up whenever you need a ride?
For the same reason some people invest in a whole kitchen, despite the fact that they can pay for a service that has food show up in front of them whenever they're hungry.
Some people like to own their own things.
Some people like to do things themselves.
There will always be locations where there is not enough population density to ensure wait times will be <5 minutes for a ride at all times.
There's no reason to expect that self-driving cars will instantly dominate the market once we get to some sort of tipping point. Certainly they will allow for new paradigms in transportation, and they will shift "manual"[0] cars into a less dominant position in the market. Keep in mind that not everyone shares your preferences.
[0] It is interesting that we already have manual and automatic cars. How will we readily distinguish these? Additionally, I'd imagine that there is a large venn diagram overlap between drivers who prefer stick shift and who will prefer to drive their own vehicle.
Don't ignore developing markets. The USA has plenty of roads to waste, but Beijing and Bangalore don't. You'll see self driving cars be first mandated in cities with serious infrastructure problems as a way to completely optimize traffic (e.g. No manual cars on the express ways). Then local western governments will see a chance to cut their own budgets, as an easy way to satisfy the anti-tax attitudes of those people who ironically would prefer to drive their own cars.
I think your post goes to support my point that there is great diversity in markets, and we can't expect a single individual's experience or preference to accurately represent such.
> the anti-tax attitudes of those people who ironically would prefer to drive their own cars.
I am curious as to why you think that there would be such a large crossover between those who would prefer to have a "manual" car, and those who have anti-tax attitudes?
Because self-driving cars are socialist to an extreme. The real benefit of them is not to free the human of the tedious task of driving, but to take the human out of the traffic system so it can be optimized for the greater good. The same could be said about taxes: they sacrifice individual wealth for the greater good.
There will necessarily be a lot of resistance to self driving cars...people like driving! But they are quite inevitable, not necause people will "prefer" them but for totally societal economic reasons. And that is why your argument doesn't make sense to me, it's as if we will have any choice about it, when the current system is so messed up and under funded that it's obvious we won't.
There's no reason to expect "enjoys the experience of driving" and "is opposed to taxation" are descriptions of an individual that must be found exclusively together. That's the issue I take with your original statement.
I also see no reason to expect that it is inevitable that self-driving cars become mandatory globally, but that is a different point entirely and not one I'm interested in pursuing right now.
Taxation is the redistribution of wealth to benefit society as a whole. Self-driving cars is about taking away the task of driving from humans, which is really a privilege, for the benefit of infrastructure optimization. If you believe in retaining personal wealth, you probably believe in retaining your driving privileges as well.
> I also see no reason to expect that it is inevitable that self-driving cars become mandatory globally, but that is a different point entirely and not one I'm interested in pursuing right now.
Your premise is just completely flawed: you see self-driving cars as providing the benefit of freeing humans from the tedium of driving themselves, when in reality they are more about optimizing limited infrastructure. The former is a "nice to have but not necessary" benefit, the latter basically drastically reduces the amount of resources needed to maintain a city, it is a serious economic benefit that will be very hard to ignore. Of course, your city could allow for manual driving, but at great cost in needing more roads and such, it would be a serious tax burden on your residents (and rich countries can afford it now, but will they be able to afford it as populations double, triple, and space becomes much more limited?).
So your premise is flawed, you are attacking the wrong thing.
A common argument against EVs I've heard repeated is "Sometimes I forget to plug in my cell-phone, and it dies mid-day. What happens if I forget to plug in my car?"
This will address that concern, as silly as it is.
So it will seek out and plug in without driver input? I guess that would only work if they are in everyone's garage. Isn't there a smartphone ap that can remind owners if they part at home without connecting?
It's difficult to know the target space needed for this rev of the device. Also, it's probably less than 30cm vertically - I'm quite sure some engineers at Tesla know the height of the charge port, even given the differences with the air suspension.
I'm picturing an interview with Elon Musk next week.
Interviewer: So what's next for you?
Musk: Well, I've been reading a lot about the teledildonics industry, and I think there's some real opportunities for synergy with some of the technologies we've been developing for Tesla. Especially in the Japanese hentai markets...
That's OK for overnight charging, if you don't mind paying a little extra for the electricity due to losses. But for fast charging, those losses translate into massive waste heat. A Tesla supercharger, for example, tops out at 120kW of power. If the inductive charger is 90% efficient (which I think is a realistic number) then that's 12kW of heat to dissipate. That's a lot. The car itself has similar losses when charging, and has a hefty cooling system to keep up with it, and it's going into a massive battery. Cooling a small inductive charging pad could get interesting.
Interesting idea. Before Shai Agassi's electric car company (Better Place) folded there was talk of a similar motorized arm [0]. I don't know whether that ever got past the discussion stage at BP, and they're out of business in any event.
For whatever reason this immediately made me think of NJ's laws requiring an attendant to fill up your gas tank. Does the law apply to electric charging stations currently?
If it does, I wonder what this innovation might mean to that law.
I wouldn’t mind these in Oregon when I fill up for gas (where the gas attendants have to pump your gas for you). Way less awkward as long as I stay in the car.
Do they really intend to release this, or is it just an experiment? Because there's no way that thing is going to save enough time to be worth the cost.
The advantage isn't the time saved, it's that you can erase the need to charge your car from your mind. You just don't need to think about it any more.
Also, the flexibility of the thing hints to me that it will be used for charging more than just cars in the future.
I don't have a Tesla. But if I did, and I had to remember to get out, walk around to the back and plug it in every time I got home, I would probably want one of these in my garage!
Given average driving habits, the range of the Model S and the charging speed of the Model S, the back of my napkin suggests you'd only really need to plug it in once or twice a week. So forgetting occasionally doesn't sound like a huge bummer.
I wonder what fail safes it has to manage someone driving off with the arm attached. Like the terminator hanging from the side of the car swinging around like crazy. Can't wait ro see it in action. I know Shell petroleum worked on a similar system for gasoline cars around the year 2000. It was deemed too risky to use.
I'm just saying, in a world where self-driving cars go rouge, we're gonna want to deny them access to charging stations, and the charging snakes make it just that much harder.
I invested a little into Tesla stock just because I like the company. Its been funny to me that pretty much any news, good or bad, makes the stock fall.
New prototype robotic charging arm? stock down ~8%
There was quite a lot of other Tesla-related news today. The company announced that they're struggling to ramp up production for the Model X and, totally unrelated, the Model S got hacked.
I think it's awesome. But, it obvious that the current implementation will inspire the creeps in lots of people. Sci-fi horror has put an unfortunate bad rap on robotic tentacles and chromed vertebrae.