Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
“Something I’d like to do, which I think many of our engineers will be hearing this in real-time, is have the charge connector plug itself in. Like an articulating, like sort of a snake, like Metal Gear Solid or something.”
Realistically though, why not just have some sort of hard-arm extend? why the flexibility of a snake? with a little bit of OCR and an arm that can extend in length and rotate on an axis, it seems like you could get pretty close
They could have the driver pull up into a generalized box/circle, and move the car forward automatically (polling with a laser (or OCR on the side of the charger) until it was in the perfect spot to be reachable.
If cars can parallel park themselves, I think they can manage pulling up a given amount of feet.
Also a little rotation on the car-facing end of the charger would help.
I believe the idea here is that this robotic snake idea should have zero impact on the user, and zero impact on installation, it should be a swap out replacement for the current charger. The only difference being that the user no longer has to plug it in manually. It may be a complex engineering problem but it's a simple, elegant design solution.
And it's not that hard to make it easy for people to line up - modern docks use a sort of fuzzy connector that doesn't need to lock in perfectly, just as long as you are within a certain range.
The roomba is the best example that I can think of for this - I can pretty much set my roomba down anywhere roughly on the dock, and it will start charging. I could definitely park my car with the same accuracy.
The EV industry is just emerging and in huge flux. Charging the cars from the floor would make much more sense, especially if we're going to charge them even without cables, wirelessly, in the future (and yes, once again breaking the several year old "standard" in the name of progress).
...plus you'd have to dig up your garage floor or at least put some sort of bolts into it to hold the thing in place. No, a roving tentacle works much better, and I can't believe I wrote that either.
Pretty neat to watch: http://youtu.be/_gU6TWGynkU?t=28s
Something that helps to make this seem less 'high-tech' is to imagine not a flexible cable or hose that articulates, but rather a large series of rigid connectors between articulation joints. CMU has a biorobotics lab that is particularly fond of snake bots (http://biorobotics.ri.cmu.edu/projects/modsnake/).
Boy, do the Holiday gifts keep coming. While this won't necessarily solve a ton of problems, it will definitely be interesting to see what he can come up with. This would be super cool to see in action.
It also seems like this sort of thing would be making the business less focused as an electric car company.
So if anything, it should be a cable that emerges from the car to plug into an appropriate power socket, not the other way around.
(You can't rule it out, can you? Heh.)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129534.900-wireless-...
Won't be too long before you can do all three of those with one USB-C cable.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8518/hands-on-with-usb-type-c-...
It's called a laptop Base station / Docking station. There on a fairly wide range of buissness laptops sadly that's one of the ports that Apple does not seem to support.
I don't think it's any sort of standard - the ones I've seen look specific to individual laptop models - and there are docks for Apple. http://hengedocks.com/
Is this truly a convenience?
Yes, and stop sleeping at your desk. :)
You still need to correctly park your car close to the device which is much like connecting a laptop to a docking station. The advantage is simply avoiding dealing with cords and other fiddly bits.
Now connect this with a self driving car and that would be similar to being able to leave your laptop in your bag when you get home.
How hard is it to get out of the car and plug in the charge cord?
Then there's the question of simple alternatives to a highly complex and potentially dangerous robotic solution. Think children in the garage.
Without thinking too hard the first thing that comes to mind is something like the contact rods that electric trams use. These could come out of the top or bottom of the car and make contact with suitably designed safe power delivery system.
Another option would be something like the jacks used to lift Formula 1 cars during pit stops.
Yet another would be a "docking station" you literally drive into, with contacts that connect through the front of the car. With self-driving Teslas this could be symbiotic.
Finally, something like the rig used to refuel jets in flight (probably too complex but I thought I throw it on the table).
I could also see something like a one meter diameter coil assembly that normally lays flat on the ground. When the car parks on top of it the motorized assembly comes up and couples with a matching coil on the bottom of the car for power transfer without exposed high voltage connectors.
In the end I go back to: how hard is it to plug in a cord? Have we gotten that lazy?
For the average person? Not very.
For the self-driving Teslas of the future? Pretty hard. Same thing for disabled folks who might appreciate not having an additional step in getting out of the car.
Care to explain that? How does a self-driving car make getting out of the car and plugging in a cord "pretty hard".
OK. I'll play your game.
Charging depot:
Docking station that the car aligns with and drives up against or onto. Contacts come up, down, in out of either the car or the docking station.
It can be as simple as a very inexpensive device on the ground and a compliant wall (to allow for accidents) with alignment markers (high contrast cross, circle, whatever).
One might even be able to design it so that it is a drive through docking station with the car stopping in the middle during the charging process.
Or, how about the famed battery swap system.
Nearby charging station? Well, if cars have 300+ mile range and you charge at home there should be zero need for locating charging stations all over a city. And yet, it can be as simple as a cord in a parking lot at work. No robotics needed.
Return home:
Put simply. I, and I would guess this is true for most people, have exactly zero interest in my auto-drive car returning home, opening the garage and driving in to charge. Why? Well, more than one reason. Let's just say that bedroom communities would be prime for burglaries. All you have to do is wait for auto cars to let you in.
In both cases the whole idea of having your car drop you off and then go back home or to a distant charging station is simply ridiculous. I'll only mention two issues with this, but there are more.
First, you just doubled traffic and congestion. If every car is a self-driver and they all return home, you now created a mess of traffic as every car now has somewhere else to go rather than just being parked for the work day.
You don't have kids, do you? There is no way in the universe that I would leave my kids inside my self-driving car to be delivered to school. That, on the face of it, is also a ridiculous idea. It would be beyond irresponsible to leave kids in a car driving around town given that, well, shit happens.
Second, you are wasting HUGE amounts of energy driving cars around that simply do not need to drive around. The average commuter in the US travels 25 minutes to work. About 1.7 million travel 90 minutes or more each way. About 2.2 million travel 50 miles or more. You are talking about having self-driving cars effectively drive 50 miles to deliver a person, 50 miles back to park and charge, then 50 miles to go pick them up after work and 50 miles to return them home. In other words, you turned a 100 mile round trip into a 200 mile insanely and utterly pointless trip.
Seriously, please, try to reason a bit. If you are in the Tesla cargo cult club, fine, you win. You are right. A complex robot is the only sensible way to charge an electric car. On the other hand, if you are not a Tesla fan boy. THINK. A technologically simple docking station is BY A HUGE MARGIN a far more sensible idea. Please don't try to invent ridiculous scenarios to support an equally ridiculous idea. Sometimes ideas are bad. Nothing wrong with that.
You don't have to agree with me. Just give it 10 or 20 years and you'll see which approach succeeds in the market. Or none of them. After all, my initial point in this sub-thread is still valid: What the heck is wrong with a simple charge cord? Nothing.
Contacts like the ones on the end of Musk's proposed robot arm, perhaps.
> Put simply. I, and I would guess this is true for most people, have exactly zero interest in my auto-drive car returning home, opening the garage and driving in to charge. Why? Well, more than one reason. Let's just say that bedroom communities would be prime for burglaries. All you have to do is wait for auto cars to let you in.
> First, you just doubled traffic and congestion. If every car is a self-driver and they all return home, you now created a mess of traffic as every car now has somewhere else to go rather than just being parked for the work day.
Frankly, I expect self-driving cars to change the model of car ownership for a lot of people. I hate owning a car. An Uber-style "I need a ride" solution would be much better for how I use cars, and self-driving + self-charging makes that possible.
> You don't have kids, do you? There is no way in the universe that I would leave my kids inside my self-driving car to be delivered to school. That, on the face of it, is also a ridiculous idea. It would be beyond irresponsible to leave kids in a car driving around town given that, well, shit happens.
I've got two five year olds, and I'd be fine with that. I don't see it as significantly different to a school bus, and kids in NYC walk or ride the subway around on their own all the time.
This is where, again, the humble charge cord wins again: It is far easier to agree on a common connector than to design a docking system that will work with all cars for the next 50 years. In many ways this is not unlike all cars using a refueling port that is compatible with the nozzles at all gas stations.
With a common charge cord and connector design one could imagine a future where malls intall charge stations in a selected number of charging parking spots, even as profit centers. Companies could provide similar benefits to their employees either for free or paid.
Thinking through this argument makes me conclude that electric cars might not truly mature until charging mechanisms are standardize to the extent that they are compatible with any electric car or truck produced.
Tesla can do whatever they want, of course, yet the fact remains that if I buy a BMW and my wife a Tesla we will have two completely different charging systems to contend with rather than one. This, I think, will be an important consideration as the electric car evolves.
Oh, and I'm still hoping you'll post a citation for the $30,000 price for Tesla's snake.
As for the $30K price point for a robotic snake charger. Well, let's just say I have designed and manufactured enough hardware during my career to have an idea. It sure as hell won't be $3,000.
Here's an interesting interview:
http://articles.sae.org/11923/
Here's the SAE J1772 standard on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772
The Tesla adapter:
http://shop.teslamotors.com/products/sae-j1772
An article bitching about the whole thing:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2013/02/26/tesla-te...
This is a legitimate question. This robotic snake problem is solving a problem that does not exist.
And, please, don't invoke the handicapped card as someone already did. They manage just fine today. Anyone, handicapped or not, who qualifies to drive a car can handle plugging a cord into a socket. A 7 year old kid can do it.
So why throw a $30,000+ robot at a non-existing problem. I'll tell you why:
Musk understands marketing. With oil prices so low and nothing significant coming out of Tesla they all but evaporated from public view. There is/was no news to be had about Tesla. The SUV is tanking. That's a non-story. So, how do we get people talking about Tesla again. We put out outrageous-yet-brilliant-sounding futuristic ideas that are easy to consume by the average Joe and blog writers can parrot liberally. Musk/Tesla sound like geniuses and the general public doesn't even take a millisecond to apply critical thinking to what they just read.
The ONLY way a complex robotic auto-charge system might have a tenuous level of applicability is in the context of self driving cars AND "driven" by people so extremely handicapped that they would not be allowed to drive a car today. In other words, paraplegic, severe Parkinsons or other ailments.
That scenario is decades away. And, even then, a simple drive-on docking station would be far cheaper, reliable and easier to install than some kind of a robotic snake rig.
I love technology as much as anyone on HN and i have been involved in industrial and educational robotics my entire adult life. Yet, I have to be honest with myself and not treat everything like a nail just because I have a hammer.
So Tesla will sell you a $30,000 robotic snake for your $80,000 car while Toyota will probably sell you a $3,000 floor-mounted docking station for their $30,000 car. And so will all other manufacturers. Because it makes sense.
edit: I mean that it would be interesting to see this technology getting used for creative purposes. I hope Tesla will be permissive in people adapting their technology and not - if it is real - put it behind a massive patent and licensing wall before anyone can put their hands on it.
I love my tesla. It's incredible. Best car I've ever owned. I've owned... 20 cars? But it has to be charged daily or it's a liability.