Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of Tesla’s Robovan on Thursday night time through the firm’s We, Robotic occasion in Los Angeles. The Robovan will likely be an electrical, autonomous car roughly the dimensions of a bus, designed for transporting folks round excessive density areas. It’ll carry as much as 20 folks at a time and likewise transport items, in accordance with Musk.
“We’re going to make this, and it’s going to look like that,” stated Musk on Thursday night time because the Robovan rolled in direction of heart stage. That’s about as a lot as Musk was keen to say, and we’re not even certain that a lot is true.
Musk didn’t point out how a lot the Robovan would value, how Tesla would produce it, or when it’s going to come out. Nonetheless, it does look fairly cool.
The Robovan has a retro-futuristic look – someplace between a bus from The Jetsons and a toaster from the Fifties. It options silver metallic sides with black particulars, and strips of sunshine working parallel to the bottom alongside its sides, with doorways that slide out from the center. Inside, there are seats and room to face, with tinted home windows all through. There isn’t a steering wheel, because it’s autonomous.
“One of the things we want to do – and we’ve done this with the Cybertruck – is we want to change the look of the roads,” stated Musk. “The future should look like the future,” he stated, repeating an outdated line.
It seems to be just like different purpose-built robotaxis, like these designed by Zoox and Cruise. Solely Tesla’s van is far greater. In China, WeRide has constructed the same Robobus.
That stated, the Robovan confirmed on Thursday is just a prototype. Regardless of what Musk says, there’s no telling what the actual factor will seem like or when it’s going to really come out.
Tesla had saved the design of the automobiles it launched on Thursday fairly near the chest. The one actual trace we had was from Tesla’s 2023 Investor Day, when the automaker teased a few new automobiles that seemed to be designed for quantity manufacturing: One smaller car that seems now to be the Cybercab, and a bigger one which we will now say is probably going the Robovan.
The said purpose on the time was to supply 20 million automobiles per yr by 2030. That will imply that Tesla wants to extend manufacturing and gross sales by about 15 occasions from 2022.
Throughout Thursday’s occasion, Musk didn’t define any plans for constructing new manufacturing amenities or retooling present amenities to accommodate both the Cybercab or the Robovan. He additionally didn’t present a lot in the way in which of timelines for the Robovan, although he predicted the Cybercab would begin manufacturing in 2026 or 2027.
